Negotiate but only when you agree with us

A major riff throughout, Remainers have said, has been the UK's failure to specify what it wants, to make explicit proposals etc. El Grundia reports:

This is the last call to lay the cards on the table,” Tusk said, of the EU’s call for a workable plan.The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said: “There is a clear message in this respect – we can no longer wait...“I cannot speculate as to the possibility of an agreement. I would like an agreement now but it is not in our hands ...

What this really means has become clear:

the taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, told [May] that unless the final document presented a departure from the UK government’s thinking over the last two years, it would be dead on arrival...Brexit can only happen in compliance with our values...The red lines set by the UK are globally incompatible with the fundamental principles of the EU

The consequences are obvious:  “If that principle were to be conceded there would be Eurosceptics and right-wing populist parties in every second country of Europe who would say cannot we have the same deal."

Heaven forbid that the Guardian might question or pursue  these absurd threats as in proper journalism, but at least we might all know where we stand now -- the failure to provide explicit proposals means failure to agree that it is pointless to try to leave the EU on any terms except theirs.The EU has failed to provide any workable or realistic proposals except to repeat their own stance. Their only position is to hope that somehow Brexit will be reversed or postponed -- they still don't get it, they are still in bereavement mode. They cannot be pragmatic about Brexit, but have to stick by their absurd and apparently eternal and sacred 'principles', because they are afraid the whole game will be up with Eurosceptics elsewhere in Europe -- so the 'principles' and 'freedoms' are obviously partisan. It is therefore not really a negotiating process at all, but is, at best, a game of bluff, at least in public.

It seems obvious that any negotiation will occur only at the last minute in crisis management mode, in a kind of macho stand-off at high noon. What will the Remainers do then, poor things?