It begins with:
The most important lesson of the Brexit negotiation is that it is not a negotiation, and never has been. Blessed with superior size, wealth and power, the EU has been able to dictate the framework and substance of the talks, and has refused any deviation from its red lines...The EU 'will also not accept any possibility of border infrastructure in Ireland [but what is Ireland here -- the whole island?] which is anathema to Dublin [the continued existence of NI might be anathema to Dublin?] and, according to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, [the link goes to a general page not to anything specific about violence] presents a credible risk of sectarian violence.'
Although the EU has tried to be kind and 'dedramatise' the issue, 'no amount of diplomatic politesse can conceal Brexit’s reality: one part of the UK will be economically split from another.':
Theresa May effectively guaranteed this impasse last December, when she agreed the Irish backstop. The backstop guarantees, as a last resort, Northern Ireland’s alignment with Ireland on the customs union and single market to ensure the free flow of goods. Northern Ireland would be permitted to retain the single market just in goods because the Good Friday agreement depends on it. But no such exemptions would ever be open to the rest of the UK. Although the EU was too coy to admit it at the time, this always meant that the whole UK would have to commit to the prospect of staying in the full single market and customs union, or else concede the erection of trade barriers within its territory...[May] has instead wasted nine months denying she ever made it [agreement to the backstop]. It comes as little surprise that the EU has now taken the initiative where the UK refused.
Echoing the megalomania we have see before (eg with Barnier's announcement that the UK needs a new constitution):
The most problematic consequence of the EU’s proposals is one that Brussels is most loath to spell out. This is not simply about checking goods. If Northern Ireland permanently operates a different customs regime from the rest of the UK and implements EU tariffs, then Northern Ireland must be exempt from any future UK trade deals.
Continuing the realpolitik:
The EU, for its part, knows it holds all the cards and recognises the danger of giving ground. Its priority is to accommodate Dublin, not London. It also concludes that a government so determined to leave must believe it can look after itself. Brussels has no reason or incentive to make any better offer.
The government has never understood the Brexit process and therefore has always botched it. It expects the EU to treat the UK both as an equally powerful third country, and as a member state still deserving the EU’s protection. It is neither. And so in a battle of red lines, the UK will lose. That is the most brutal lesson of all.
Well,we all know where we stand then? No longer any need for any ideological cover -- we just need to submit to superior power. I think this 'brutal lesson' might well end in increasing support for no deal
NB The author is one J Lis 'deputy director of the thinktank British Influence'. The wikipedia source says the thinktank 'was founded in 2012 to make the case for the European Union amid increasing calls for British withdrawal from the EU'
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