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I don't think the EU intentionally wants to give Britain a bad deal just to make an example of it. It's absolutely sufficient that the EU has not the least bit

I don't think the EU intentionally wants to give Britain a bad deal just to make an example of it. It's absolutely sufficient that the EU has not the least bit of an incentive to give Britain a better deal than remaining in the EU. A lot of the benefits are membership benefits. Britain wants out, so it will loose those benefits - among them passporting, which is probably the worst hit for Britains economy. There's no conceivable reason the EU would want financial products on its market that it doesn't have any regulatory power over. Couple that with the fact that Britain now needs to negotiate a deal where every member has diverging interests and everybody basically has a veto: France and Germany want the British financial sector, Poland wants free travel and work permits for all the polish expats in the UK, Ireland wants to keep the intra-irish border open. Norther Ireland wants free travel for its citizens to the Republic. Spain probably wants to retain tourism from the UK. All states with a coastal line to the Atlantic and Northern sea will squabble over fishing rights... Couple that with a British vote that runs contrary to open borders, lacking numbers of negotiation staff on the British side and no discernible goal of what should be negotiated. On top a British foreign minster that made a living as journalist bashing the EU. All of that on a timeline of 2 years and a hard deadline that needs an unanimous vote to extend. Edit: Oh, and upcoming elections in Germany and France. /Edit I can't see that ending well for the UK. It's likely that the EU will suffer as well as the consequence, but on the other hand the British were always dragging their heels somewhat. I consider it sad from a balance perspective: Britain could have been a good counterweight for Germany and France in the EU if they actually tried to shape it instead of making a half-assed show of being in, but not.

Silhouette 10y ago
It's absolutely sufficient that the EU has not the least bit of an incentive to give Britain a better deal than remaining in the EU. The negotiating difficulty for the EU is that it's only in control of part of the real deal for the UK. One other big part is how well the UK can develop its relationships with the rest of the world if it's no longer constrained by things like the customs union. A third part, perhaps more easily overlooked, is how well the UK can develop its internal economy without the constraints of EU regulations. Right now, EU regulations affect not just goods and services exported to the EU, and not even just goods and services exported at all, but also a lot of things that are bought and sold within the UK itself. These other factors mean that for almost any area of importance in the coming negotiations, there will be some limit beyond which the UK is better off taking its ball and going home, and then playing with the rest of the world instead of the EU tomorrow, purely on economic grounds. Of course, it's going to be extremely difficult for either the EU or the UK to work out exactly where those limits are, which is surely going to be a fundamental difficulty in those coming negotiations.

Silhouette 10y ago

It's absolutely sufficient that the EU has not the least bit of an incentive to give Britain a better deal than remaining in the EU. The negotiating difficulty for the EU is that it's only in control of part of the real deal for the UK. One other big part is how well the UK can develop its relationships with the rest of the world if it's no longer constrained by things like the customs union. A third part, perhaps more easily overlooked, is how well the UK can develop its internal economy without the constraints of EU regulations. Right now, EU regulations affect not just goods and services exported to the EU, and not even just goods and services exported at all, but also a lot of things that are bought and sold within the UK itself. These other factors mean that for almost any area of importance in the coming negotiations, there will be some limit beyond which the UK is better off taking its ball and going home, and then playing with the rest of the world instead of the EU tomorrow, purely on economic grounds. Of course, it's going to be extremely difficult for either the EU or the UK to work out exactly where those limits are, which is surely going to be a fundamental difficulty in those coming negotiations.