Europe is out to shaft Brexit Britain. Here’s how Theresa May can prevent it | Paul Mason
![Merkel, Renzi and Hollande know they hold all the strongest cards [Image: Reuters].](https://voxpoliticalonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/160829-Merkel-Renzi-Hollande-Reuters.png)
Merkel, Renzi and Hollande know they hold all the strongest cards [Image: Reuters].
That’s aggression in the political sense – not terrorism or invasion. Our problem is that our politicians can’t seem to rise above their own petty interests, even for a moment, to defend the UK against those would seek to gain a political advantage over them all.
It is a weakness; it can be exploited; and Paul Mason is right to raise it.
Whether his solution is correct, and whether it will be followed, are entirely different matters.
Britain voted for Brexit without a plan and the Europeans intend to shaft us.
German chancellor Angela Merkel, French president François Hollande and Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi know they hold all the strongest cards.
And May’s administration goes into this critical negotiating process with an obvious weakness. It does not know whether it wants to remain in the single market.
May should seek cabinet agreement for a baseline request: to remain as part of the EEA, with a humane, time-limited restriction on free movement as Britain’s one demand, and then get on with it. She should make a statement to the commons that rules out leaving the single market.
May wants to serve a full term. But both logic and principle dictate that were she to give in to the “clean break” brigade within the cabinet, she would have to schedule an election and fight for a mandate to lead Britain into this particularly stupid form of economic suicide.
If so, whoever leads Labour should be salivating at the prospect.
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I just hope Labour can unite to fight and get on top of these nasty Tories. The Nasty Party has really landed the country in an unnecessary mess. It is divided, vulnerable and weak at the moment and Labour should be exploiting it mercilessly.
Yes indeed Mike. We are witnessing catastrophic incompetence from those put in place to oversee the EU exit negotiations. Yet strangely Richard North over at the eureferendum website has mapped out the best strategy by a long way. If you haven’t read this email exchange already, I would suggest that it is worth doing so:-
http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86194
Harry
I have read the emails between Richard North and John Mills and it has confirmed my worst fears about Brexit. Is Mills really as thick as he sounds? Here is the man leading the Labour Leave campaign who seems to think that the UK can get a done deal with the EU on terms which gives us the “nice” bits without having to accept the “nasty” bits within a two year timescale! The Leavers went forit on a “wing and prayer” basis and now refuse to face up to the reality of what they have done. Still in complete denial.
Negotiating with the EU is going to be very hard work anyway but add in the “animosity” factor and it will be fraught with personality clashes. If the European elections in France and Germany next April result in right wing governments being elected then 15 years suggested by Richard North seems the likely timescale.
I really don’t like some of the language in the Guardian article. Saying that Europe is out to “shaft” the UK is simply the usual UK goodie, EU baddies attitude. The UK deserves all it gets from Europe. The UK, especially under the Tories, has always considered itsself superior to the other countries, constantly criticising and demanding special privileges. They have acted like the arrogant, self-centred loud-mouth at a party who thinks everyone is enthralled by their repartee when, in fact, they would rather he just went home. UK ministers, especially Farage, have insulted the EU, its members and many of its populations during the disgraceful Brexit “debate”. They have to sow what they have reaped, at our expense, and the EU is well within its moral rights to look out for itsself.