7 ms·

The EU is beginning to believe the UK wants Brexit trade talks to fail

30 points by lawrenceyan 6y ago

krona 6y ago
The current settlement is unstable and the uncertainty it causes will ultimately (given enough time) cause more damage than a 'no deal' outcome. Therefore while knowledgeable people can disagree about timing, it nonetheless means that worst-case scenario for the UK is not the one the EU wants it to be.
akerro 6y ago
Everyone observing the topic knew this 2 years ago, but that's first time someone important said it out loud.
- Izkata 6y ago
  Yeah, I'm in the US and only have relatively vague knowledge from some youtubers, and my response to this title was along the lines of "well, duh". From what I remember the terms set by the EU would've put the UK in a worse position than what caused Brexit in the first place, making people steadily lean more and more towards a "just get it over with, no-deal Brexit".
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    > From what I remember the terms set by the EU would've put the UK in a worse position than what caused Brexit in the first place They don't have to be better than what caused the Brexit, they have to be better than a no-deal Brexit. Why would they expect to get better treatment by leaving than by staying?
    - Izkata 6y ago
      Like I said it's vague (and as OP said, from a year or two ago), but I think it included restrictions on non-EU trade that were worse than no-deal.
      - thu2111 6y ago
        You're correct. So far every proposal by the EU is actually worse than just cancelling it and staying a member. The EU's position can be boiled down like this: if you're geographically in or close to Europe, you must submit to total control by the EU Commission and its courts or be frozen out of all intra-European collaboration completely. Any attempt at compromise just results in them starting to talk about cherries and cakes. It's been like that for years. This is a problem because the EU is not a democratic body. There's a "parliament" but its members can't actually change EU law, and at any rate, a single parliament for all of Europe works about as well as you'd expect. For them to issue ultimatums to European populations of the form "submit entirely or we'll force other Europeans to shun you" is totalitarian and should be raising massive alarm bells around the world. UK today, but it could be your country tomorrow.
  - Someone 6y ago
    I think “terms set by the EU” is framing. One could also call it “terms negotiated between the EU and the UK”, and I think that’s closer to the truth. The UK’s position “we want to keep free trade, but don’t want to abide to the rules that go with it, and there definitely can’t be a border between the UK and Ireland in Northern Ireland, but there must be one between Europe and the UK” won elections at home, but they never could have expected the EU to accept them.
    - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
      There's some weird delusory arrogance amongst BoJo and some large chunk of conservatives (and some chunk of the electorate) that we're still special and a world power. We're not, haven't been for a while. Being british is not the magic incantation it once was. People need to grow up. - a brit.
    - thu2111 6y ago
      It's the opposite. The EU doesn't negotiate. That's why the talks have gone nowhere. It's actually the EU that wants talks to fail, as made obvious by the recent switcheroo over a Canada-style deal and their refusal to consider any technological approach to the NI border. At the start, Barnier's "negotiation" consisted of a series of demands of the form "after leaving, why don't you continue to obey us in all respects, except without any representation and oh, keep paying us lots of money: the only alternative is a Canada style free trade deal". He proposed this knowing Theresa May felt a simple Canada style deal wasn't acceptable. BoJo replaced May and the first act after the leadership change was to go back to the EU and say - OK, we've thought about it and we'll take the Canada style deal. Guess what? Suddenly Barnier decided actually a Canada style deal wasn't on the table after all. This, after years of using it as an example of the loosest possible outcome. Now the EU invented a new rule, that this kind of loose trade deal is only available to countries geographically far away. Why? Because screw Brexit, that's why. There's literally no justification for this. As a Brit I've come to hold the EU in absolute contempt. It isn't interested in any kind of reasonable post-Brexit relationship. It's gambling everything on an attempt to crush British independence completely. At this point the EU's position is simply: stay in the EU or we won't work together on anything, anywhere at all. That's unacceptable. Time to go.
