I confess I haven't yet watched the BBC programme Brexit: Behind closed doors. You may have already seen it. I haven't - yet but we'll get it on catch-up in the next few days. It's one of those fly on the wall documentaries where the participants in Brussels were filmed during the negotiations. Various clips have appeared in the media. I haven't see anything that surprised me but Brexit Central have an article by someone who has taken offence from EU negotiators criticism of our side (HERE).
The piece is by Chris Woods who is Executive Chairman of a company called NuCana BioMed, an outfit he founded and which was taken public recently on the US NASDAQ exchange. Brexit Central described him as a serial entrepreneur - as they so often do with businessmen who write for them. He is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Wales Trinity St Davids and was apparently recently elected a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales for his contribution to medicine.
Mr Wood is in high dudgeon about the programme:
"This was not a fictional reconstruction of events but an actual fly-on-the-wall account of real conversations and factual behind-the-scenes discussions between the EU negotiators. We are left in no doubt about their determination, from the very beginning, to delay the process as long as possible and thwart any attempt at a successful negotiation for the UK. They mock our negotiating team and ridicule the people of this country".
One wonders if Mr Wood has been following things if he really believes it is the EU that has been trying to delay Brexit.
"... following a meeting at No. 10 in the early stages of the process, Guy Verhofstadt speaks openly in the back of a cab: 'They’re going nowhere. They are stuck.' They knew from the beginning that all they had to do was exploit the obvious differences that existed at Westminster, to divide and conquer, and the Brexit train could be derailed".
Far from being critical, Verhofstadt's statement now looks like prescience. He is surely absolutely right - and we are still going nowhere. Wood is shocked that anyone should treat us with derision:
"What surprises me [Wood] is that the programme was shown at all, and at this crucial time. This was not a revelation of secret material that had come to light five years after Brexit, it was a frank and open declaration of exactly what the EU negotiators think of us now. There is no attempt to hide the disdain they have for our negotiators or our politicians – perhaps because they were unaware that they were being filmed. And they have the nerve to flaunt their views on national television".
He appears to think Guy Verhofstadt wasn't aware there was a BBC film crew in his office, which is quite possible of course - crikey, he once had the entire cast of Ben Hur in his office but didn't realise it - but anyway, why Mr Wood takes offence is not clear to me because I think the EU negotiators are only saying what almost everybody in this county and probably the world thinks of us - as we know from a recent poll sure only 8% in the UK believe the government is handling Brexit well. You would have to be incredibly naive and stupid to believe the EU haven't been saying much worse in private for the last few years.
For him it's a case of we in this country can believe our negotiators and politicians are absolutely useless but Johnny foreigner must regard them as tough, clear thinking and purposeful with a unified, logical mandate to make sure we get the strategic objectives we have set ourselves.
As we all know, the truth is the opposite. The EU are all of these things while we continue to argue about what it is we want and run around aimlessly with as much chance of getting a successful outcome as headless chickens.
I decided to have a look at Mr Wood's company since on Brexit Central they are so often not quite what they appear. It is actually NuCana, having changed its name in 201, although he doesn't seem to realise it. They work in pharmaceutical research into cancer and are obviously involved in desirable work but I note from their latest accounts (HERE) the company made a loss of £23 million in 2017, following a £6 million loss in 2016. It is carrying an accumulated loss of £45 million. Somebody must have confidence in their future because it's a going concern and the losses are backed by some US venture capitalists - for the moment anyway. However, to describe Mr Wood as a serial entrepreneur is slightly misleading.
If losing money at that rate was entrepreneurial the bankruptcy courts would be full of 'entrepreneurs'.
Brexit Central are scraping the barrel again. That they should regard his opinion on Brexit as worth anything at all is perhaps a measure of how far down the food chain they have to go to find someone who thinks the EU are devious, bumbling incompetent idiots and we are sharp, well-prepared, resolute and determined visionaries.
He ends, "Every MP who is trying to block Brexit should read these words, watch this programme and realise who, and what, it is they are determined to keep us shackled to".
The EU have been desperately trying to unfasten the 'shackles' for two years or more. Sometimes it seems Britain is suffering from a national bout of Stockholm syndrome. We have been 'held hostage' for 45 years but can't actually bring ourselves to leave when release look imminent.
