Be Excellent To Each Other

Don’t be daft. This is just part of the negotiation.

Nation-state negotiations are not like bluffing your way out of a bad poker hand.

Other than the fact the worsening exchange rate is going to fuck me, I am incredibly glad I’m not living in Britain.

I’ve read another couple of pieces by Dunt about the DDay effects (most likely due to a Gaywood link) and I remain convinced it will be on par with a fucking zombie apocalypse.

Call me when you’ve been involved in a million pound+ negotiation.

ESIT: and who are they bluffing. We made a proposal, they rejected it, so we say, ok, what’s your big idea?

Seems fine, nothing to worry about.

/orders all the cans of beans from Tesco.

99 cans isn't enough! Fuck you Tesco!

Many, many times. A demand for concessions requires a power balance that is absolutely not in existance here. This sort of statement has absolutely nothing to do with negotiation and everything to do with attempting to look tough in front of the home crowd. Because for some bizarre reason that's still who the government think they're negotiating with.

And they re-present the list of acceptable options we can choose from that they've already given us a dozen times.

We could bully our way into a deal that wasn't on their list, if it wasn't for the fact that we're right at the bottom of the power gradient.

Sure, what's your number?

I've been part of a team doing technical sales and contract negotiation for my last employer that had that sort of price tag attached. And I've had corporate negotiation training both through my former and current employers.

tbf, not right at the bottom (we could still bully Micronesia). Just somewhat considerably lower than the EU.

Me too, funnily enough (and 1m is close to the bottom end of what I will have my team bother to work on).

But hey, experts.

So you’re suggesting that rather than attempt to negotiate, our team just roll over and pick one of the options that are presented to us by our counterparts?

Given that they hold all the cards, as well as being constrained by their own legal structure in what they can agree, and given the alternative is zombie apocalypse, yes, probably.

Of course, we could always take the sane, pragmatic route that solves every single one of these problems and just call the whole fucking thing off.

Also given we haven't tabled any credible alternatives in two years. The Chequers proposal last about ten seconds before it was holed before the waterline by the ERG.

It’s like a national mid life crisis. Just sell the bloody Harley and go back to work. It’s not so late that you can’t still convince them you had a stomach bug and weren’t actually planning on riding round America for the rest of your life.

Negotiating is fine. Presenting a proposal that

a) Our own government immediately punctured with blocking amendments
b) Has already been rejected as completely unsuitable by the EU

then saying "well we did our bit, now you come up with an idea" is how four year olds negotiate, not nation states.

You say that, but when my kids were four years old they generally got what they wanted so they fucked off and left me in peace. Or something.

None of what Davis, Fox, or Raab are doing or have done is negotiating. Every single bit of it is setting up the domestic audience to ensure that blame is pointed at the EU and Remainers when the whole thing goes (even further) to shit.

Davis spent four hours in negotiations with the EU team in 2018. The entire rest of the time was spent politicking for domestic consumption.

Let's just say I possibly wouldn't wait by the phone in the event a new lead negotiator is required.

I will show you this post if you ever have kids, and you will ruefully chuckle at your naïveté


Maybe where we’re going wrong is that we haven’t sent in actual four year olds to do the negotiations...

And they definitely will. The whole thing is so fucked, the right wing attitudes that lead to all this are only hardening. So even if the negotiations were being handled by the most qualified people who were trying to do the right thing I'm not convinced that some sort of fudge that keeps everyone happy-ish could be accomplished without half the country exploding with rage. But with this shower of absolute shit in charge there's no chance at all.

I agree with (a) - the government has been absolutely awful in every regard.

But (b) shouldn’t matter to our negotiating team when presenting a proposal. Obviously the EU will say it’s not workable but our team needs to move them from their position. Telling your opponent “thanks for rejecting our plan, we’ll go back to the drawing board and do it again Sir” just isn’t going to cut the mustard.