  - evgen 6y ago
    Interesting that you seem to have come to a conclusion that is basically the opposite of reality. The UK wants to have its cake (benefits of trade and travel ties) and eat it too (none of those dirty foreigners, except when we need them to staff the NHS during a pandemic and then only with gritted teeth.) The Tory government is much like the Trump administration in that they have roped themselves to an angry, bitter rump to achieve power and can't quite figure out how to extricate themselves without humiliation. There is no exit that puts the UK in a better position because it imagines itself to have power and influence that it does not possess. Personally, I am now resigned to looking forward to no-deal Brexit so that the midlands, coastal fishing villages that should have ceased to exist decades ago, and rural counties can get the royal economic fucking they deserve. Boris somehow thinks that by sucking up to Trump he is going to get some magic trade deal to save himself, but any deal needs to get through the US House and they are not even going to bother putting it on the calendar. Nothing will happen until the start of the Biden administration and since they will be focused on domestic issues and repairing frayed foreign ties in this first 100 days you are looking at nothing for at least a year. The UK is so hosed it is almost funny, but at least it will drive down London property prices...
    - noir-york 6y ago
      > Interesting that you seem to have come to a conclusion that is basically the opposite of reality. The UK wants to have its cake (benefits of trade and travel ties) and eat it too It is standard negotiating OP by both sides. Just take a look at the Troika / Greece negotiations: breakthroughs come at the very last minute. Extending the transition period merely lengthens the phoney negotiations. > There is no exit that puts the UK in a better position because it imagines itself to have power and influence that it does not possess. Viewed through an economic lens, Brexit will do damadge, certainly in the short term. Medium to long term depends on whether the Tories learn drop austerity and to love Keynes . It seems Sunak does, going by short record so far. Viewed through a political / sovereignty lens the argument for Brexit is on a stronger footing.
      - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
        > and to love Keynes Debts get repaid, one way (with repayment) or another (welshing and never being trusted again)
pmontra 6y ago
As EU citizen I'm not worried about this. First, the UK is smaller than the EU so the burden of a no deal is larger for them than for us. Second and by far more important, there are plenty of countries outside the EU and we trade with all of them. We'll keep trading with the UK too. My only wish was that they left at least one year earlier (when they should have). We would have already settled many issues by now.
makomk 6y ago
The EU has pretty good evidence for this - the UK won't even agree to any realistic terms, where "realistic" is defined as not only giving the EU everything they want now but also anything they might want in the future, making them the ones who unilaterally decide how the deal is interpreted, and giving them and only them the ability to punish the UK for perceived violations of the deal. I'm not sure this belongs on HN though. As you might gather, this is 100% politics in its purist form.
- draw_down 6y ago
  Sounds like those big meanies in the EU are negotiating and defending their interests. What a bunch of jerks.
- quonn 6y ago
  Do you have a source?
  - makomk 6y ago
    Probably not easily, since most of the mainstream press have been spinning whatever the EU demands as a normal, inevitable part of making a trade deal. You basically have to pay attention to what other trade deals are like, what's in the deal and isn't mentioned in the news coverage...
  - noir-york 6y ago
    Just take a look at the EU's fisheries position which is basically the status quo as if the UK had never left the EU. Which is crazy; either the UK has left the EU and so cannot enjoy the same market access as a member, and the EU correspondingly has reduced access to UK market, or else there is full access for both parties. Source: https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-uk-fishing-in-troubled-waters-in-brexit-talks/ https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-uk-fishing-in-troubled-wa...
    - evgen 6y ago
