Quote:
Originally Posted by Sephiroth
on your first paragraph, you’ve sort of nailed it. “The EU set out ....”. In other words their terms, cake and all. That’s my point.
On your 2nd paragraph, I believe their proximity argument to be spurious grounds for tight level playing field. My perception is that they want to punish us.
Our disagreement is fundamental on principle except, I hope, that the Canadian model is fine.
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Not really cake and eat it. We left the EU and they offered us a priced-up Smörgåsbord to choose from. We're the third party now so can't expect to have the benefits of the single market without paying for it. Anything else reeks of pure entitlement.
And no, they're not really punishing us. They're protecting the Single Market which is everything to the EU. Even German car manufacturers are prepared to see the UK suffer adverse economic consequences if it keeps the Single Market intact. I really don't get this playing-the-victim stance. We're a 65-milion-person country so of course bigger blocs like the EU, US and China will try and boss us around. This was all known before the referendum. These complaints sound increasingly more and more like unconscious buyers' remorse.
But let's see how the negotiations go. I believe David Frost had a bit of a wake-up call when business recently convinced him they were serious about the bad effects of no-deal, and the negative impacts of even the best Brexit deal. BoJo's heart is not really in it, he wants an easy life with his new family and Brexit was just about handing him the keys to No. 10. And Cummings has moved onto his dream of using British tax-payers' money to compete with Eton Musk and Amazon through OneWeb.