Phillip Hammond, a serious politician, risks making himself a figure of ridicule by suggesting in a speech in Germany that the EU needs to start coming up with ideas for what they want out of the future partnership (it takes two to tango, HERE). This is a bit like telling your partner you want to separate, then asking them what they would like out of the future relationship. The EU are no doubt mystified, as the partner would be.
The EU will say they would like the UK to remain a member of the EU. We reply that we can't. What happens then? The EU ask what we want - and we are back to square one!
There will be those in Europe who will tell Hammond it was the UK that voted to leave the EU, so we should get on with it and say clearly what we want. After eighteen months it is surely time we had a firm, clear position based on reality and put all the cake and eat it stuff behind us. Brexit is going to be painful and we need to brace ourselves for it rather then denying it will hurt at all.
This is a peculiarly British approach. Instead of hoping for the best and planning for the worst, we are planning for the best and denying the worst will ever come about. There is no land being purchased in Dover or anywhere else to accommodate new customs facilities, no concrete being poured, no publicly announced plans, nothing. Just a vague belief that we will get a "good" deal, one that won't involve any unpleasant compromises or adjustments.
Also, the EU Referendum blog, talking about the Hammond/Davis visit to Germany, ridiculed them for saying the EU shouldn't erect new barriers to trade. It was pointed out that the EU are not going to erect any new barriers. We have voluntarily put ourselves the wrong side of the existing barriers. These are the barriers we helped to construct while we were a member. It makes us look faintly pathetic now to suggest our erstwhile partners are erecting new ones. To them the barriers look exactly as they did before.
In effect, we are asking them to remove existing barriers as a special case for us, the member that just flounced out. Will they heed our call? No.
