As we know, the EU made it abundantly clear they will not start discussing a trade deal until "sufficient progress" is deemed to have been made on the withdrawal agreement including the so called Brexit bill. David Davis said this would be the row of the summer but we capitulated on the order of the negotiations with barely a whimper. We are now apparently on the verge of another spectacular climb down on the bill, with an offer to pay £36 billion. The Telegraph are reporting it this morning (HERE) as if we are negotiating from a position of strength instead of rattling a begging bowl. They say we are ready to pay - but only if the EU talks trade!
So much for the EU whistling for the money as the fool Johnson claimed. It is like loudly refusing to pay a penalty charge to have your car released from a clamp and then grudgingly handing over the money - but only on condition your car is released. If you did this you would look like a fool. This is exactly what the government now looks like.
The EU will not be impressed with this offer - if indeed this is what it is since it is not an official announcement - because they want us to set out our position on how the bill is calculated with a detailed paper. If we simply make an offer out of the blue to pay a fixed sum it will seem as if we are haggling over the price of a carpet in a Turkish bazaar.
The EU must be alternating between despair and anger, when they are not laughing at us.
How this is going to go down with die hard Brexiteers is not difficult to imagine. They will be up in arms about it.
Update: Well we didn't have to wait long. The Huffington Post (HERE) has comments from some Brexiteers and they are indeed very unhappy:
Peter Bone: “One of the prime reasons the UK voted to leave the EU was to stop sending them billions of pounds per year, so it would be totally bizarre to give the EU any money, let alone £36 billion, given also that over the years that we have been in the EU or its predecessor we have given them, net, over £200 billion. So if there was going to be any transfer of money then it should be from the EU to the UK.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg: “There is no logic to this figure, legally we owe nothing.”
John Redwood: “Ministers would be quite wrong to be talking about any figures, we don’t owe them any money. It would be silly to be offering something when the EU is still not very willing to talk and is not coming up with anything constructive on its own side. The EU’s tactic is very clear. It’s divide and rule to try and get Britain negotiating with herself.”
Update: Well we didn't have to wait long. The Huffington Post (HERE) has comments from some Brexiteers and they are indeed very unhappy:
Peter Bone: “One of the prime reasons the UK voted to leave the EU was to stop sending them billions of pounds per year, so it would be totally bizarre to give the EU any money, let alone £36 billion, given also that over the years that we have been in the EU or its predecessor we have given them, net, over £200 billion. So if there was going to be any transfer of money then it should be from the EU to the UK.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg: “There is no logic to this figure, legally we owe nothing.”
John Redwood: “Ministers would be quite wrong to be talking about any figures, we don’t owe them any money. It would be silly to be offering something when the EU is still not very willing to talk and is not coming up with anything constructive on its own side. The EU’s tactic is very clear. It’s divide and rule to try and get Britain negotiating with herself.”
They would all prefer to see us walk out, pay nothing, conclude no withdrawal agreement or free trade deal and destroy manufacturing jobs and the economy rather than hand over money we committed to while we were members of the EU, amounting to about 0.2% of our GDP. They really are that stupid.
