The scale of the impending disaster is becoming clear”, says Will Hutton in The Observer. Unless May changes her position quite substantially, the gulf between the UK and the EU is simply too wide for a deal to be possible. Britain is “certain to go over a cliff; the only question is how great the fall”. Like most loveless marriages, this one is ending in “screaming rows about the money”, said Dominic Lawson in The Sunday Times. The EU’s initial demand for a divorce bill of some €60bn seems to have shot up, to €100bn-plus. This isn’t just Juncker making trouble; it comes from the member states. The UK pays 12% of the EU budget, so Brexit will create a funding “chasm” that terrifies European leaders. Quite apart from dealing with the nitty-gritty, the Government needs to “prepare for the propaganda war”, said Juliet Samuel in The Daily Telegraph. The Commission will try to portray the UK’s leaders as “inept fantasists”, as it did with Greece. So Britain needs to come across as “eminently reasonable”; and it must, at all costs, rein in the xenophobic rhetoric. “If Britons and Europeans start to see one another fundamentally as enemies, a deal will become impossible.” (The Week)
From Martin Dean, Taunton, Somerset:
“I sense that there is an overwhelming sense of apprehension within the country because we don’t know what will be debated/agreed at the Brexit talks but more importantly, we don’t feel the Government can negotiate effectively. The Budget showed their incompetence (as well as the opposition’s) as the Government’s blunder was not spotted by the politicians and their party machines but by the BBC’s political correspondent. If we fail delivering our routine domestic policies, what hope have we at the complicated issues over leaving the EU?
We must recognise that most people in the UK are not political animals. Some can cope with domestic events, very few are interested in European issues, let alone wider world wide affairs. Interest is only taken when it hits home and confronts them. The Times in 1896… ‘Fog in Channel, Europe isolated’. Things really haven’t changed a great deal, so no wonder we are more than concerned”.
There is little hope of peace of mind anytime soon. The i pending train wreck loks pretty certain from the perspective of anyone living across the Atlantic.
There are two things that could realistically happen to prevent a hard Brexit. The first is that the severe consequences would become apparent to a clear majority of the population very soon, as shown consistently in opinion polling. The government’s popularity would fall dramatically, making it change its negotiating position. But it would probably require a terrible economic downturn for it to happen. This almost certainly won’t happen in time for the election, but it may happen afterwards.
The other factor that could prevent a hard Brexit is Theresa May herself. She voted Remain, and lacks the ignorance and bellicose bluster of many of her colleagues. With her enlarged majority, she wouldn’t be as beholden to the more extreme elements of the Tory backbenchers. If she decided to change course, nothing could stop her. Some Tory Eurosceptics have dismissed this proposition, arguing that May can already pursue a softer Brexit because of support from the opposition parties. But the fact is, the backbenchers still have the capacity to cause trouble by voting against other aspects of May’s policies, as revenge for ‘betraying’ them over Brexit. The fate of the UK lies entirely with May. She should keep the Eurosceptics on her side for the purposes of winning the election. Then she should pursue a more conciliatory and less confrontational approach with the EU, in order to get the best deal for Britain.
Overall I’m still very pessimistic. I highly doubt May will change her approach. A good deal is increasingly unlikely. And the fact that so many people believe that we can crash out of the EU with no deal, and be relatively unscathed, shows how much economic illiteracy and misinformation there is amongst the British people- regardless of the eventual outcome.
I entirely agree. There is no way this will end well