      The EU fisheries position is simply that the UK gets no special favours. The problem the UK faces is that the fish they catch are varieties that are mostly sold to European markets because UK consumers don't want them. Now they want the benefits of their own fisheries policy and to somehow magically get free access to the EU market to sell those fish they catch. Oh, and a large chunk of the fishing rights to those waters were sold by UK fishermen to EU fishermen several decades ago.
Traster 6y ago
There is no point discussing anything about the UK's brexit process until the deadline is either passed, or imminent, as has been shown time and time again. The transition agreement the UK is currently in was meant to be 21 months originally. The UK spent 10 months of that time deciding whether they actually agreed to have the 21 month transition.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Havoc 6y ago
"Beginning to"? I thought that was accepted fact at this stage. Super short arguably impossible deadline, little progress, then COVID happens and the UK insists keeping said deadline anyway? Meanwhile the UK home press is hitting their population with quality gems like: >EU civil war erupts: States furious as Barnier poised to surrender [0] Anyone expecting in-good-faith negotiations is in for a surprise. [0] https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1287373/Brexit-news-Michel-Barnier-UK-EU-trade-talks-fishing-rights-latest-update/amp https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1287373/Brexit-news-Michel...
louniks 6y ago
But why? From my very limited knowledge on this, it seems everyone is saying that a no-deal crash out will be bad economically. So is it just ideology (dare I say dogmatism) from the Johnson government at this point?
- noir-york 6y ago
  A mix of tactics and politics. While Brexit is bad economically, the political argument is different.
  - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
    eh? politics = economics, pretty much
    - noir-york 6y ago
      politics = economics, pretty much?! I'm afraid you are seriously mistaken. Just take court jurisdiction and supremacy of parliament. Politics is very much not economics, at least when it comes to Brexit.
      - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
        People vote with their wallet, right or wrong. As for "court jurisdiction and supremacy of parliament", given the way the government has abused its powers at times, I'd like a higher court than the UK one. BTW I did raise a question illegality by the UK government with the EU. Stuff started to get done. The UK government's standard brush-off to being challenged on something they don't want to answer to, is "it's not in the public interest". Which is bullshit. If the UK government wasn't so tossy and incompetent, I might be a lot more sympathetic to "court jurisdiction and supremacy of parliament"
- amouat 6y ago
  More or less. I don't think they even argue about the economics of it any more. As long as they can blame somebody else (the EU, remainers, the global situation) they will be happy. They want to mould the UK into their own vision and don't care how many people are disadvantaged in the process.
Krasnol 6y ago
UK knows it won't end well either way. But if the talks fail it'll be drastic enough to blame the EU for everything. Same people voted for Brexit will buy that too.
anewdirection 6y ago
When no-deal looks as appeling as the deals being offered, this was an eventuality. I think many knew this going in. I doubt, however, that this is purely due to foot-dragging by the current government, and more to do with some hard-won lack of trust on both sides of the negotiating table. Both the UK and the EU made some unfortunte moves, shady deals, and asinine assertions, in the brexit adventure that will likely poison the well for years to come. Until a compelling (military or financial) reason comes along, I expect the situation to mostly remain the same.
tialaramex 6y ago
The more interesting question is what the path from here to a united Ireland looks like. Under No Deal Brexit that's essentially assured as the outcome in the opinion of people I know who grew up on the island or lived much of their lives there. Change could be paused indefinitely while both parts of the island were anyway members of the EU but that can't last now. Is there a peaceful route? Or will the Troubles be reignited?
BrandoElFollito 6y ago
As a French this is infuriating. Brexit will have an impact on us and the UK. Fine. Now get out and the one who is most interested will be back with negotiations. I fully understand that there will be impacts. As of now it looks like two old persons who are making their live miserable, but in the name of some vague conventions do not want to divorce.
throwawaymanbot 6y ago
The UK is leaving the EU club, what does the UK expector think its entitled to get?? Full rights???? LOL.... you leave the gym you dont get to use the equipment anymore. Fairly simple.