Well no, that's just undeserved British exceptionalism at work. We want a future trading relationship with the EU. Other countries accept the rules and choose from the options available. Deciding that the EU has to come up with a new plan just because we're British is just silly. The EU has been telling us for over two years that they cannot and will not be moved from their position. It has been a constant statement made over and over again. The integrity of the single market is more important than absolutely anything else. We're just not listening and keep thinking that obviously they'll change their minds if we just keep butting our heads against the glass.

"Negotiating. A Play"

//We open on an Aldi supermarket aisle. David Davis is dressed as a four year old, holding a bag of crisps in one hand, and a bag of sweets in the other
//Michel Barnier is pushing a trolley next to him. He looks old and tired, fed up of Davis' bullshit

Davis: Daddy, I would like these crisps and these sweets, please

Barnier: Now, you know the rules. We've told you before and they're up on the fridge at home. You can have the crisps or the sweets, but not both.

Davis: But I want both, Daddy!

Barnier: You have to choose one or the other.

Davis: You are being completely unfair. I'm the best child. I promised all my teddies I'd bring home crisps and sweets! You have to give me what I want or I'll scream!

Barnier: Screaming won't change the rules, you have to...

Davis: WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH

Barnier: Decide what's more important to you, the crisps or the sweets

Davis: WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH

//Davis is now rolling on the floor. He's rolled over the crisp packet crushing it three times without noticing

Davis (sobbing): I'm going to tell Mummy. Mummy will let me have everything I want! Mummy!

//Donald Trump enters stage left

Trump: I have all the best crisps and sweets. Everybody says so.

Davis: Daddy won't let me have what I want! You'll say I can just do what I like, right?

Trump: Here, have these crisps and sweets from my favourite supermarket

//Trump hands over a pack of out of date courgettes and a small bag of mud

Davis: See! Mummy agrees that I should have whatever I like!

Barnier: But those are rubbish. You sure you want those instead of choosing one of the crisps and sweets you had before?

Davis: I WANT BOTH THE CRISPS AND SWEETS! WAAAAAAAGH!

//Davis shits himself. Dominic Raab enters the aisle also as a four year old, dressed identically to Raab. They're twins. Don't overthink it

Davis: Daddy's being meaaaannn! You do it!

//Davis hands the sweets and crisps to Raab and strops off stage left

Raab: Daddy, I would like these crisps and these sweets, please

Barnier (sotto voce): Jesus fucking christ

//Barnier sticks a large bottle of gin into the trolley
//Scene.

That took more time than it was worth, tbf.

It did.

Much like Brexit. BOOM BOOM

I enjoyed it, though.

Title of our sex tape, baby

You should submit that to Radio 4.

I'm not sure they'll play sex tapes.

I just had a read back in this thread from the days following the referendum. Everyone was making sensible guesses about what would happen next. Except not one of all you clever fuckers managed to predict that two years down the line we'd be precisely none the wiser, the government having done absolutely nothing at all.

Huh?



The Treaties don’t say this in the slightest. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a withdrawal negotiation exercise and we’d follow what’s in the rules which we’d signed up for.



Again, what?

Britain has been a member of the union since the seventies and contributed a tremendous amount during that time - and not just money. Why should an exiting member get the same or worse deal than a country that has never contributed but wants to trade with the Union. Again, the rules don’t say this, and I expect that the widely drafted rules anticipated that exiting members may be offered a variety of deals on all areas.

There isn't one. The EU are saying "here are your options" and the UK is saying "No, we want something else, we're exceptional" and the EU just reply with "here are your options". Why wouldn't they?

Well yes, but there’s supposed to be one. The UK gov is just shit and has been arsing around for a couple of years.

EDIT: Also if the EU are unable to secure a deal that protects their member’s citizens and trade post-Brexit I can’t imagine that would garner them much praise in the rest of Europe.

Once again, the integrity of the single market is inviolable. As they have said over and over since day one. Protecting the single market is protecting their member states. Yes, if we decide we don't want any of the supported associated membership options and want to trade with the EU on WTO terms, then it will become more difficult for the EU to trade with the UK. But alleviating that is not worth the cost of throwing away the rules. As they have told us repeatedly.

