Tag: Article 49

Article 50, Backstop, Brexit, British Government, Theresa May

. #Brexit and the Dark Art of Bullshit

Posted on by BEERG Brexit Blog
Written on Sat., Jan 26th 2019
this-week-2
Andrew Neil with James Delingpole on BBC1’s This Week

Negotiations can be full of sound and fury for the most part signifying nothing. This week has been one of those weeks where UK politicians and commentators sought to play the “gotcha” game. Remarks by EU spokespersons and Irish politicians on the backstop and what would happen with regard to the Irish border in the event of “no deal” seemed contradictory. “Gotcha – the Irish border issue was a hoax all the time designed to keep the UK trapped in the EU”.

While I can’t remember just how many labour negotiations I have been involved in over the past forty plus years, I can say with certainty that in every one of them someone or other, at some time or other, said something out of place that had to be corrected.

Negotiations are conducted by human beings. They are not run by algorithms. Human beings can make mistakes. But when verbal mistakes are made, or are alleged to have been made, it does not change the underlying balance of forces which is what ultimately determines the outcome of any negotiation.

By the way, algorithms are not infallible either. Garbage in, garbage out. Anyone who has ever spent any time on Twitter knows just how much garbage there is going in.

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Article 50, Brexit, British Government, Michel Barnier, Northern Ireland

Now Impossible to See How a UK/EU Deal on #Brexit is Doable

Posted on by BEERG Brexit Blog

 This blogpost was written on Tuesday Oct 23rd, 2018

commons

After Theresa May’s statement yesterday to the House of Commons, it seems more likely than ever that we are heading for a no-deal Brexit. Fast.

May effectively repudiated Article 49, the so-called “Irish backstop”, in last December’s Joint Report from EU and UK negotiators to Europe’s political leaders. It was this report which allowed the Brexit talks to move on. The EU will not accept the UK reneging on a clear undertaking, especially as the UK is trying to leverage talks on the Irish backstop to force the pace on its future economic relationship with the EU. (For a full history of the backstop see Tony Connelly here).

Nothing destroys a negotiation more quickly than when one of the parties is seen by the other as acting in bad faith. Renege on a commitment and all trust is gone. May with her Commons statement might have seen off a simmering rebellion in the Tory party over her leadership, but at the cost of breaking faith with the EU.

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