30 points by lawrenceyan 6y ago

The current settlement is unstable and the uncertainty it causes will ultimately (given enough time) cause more damage than a 'no deal' outcome. Therefore while knowledgeable people can disagree about timing, it nonetheless means that worst-case scenario for the UK is not the one the EU wants it to be.

akerro 6y ago

Everyone observing the topic knew this 2 years ago, but that's first time someone important said it out loud.

Izkata 6y ago
Yeah, I'm in the US and only have relatively vague knowledge from some youtubers, and my response to this title was along the lines of "well, duh". From what I remember the terms set by the EU would've put the UK in a worse position than what caused Brexit in the first place, making people steadily lean more and more towards a "just get it over with, no-deal Brexit".
- StavrosK 6y ago
  > From what I remember the terms set by the EU would've put the UK in a worse position than what caused Brexit in the first place They don't have to be better than what caused the Brexit, they have to be better than a no-deal Brexit. Why would they expect to get better treatment by leaving than by staying?
  - Izkata 6y ago
    Like I said it's vague (and as OP said, from a year or two ago), but I think it included restrictions on non-EU trade that were worse than no-deal.
    - thu2111 6y ago
      You're correct. So far every proposal by the EU is actually worse than just cancelling it and staying a member. The EU's position can be boiled down like this: if you're geographically in or close to Europe, you must submit to total control by the EU Commission and its courts or be frozen out of all intra-European collaboration completely. Any attempt at compromise just results in them starting to talk about cherries and cakes. It's been like that for years. This is a problem because the EU is not a democratic body. There's a "parliament" but its members can't actually change EU law, and at any rate, a single parliament for all of Europe works about as well as you'd expect. For them to issue ultimatums to European populations of the form "submit entirely or we'll force other Europeans to shun you" is totalitarian and should be raising massive alarm bells around the world. UK today, but it could be your country tomorrow.
- Someone 6y ago
  I think “terms set by the EU” is framing. One could also call it “terms negotiated between the EU and the UK”, and I think that’s closer to the truth. The UK’s position “we want to keep free trade, but don’t want to abide to the rules that go with it, and there definitely can’t be a border between the UK and Ireland in Northern Ireland, but there must be one between Europe and the UK” won elections at home, but they never could have expected the EU to accept them.
  - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
    There's some weird delusory arrogance amongst BoJo and some large chunk of conservatives (and some chunk of the electorate) that we're still special and a world power. We're not, haven't been for a while. Being british is not the magic incantation it once was. People need to grow up. - a brit.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    It's the opposite. The EU doesn't negotiate. That's why the talks have gone nowhere. It's actually the EU that wants talks to fail, as made obvious by the recent switcheroo over a Canada-style deal and their refusal to consider any technological approach to the NI border. At the start, Barnier's "negotiation" consisted of a series of demands of the form "after leaving, why don't you continue to obey us in all respects, except without any representation and oh, keep paying us lots of money: the only alternative is a Canada style free trade deal". He proposed this knowing Theresa May felt a simple Canada style deal wasn't acceptable. BoJo replaced May and the first act after the leadership change was to go back to the EU and say - OK, we've thought about it and we'll take the Canada style deal. Guess what? Suddenly Barnier decided actually a Canada style deal wasn't on the table after all. This, after years of using it as an example of the loosest possible outcome. Now the EU invented a new rule, that this kind of loose trade deal is only available to countries geographically far away. Why? Because screw Brexit, that's why. There's literally no justification for this. As a Brit I've come to hold the EU in absolute contempt. It isn't interested in any kind of reasonable post-Brexit relationship. It's gambling everything on an attempt to crush British independence completely. At this point the EU's position is simply: stay in the EU or we won't work together on anything, anywhere at all. That's unacceptable. Time to go.
- evgen 6y ago
  Interesting that you seem to have come to a conclusion that is basically the opposite of reality. The UK wants to have its cake (benefits of trade and travel ties) and eat it too (none of those dirty foreigners, except when we need them to staff the NHS during a pandemic and then only with gritted teeth.) The Tory government is much like the Trump administration in that they have roped themselves to an angry, bitter rump to achieve power and can't quite figure out how to extricate themselves without humiliation. There is no exit that puts the UK in a better position because it imagines itself to have power and influence that it does not possess. Personally, I am now resigned to looking forward to no-deal Brexit so that the midlands, coastal fishing villages that should have ceased to exist decades ago, and rural counties can get the royal economic fucking they deserve. Boris somehow thinks that by sucking up to Trump he is going to get some magic trade deal to save himself, but any deal needs to get through the US House and they are not even going to bother putting it on the calendar. Nothing will happen until the start of the Biden administration and since they will be focused on domestic issues and repairing frayed foreign ties in this first 100 days you are looking at nothing for at least a year. The UK is so hosed it is almost funny, but at least it will drive down London property prices...
  - noir-york 6y ago
    > Interesting that you seem to have come to a conclusion that is basically the opposite of reality. The UK wants to have its cake (benefits of trade and travel ties) and eat it too It is standard negotiating OP by both sides. Just take a look at the Troika / Greece negotiations: breakthroughs come at the very last minute. Extending the transition period merely lengthens the phoney negotiations. > There is no exit that puts the UK in a better position because it imagines itself to have power and influence that it does not possess. Viewed through an economic lens, Brexit will do damadge, certainly in the short term. Medium to long term depends on whether the Tories learn drop austerity and to love Keynes . It seems Sunak does, going by short record so far. Viewed through a political / sovereignty lens the argument for Brexit is on a stronger footing.
    - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
      > and to love Keynes Debts get repaid, one way (with repayment) or another (welshing and never being trusted again)

pmontra 6y ago

As EU citizen I'm not worried about this. First, the UK is smaller than the EU so the burden of a no deal is larger for them than for us. Second and by far more important, there are plenty of countries outside the EU and we trade with all of them. We'll keep trading with the UK too. My only wish was that they left at least one year earlier (when they should have). We would have already settled many issues by now.

makomk 6y ago

The EU has pretty good evidence for this - the UK won't even agree to any realistic terms, where "realistic" is defined as not only giving the EU everything they want now but also anything they might want in the future, making them the ones who unilaterally decide how the deal is interpreted, and giving them and only them the ability to punish the UK for perceived violations of the deal. I'm not sure this belongs on HN though. As you might gather, this is 100% politics in its purist form.

