Brexit - How do you define a negotiation?

[saptastic]

Brexit: David Davis says the EU must compromise too - BBC News

Mr Davies trying to be diplomatic here.

This was never a negotiation

i) you cant negotiate with 27 countries acting as one
ii) the negotiator has no room to move as the 27 countries all agree what is their "red line" before the negotiations begin so they are demanding not negotiating
iii) the EU also say we will only to discuss part of the exit - but negotiations are about the complete picture - you give and take on specific aspects - so they want a commitment from one part before even discussing the rest of the deal so they can get what they want. How is that negotiation?

When will this be acknowledged and just move on with no deal.
Either that or the Govt will bottle it to save face.

The above is nothing we don't know - just wanted to vent that the whole process should not be called a negotiation.

[BlasterBates]

Basically the EU will be "offering" a Canada style deal nothing on services and 60 billion EUR for a transition deal, take it or leave it. Then the UK will spend most of this negotiating period, negotiating with itself.

[AtW]

What happened to Britain holding all the cards???

[meridian]

What happened to Britain holding all the cards???

"This will be the easiest deal in human history"

[meridian]

Brexit - How do you define a negotiation?

Brexit: David Davis says the EU must compromise too - BBC News

Mr Davies trying to be diplomatic here.

This was never a negotiation

i) you cant negotiate with 27 countries acting as one
ii) the negotiator has no room to move as the 27 countries all agree what is their "red line" before the negotiations begin so they are demanding not negotiating
iii) the EU also say we will only to discuss part of the exit - but negotiations are about the complete picture - you give and take on specific aspects - so they want a commitment from one part before even discussing the rest of the deal so they can get what they want. How is that negotiation?

When will this be acknowledged and just move on with no deal.
Either that or the Govt will bottle it to save face.

The above is nothing we don't know - just wanted to vent that the whole process should not be called a negotiation.

Of course it's a negotiation. The problem is that the UK (Davis) has no idea what the proposed end state should look like.

Working backwards from an end state, the government would know what part of the common market it wanted to be in, and to what extent they wanted to pay for access to that market. They would know what immigration laws and regulations they wanted, and what the customs borders would look like.

From this end state, the three key questions (payment, citizens rights, NI border) should be able to be answered at least at a high level satisfactorily enough to move to more detailed talks.

The very real problem is that there is no unity even within Parliament for what Brexit should look like. Half the cabinet want to walk away not paying a penny, the other half want full CM access. None of them have any realistic solution to NI. None of them want to publish any view on what Brexit will look like (in particular payments and NI) because half the electorate will be jumping up and down no matter what the result.

Sorry to sound so pessimistic, but even if there was a thin line to walk where Brexit might be successful, there is a lack of leadership in the political classes to get us there and far too many loud voices on the extreme right and left in Parliament that drown out any reason.

[NotAllThere]

What happened to Britain holding all the cards???

Well, not all the cards. Just these ones:

[BlasterBates]

David Davis shows British humour in the Brexit negotiations

nice one David, a bit of humour to brighten up the day!

[saptastic]

And why do they talk about negotiating a divorce bill of between £20bn - £100bn
Again I don't get why this is even being discussed.
Does anyone know what is the UK legally obliged to pay?

[AtW]

Does anyone know what is the UK legally obliged to pay?

It does not matter if it's 0, what matters is how much EU wants for the inconvenience caused - if not fully paid then it will cost UK more in a long run due to bad deal (AKA no deal), thank Lord the EU is reasonable and does not ask for a trillion euros.

[saptastic]

But the divorce bill is separate to the 'trade deal' - so EU demands x billion - there is no reason for this when they probably owe us money - either way there seems no qualification - and this will be unrelated to a trade deal which the EU will also define. Just seems like a strange negotiation all round.