Still not acceptable.

That's a surprise.... unless it's got something to do with UK- USA deals.

Looks like they're not serious.... it's clearly a big no no.

No really. The UK has now asked for an optout on food safety laws, completely undermining what has been agreed. Do we just ignore that?

The key here is that this agreement isn't about meeting in the middle. It's about the UK coming up to European standards in a host of areas.

They are all lying ........

Yep.

It is clear that this has to come to a head soon, but I still think Scots gov has to force the issue. That's not to say that Indy would win, but WM is unable to deal with Scotland in a normal fashion right now

Labour & Tories are losing ground in the Holyrood polling. SNP is up and there's a chance they'll reach what they want: a SNP majority that resulted in the indyref.

Tbh: overall their percentage is lower than under Nicola Sturgeon but around 20% for Reform UK actually helps the SNP......

Very accurate. The lack of realism and pathological need for special treatment is killing the UK

never going to be a long term solution

So we are again locked in a position where we refuse to accept reality and expect to achieve the unachievable

The problem is that the current UKG needs the same thing the 2016/18 version needed

Access to the SM and CU without fully reciprocating the four freedoms especially the movement of people

The 2019 UKG pretended full access wasn’t needed in order to get the drama over and done with but that was

Clearly you didn't read what I said. I said we can't and shouldn't drop talks, that's the wrong thing to do, as much as anything else because we want the UK strategically to start working with us again.

1

I'll say this, David, I have a lot of respect for you, but I do feel you take a national line when sometimes you should reflect more on Europe's redlines, esp. unity and freedom of action.

Ends

The UK has to get serious. European fundamentals won't change, and indeed are being retreneched against these threats.

But Bxl has to be patient, not suspend talks, and give UKG time to get its house in order and reconcile itself to the consequences of Brexit and its reset requests.

Ends

But there is also the reality that the Russia crisis and the crisis of Western democracy are real. We need a response. And that would be better with the UK in the tent I whatever form is possible.

6

There are two ways to see this, and neither is pretty.

Firstly, the sense is that UKG is trying to exploit the Russia crisis to gain trade advantages with Europe.

That is crashing to a halt, not least because the UK is desperate to join common European defence.

5

Europe is fed up with UKG's compulsive need to pick around and seek a special status. That wasted much of the year so far, which has costs for UKG in terms of changing course (it would have been easier to drop the redlines or accept the status of third country then, rather than a "special status"

3

That brings up a real risk: what if UKG isn't in a position politically to make the push necessary to keep things on track? What if it doesn't care? Some of this reset looks like a façade to be seen to be doing something, to keep pro-Europeans happy, while not upsetting the Brexit status quo.

2

That's so spot on Niall.
The GE campaign was so dishonest: both Tories & Labour & Libdems to a lesser extent didn't want to talk about EU/Brexit or black holes in the budget & the media was complicit. The SNP mentioned both non stop but we're cut off in the tv debates clearly to help out Labour.

And that stems from a lack of honesty with the electorate pre-election. They should have got a mandate at that point for whatever change was needed for the UK

But it is also a reflection of the delusion in Westminster about what Brexit means and what the UK's situation and place in the world is

4

Good thread Niall!