And it gets them a reputation for being unwilling to weaken for a third party, which is exactly the reputation they want.

Well, this post seems extremely naive in hindsight:

Just to give you an example of what the remain debate is up against, here are a couple of emails from my father-in-law. I often end up talking politics with him whenever we're in each other's company (and we exchange emails about it on a fairly regular basis), we have rather opposing views, to say the least.

We've had a couple of extended chats about Brexit recently (that have become somewhat Mrs Merton heated-esque debates), and I've been sending him links to Ian Dunt's pieces on politics.co.uk, as well as Chris Grey's Brexit Blog.

In return he showed me an article by Janet Daley from the last Sunday Telegraph (they have it delivered every week), where she was suggesting the EU had far more to fear from a Hard Brexit than the UK does.

I must stress here that my father-in-law is a very intelligent man and isn't some crazy old right wing racist (ironically, both he and my mother-in-law travelled extensively in their twenties and thirties, and my mother-in-law has Italian family), but both he and my mother-in-law really don't like the EU at all, think the UK should never have been in it in the first place, and would very much like to see the UK leave.

If there were another referendum tomorrow (and they could, y'know, vote in it), they'd vote Leave, even given all the latest sober warnings about what it will really entail.

Honestly, if there were another referendum, I think Leave could still win it.

(The 'chest-thumping rhetoric' is what I suggested the Janet Daley piece amounted to, he was equally unimpressed by Ian Dunt.)

Please ask your father-in-law to read this article:

https://www.ft.com/content/78f1984e-900 ... a2f7bca546

It's paywalled but the FT usually allows one 'free' viewing every few days, but if you can't access it let me know.

Also, ask him to read this:

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/poli ... th-no-deal

(the page seems to take a while to load).

The problem is that these people are so set in their ways, it won't matter how many expertly-written articles you throw at them, they'll be dismissed as 'project fear' scaremongering. Unless the likes of Farage, Boris Johnson et al came out and said 'look, we were wrong, we should stay in the EU', some people just aren't going to listen (and even if something like that happened, some would assumed they'd been paid to say it). Same with Trump or Tommy Robinson supporters; in the case of the latter, he pleaded guilty and filmed himself breaking the law, but nope.. he's still the victim of some big conspiracy to some.

Pretty much really.

Their minds are made up and nothing's going to change their opinion on it, and the truth of the matter is that a lot of the Leave camp feel the same way.

In many regards referendums are the ultimate acts of cowardice that politicians can indulge in, this sort of stuff is literally their fucking job so to basically say, 'Ummm, we're a bit stuck on this so we'd like to use an ask the audience please' is horseshit of the highest order.

Also, a lot of Leave votes were all about immigration/racism. My dad voted Leave simply because he wants the Muslims/Eastern Europeans out of his area. Obviously Brexit won't actually accomplish this, at all, but it came down to immigration and race for him, and he blames the EU's 'freedom of movement' to a large extent.

He's a snip of a conversation I had with my brother earlier in the week.

Christ.

A thousand times this. And to spend the 18 months since ignoring every single warning of disaster because of 'will of the people'. An utter, unforgivable failure to govern.

I recall a colleague of mine at work voted leave. His main reason was so "we can then kick out all the Pakis".

Obviously this is dreadful on every level, but to this day I still chuckle at him (presumably?) thinking Pakistan is in Europe, or something.

To be fair, as this whole mess draws closer to a horrific end (just read about the Army being put on standby to deliver food etc in the event of a no-deal) I laugh less, but still.

We are really lowering expectations when Brexit has gone from a new glorious age with riches for all, down to “we won’t starve because of food stockpiling”.

One of Helen’s work colleagues has just completed the purchase of their retirement home in Spain.
They didn’t think them voting to leave would have any effect on their ability to live there, claim free healthcare or get their pension, and that’s completely ignoring any irony about wanting to see immigration controlled.

I find it very difficult not to hope these people end up owning a house they cannot live in or travel to. It’s not very nice but there it is.

... it’s beneath me but still.