Once again I can only stress that reading the foreign press is essential to understanding Brexit, the British media do not report things in the same way. So, it is interesting to learn that while the UK government thinks that it is being clever by kicking problems down the road, the NIP being the main one, it is being seen differently from the EU’s side.
Temporary delays to policies that the UK has promised to follow are now being seen as attempts to game the system. The EU fears the British government is “banking” these delays as permanent wins, sensing weakness and moving on to the next “crisis”, confident that it can force the EU to retreat.
For the EU these delays are a chance for the UK and the EU to find solutions that abide by the treaty they have signed. Nothing more and nothing less.
“Banking wins” is therefore not going to work for very long, at some point the EU will say no and it will mean it.
https://jonty.substack.com/
The issue is that what can the EU do when it finally means no? What are the sanctions it could impose that would force the UK into a pragmatic climb down? I can't really see any that wouldn't be immediately spun as EU hostility, and then the gunboat diplomacy flares up again.
True but ripping up the whole agreement and going to WTO terms would really hurt the UK