This blogpost was written on May 27th 2018.
This week the Brexit negotiations resumed in Brussels with the UK presenting a series of papers, or rather PowerPoints, on issues ranging from future economic relationships between the two sides, through security cooperation to data protection and data flows.
On data protection, an issue with which we are very familiar, the UK’s pitch can best be summed up as:
Can we all pretend, and act, as if the UK has not left the EU?
Can we have exactly the same arrangement on data flows as we have now?
After Brexit, we won’t really be a third country, you know, not really, so can our data protection person still turn up at meetings of the European Data Protection Board?
But, of course, we will be outside the jurisdiction of the European Court and so we will need our own procedures to resolve disputes.
The only surprise is that the presentation did not end with that much used advert punchline: “…because we’re worth it”.
Between 1946 and 1951, BBC radio aired a popular thriller, Dick Barton – Special Agent. The serial followed the adventures of ex-Commando Captain Richard Barton who, with his mates Jock Anderson and Snowy White, solved all sorts of crimes, escaped from dangerous situations, and saved Britain from disaster time and again.
You can only understand Brexit if you understand that Brexit is not a rational economic calculation but is instead an ideology.
Having your chief negotiator on top of their brief should be a given. Knowing all relevant facts and figures is usually helpful, as is being familiar with the procedures that are to be followed.
Today, Friday, March 23, at the time of writing, the European Council of the heads of government of the (remaining) 27 Member States are expected to sign off, politically, on the details of the transition arrangement that the UK government had requested be put in place after it leaves the EU on March 29th, 2019.
In the Roman republic in the 2nd century BCE prior to the Third Punic War against Carthage, the Roman senator Cato the Elder is said to have concluded all of his speeches, no matter what the topic, with the words “Carthage must be destroyed”.
