Sometimes it's hard to exaggerate the sheer bear-banging stupidity of some hard line Brexiteers. A Tory donor Michael Farmer, someone I happily confess to never having heard of, is quoted in this article in The Observer saying:
"It is worth recalling the paltry offer that Cameron came back with from Europe at the beginning of last year, which was an important factor in persuading people to vote out. If another unsatisfactory and unfavourable deal is done with the EU negotiators, the exasperating and divisive issue of Europe will not go away but smoulder on for another generation"
He seems oblivious to reason and reality. Cameron got what Mr Farmer calls a "paltry deal" after threatening that he could lose a referendum. Having lost it, Mr Farmer now thinks we should threaten to destroy ourselves (walk away he calls it) unless we get a satisfactory and favourable deal. This is really not going to cut any ice in Europe.
Leaving without a deal will damage the EU, there is no doubt about that, but the EU have already assessed the impact on us would be ten times greater. The EU will feel a slight tremor but we will suffer an earthquake way up the Richter scale. They are growing faster and would recover quicker.
And according to The Observer in the same article:
In submissions to a parliamentary inquiry seen by the Observer, retailers, the City, universities, the freight industry, overseas investors and food suppliers all sound the alarm over the consequences of crashing out.
In other words the nation's wealth creators are telling the government and anybody who will listen that leaving without a deal would be a catastrophe. Charles Moore, the crank former editor of The Telegraph writes a similar piece for The Spectator (HERE) in which he says Mrs May is repeating the same mistakes as Cameron in their dealings with the EU. He says:
Theresa May’s style of negotiating with the European Union is coming spookily to resemble David Cameron’s. She is in the mindset where the important thing is to get a deal, rather than working out what sort of a deal is worth getting.
I am not even sure what this means - which is not unusual for Mr Moore who often writes on the EU in the style of a raving nutter. Stuck in a Victorian mindset, where an omnipotent Britannia is still exploiting and impoverishing the masses of empire at home and abroad in order to enrich already wealthy men, he cannot see that we have a weak hand. He doesn't seem to understand that no deal would be catastrophic for this country and any PM would find themselves in the same position. It will be a choice of a poor deal - worse than the one we have now - or no deal.
The words of former European Commission secretary-general Catherine Day (HERE) are interesting in this context. She has said that the UK would "eventually wake up to the fact that they have way less influence in the world, and they will hate that".
Theresa May’s style of negotiating with the European Union is coming spookily to resemble David Cameron’s. She is in the mindset where the important thing is to get a deal, rather than working out what sort of a deal is worth getting.
I am not even sure what this means - which is not unusual for Mr Moore who often writes on the EU in the style of a raving nutter. Stuck in a Victorian mindset, where an omnipotent Britannia is still exploiting and impoverishing the masses of empire at home and abroad in order to enrich already wealthy men, he cannot see that we have a weak hand. He doesn't seem to understand that no deal would be catastrophic for this country and any PM would find themselves in the same position. It will be a choice of a poor deal - worse than the one we have now - or no deal.
The words of former European Commission secretary-general Catherine Day (HERE) are interesting in this context. She has said that the UK would "eventually wake up to the fact that they have way less influence in the world, and they will hate that".
Day thinks that the British "haven't yet realised that the power play has changed completely, and that it will be the EU that sets the terms of their departure". In her view, "If that doesn’t happen, there will be no deal".
EU Members are not overly concerned about the fate of the UK. Ms Day adds that Brexit would lift a "restraint" that it has placed on the Union. "I detect a new confidence in the EU", she goes on. "A feeling that the UK has been a restraint on moving forward for a long time, and that has now been lifted. Sovereignty in a globalised world is an illusion. We only have clout if we work together".
It is also amazing to me that Mr Farmer thinks the "divisive" European issue will go away regardless of whether or not we get a deal. Remainers are just as passionate about membership of the EU as leavers are about being isolated. The difference is that, unlike leavers, we did not feel we had to lie about the EU for thirty years in order to get our way. It will continue to be a divisive issue until Brexit is shown to be the catastrophe that it will surely be. Leaving without a deal would reveal it quickest of all. Bring it on.