draw_down 6y ago
Sounds like those big meanies in the EU are negotiating and defending their interests. What a bunch of jerks.
quonn 6y ago
Do you have a source?
- makomk 6y ago
  Probably not easily, since most of the mainstream press have been spinning whatever the EU demands as a normal, inevitable part of making a trade deal. You basically have to pay attention to what other trade deals are like, what's in the deal and isn't mentioned in the news coverage...
- noir-york 6y ago
  Just take a look at the EU's fisheries position which is basically the status quo as if the UK had never left the EU. Which is crazy; either the UK has left the EU and so cannot enjoy the same market access as a member, and the EU correspondingly has reduced access to UK market, or else there is full access for both parties. Source: https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-uk-fishing-in-troubled-waters-in-brexit-talks/ https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-uk-fishing-in-troubled-wa...
  - evgen 6y ago
    The EU fisheries position is simply that the UK gets no special favours. The problem the UK faces is that the fish they catch are varieties that are mostly sold to European markets because UK consumers don't want them. Now they want the benefits of their own fisheries policy and to somehow magically get free access to the EU market to sell those fish they catch. Oh, and a large chunk of the fishing rights to those waters were sold by UK fishermen to EU fishermen several decades ago.

Traster 6y ago

There is no point discussing anything about the UK's brexit process until the deadline is either passed, or imminent, as has been shown time and time again. The transition agreement the UK is currently in was meant to be 21 months originally. The UK spent 10 months of that time deciding whether they actually agreed to have the 21 month transition.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Havoc 6y ago

"Beginning to"? I thought that was accepted fact at this stage. Super short arguably impossible deadline, little progress, then COVID happens and the UK insists keeping said deadline anyway? Meanwhile the UK home press is hitting their population with quality gems like: >EU civil war erupts: States furious as Barnier poised to surrender [0] Anyone expecting in-good-faith negotiations is in for a surprise. [0] https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1287373/Brexit-news-Michel-Barnier-UK-EU-trade-talks-fishing-rights-latest-update/amp https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1287373/Brexit-news-Michel...

louniks 6y ago

But why? From my very limited knowledge on this, it seems everyone is saying that a no-deal crash out will be bad economically. So is it just ideology (dare I say dogmatism) from the Johnson government at this point?

noir-york 6y ago
A mix of tactics and politics. While Brexit is bad economically, the political argument is different.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
  eh? politics = economics, pretty much
  - noir-york 6y ago
    politics = economics, pretty much?! I'm afraid you are seriously mistaken. Just take court jurisdiction and supremacy of parliament. Politics is very much not economics, at least when it comes to Brexit.
    - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
      People vote with their wallet, right or wrong. As for "court jurisdiction and supremacy of parliament", given the way the government has abused its powers at times, I'd like a higher court than the UK one. BTW I did raise a question illegality by the UK government with the EU. Stuff started to get done. The UK government's standard brush-off to being challenged on something they don't want to answer to, is "it's not in the public interest". Which is bullshit. If the UK government wasn't so tossy and incompetent, I might be a lot more sympathetic to "court jurisdiction and supremacy of parliament"
amouat 6y ago
More or less. I don't think they even argue about the economics of it any more. As long as they can blame somebody else (the EU, remainers, the global situation) they will be happy. They want to mould the UK into their own vision and don't care how many people are disadvantaged in the process.

Krasnol 6y ago

UK knows it won't end well either way. But if the talks fail it'll be drastic enough to blame the EU for everything. Same people voted for Brexit will buy that too.

anewdirection 6y ago

When no-deal looks as appeling as the deals being offered, this was an eventuality. I think many knew this going in. I doubt, however, that this is purely due to foot-dragging by the current government, and more to do with some hard-won lack of trust on both sides of the negotiating table. Both the UK and the EU made some unfortunte moves, shady deals, and asinine assertions, in the brexit adventure that will likely poison the well for years to come. Until a compelling (military or financial) reason comes along, I expect the situation to mostly remain the same.

tialaramex 6y ago

The more interesting question is what the path from here to a united Ireland looks like. Under No Deal Brexit that's essentially assured as the outcome in the opinion of people I know who grew up on the island or lived much of their lives there. Change could be paused indefinitely while both parts of the island were anyway members of the EU but that can't last now. Is there a peaceful route? Or will the Troubles be reignited?

BrandoElFollito 6y ago

As a French this is infuriating. Brexit will have an impact on us and the UK. Fine. Now get out and the one who is most interested will be back with negotiations. I fully understand that there will be impacts. As of now it looks like two old persons who are making their live miserable, but in the name of some vague conventions do not want to divorce.

throwawaymanbot 6y ago

The UK is leaving the EU club, what does the UK expector think its entitled to get?? Full rights???? LOL.... you leave the gym you dont get to use the equipment anymore. Fairly simple.