Quote:
Originally Posted by 1andrew1
It was just the government being puritanical and not pragmatic that ended our membership of these bodies. As I said to Seph, our relationship with the EU will grow closer by necessity, it's not a binary relationship and Steve Barclay's statement further underlines that point.
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On the contrary - the negotiations, particularly around our involvement in Copernicus, became bogged down in the wider context of the treaty defining the UK’s future relationship with the EU. The EU believed our continuing access to the military-grade data generated by the system, a significant chunk of which was developed and paid for in the UK, was strategically so important to us that we would be desperate to retain it and that they could therefore use it to exact concessions. The UK negotiators therefore simply took it off the table and invested in OneWeb, in order to demonstrate the seriousness of its resolve.
Now the treaty is signed these issues can be addressed on their own terms, without those idiots in Brussels attempting to make European security contingent on fishing quotas.