How not to negotiate
I can strongly recommend the interview with Michel Barnier in the FT this morning. As a polite, intelligent and thoughtful explanation of how the UK ended up with the terrible Brexit deal it got, it is clear as a bell.
The UK negotiators were ignorant about how the EU worked, ignorant about what the costs and benefits of membership were, had fantasies about what they could get, set themselves ridiculous hurdles and time lines, and then tried again and again to split the EU’s member states.
They were also totally unprepared and then threatened to tear up the deal the second it was signed.
It will doubtless be studied for generations to come as a text book example of how NOT to negotiate.
And as for M. Barnier, he just stayed calm, kept the EU united with endless visits to member states, prepared thoroughly and gave the UK exactly what he said in the beginning they would get.
The UK, which has for decades prided itself on the quality of its diplomats, mastery of detail, its negotiating skills, its pragmatism and its realism was taken to the cleaners because it used none of those things, but believed its own Brexit lies.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
By Jonty Bloom Media