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Originally Posted by
Aimless
As evinced by your increasingly frantic flailing around for ways to pin all of this on May. This is Little England at its littlest, eerily reminiscent of the performances the English put on when their delusional fantasies about winning the world cup are dashed against the rocks of reality.
The reality is that the negotiations have played out the way you would expect, given the mandate Brexiters sought and were given by your nutty electorate. May didn't dream up the UK's red lines during a particularly wild acid trip--those lines were a direct translation of the mandate from the referendum, and of the demands from within her party of idiots. It is not May's fault a bunch of snakes, with no skin in the game, saw fit to promise the public a fiesta of unicorns and eternal cakes. May cannot turn delusions into reality. She cannot be expected to deliver on promises made by dissembling or just plain ignorant Brexiters on the EU's behalf.
There has been no dissembling and there has been upfront honesty. We never claimed we could stay in the Single Market and the Customs Union while ending free movement and ending fiscal contributions. We made a choice which had both pros and cons.
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This is nonsense. The possible negative impact of May's "antagonism" pales in significance when compared to the impact of legal, political and market realities, of the red lines--a reasonable translation of the public's will as well as of the will of Tory Brexiters--and that of remarks, made by prominent Brexiters, that repeatedly reminded the EU the UK can not be trusted--or even be regarded as a friend. The backstop came about as a consequence of everyone realizing that the version of Brexit Little Englanders had chosen to pursue would not lead to a satisfying solution to the Irish border issue during the negotiation of the WA. That's not May's fault, nor is it the EU's fault; it is the fault of those who voted for and tried to hammer through a version of Brexit that clashes with reality. The greater part of May's negotiation activity has involved negotiating with ignorant, incompetent and irresponsible members of her own party.
The red lines are entirely rational and consistent, they are also in accordance with your four freedoms Single Market rules. Had we proposed to stay in the Single Market with those red lines then that would be unicorns. To leave the Single Market and have those red lines is entirely logically consistent with a Canadian style Free Trade Agreement - as Barnier himself said at the start.
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People who believed that the UK holds all the cards, and that "no deal is better than a bad deal", approached the WA negotiations as if they were negotiating the kind of international agreement where walking away preserves the status quo--in their favour no less. Commentators who did not have their heads stuck up their asses have pointed out, from the very beginning, that this is not such a scenario.
I never behaved that way. I believe that no deal is worse than a good deal. But no deal is better than a bad deal. My preference all along is a good deal.