Davis is weak and wobbly at Brexit talks – caving in at first opportunity
[Image: SKZ cartoons.]
It appears I was right – although it was David Davis on the receiving end.
Mr Davis went into the talks demanding concurrent talks over the so-called ‘divorce’ arrangements – how the UK withdraws from the EU – and trade.
He told us all that, if the EU demurred, it would trigger the “row of the summer”.
It didn’t. The EU said Davis couldn’t dictate the timing of negotiations and he accepted it. He fell over.
So much for the “row of the summer”. That phrase is now reminiscent of Saddam Hussein’s “mother of all battles”. Remember that?
Davis is now saying his about-turn is consistent with his Conservative non-government’s objectives. Nonsense.
So now any trade deal is entirely dependent on the terms of the ‘divorce’. If the EU doesn’t get the terms it wants, you can bet the UK won’t get the trade deal it needs.
This first decision has revealed the true power dynamic, as Ian Dunt has described it on politics.co.uk – all the power is in the hands of the EU.
Digby Jones on the BBC’s Daily Politics tried to smooth over the issue by saying the UK could regain the initiative by saying we will formalise the legal status of EU citizens living in the UK – because that would put the ball in the EU’s court. What will the EU do?
But that is still a concession.
The UK is on the back foot. We have no negotiating power at all.
That is the fact of our decision to leave the EU.
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
Tories can only work to a script that someone else has written for them, thinking doesn’t come easy.
When you spend your whole political career lying and and your voters are traditionally less than critical you can get away with saying anything.
Why was I reminded of those three celluloid lunatics, The Three Stooges, when May appointed Johnson, Fox and Davis to negotiate Brexit? Something in my mind must have connected them.
Don’t know why anyone ever thought the self-confessed liar Davis would be anything other than weak and ineffective. Another Tory bully who is meeting his match.
Bang go our fishing rights yet again.
Davis tried to sound strong and confident by using some stupid Winston Churchill quote.
I prefer to remind others that the “great Tory” on the back of your fiver also said :-
“I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion”
When the 4 million starving people of Bengal asked for food, Churchill refused and said the ‘famine’ was their own fault “for breeding like rabbits”
A blood-thirsty genocidal maniac is hardly the perfect role model to quote.
What so called divorce arrangements are these, please don’t fall into the trap of the pro eu mass media by pretending this is some sort of a divorce, it is more like a manager leaving a football club and negotiating how much he is going to get paid. One thing is certain there will only be one meeting a month to discuss anything, and if the eu doesn’t listen it will find its largest customer has gone without them having a deal. The idea that the eu has all the power is not a rational one.
It’s not like a manager leaving a football club – the UK doesn’t run the EU.
The UK is not the EU’s largest customer – as a member, by definition, we can’t be.
And it’s one meeting a week.
You’re not doing very well with the facts.
Mike,
Please read my article, in my column Mad Management. Weird, but good, coincidence
John
June 15
http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/news/business/mad-management-how-business-experience-can-help-find-common-ground-in-brexit-1-8598333