The New York Review of Books: ‘Nostalgia Serves No Purpose’: An Interview with Michel Barnier

Born in 1951, Michel Barnier joined the French Gaullist party, the RPR, at fifteen. Unlike most high-level French administrators and politicians, Barnier is not a product of the École Nationale d’Administration; in fact, he graduated from the École Supérieure de Commerce in Paris. He first won public recognition in France for coordinating preparations for the 1992 Winter Olympics in the Alpine town of Albertville. He went on to serve as a minister for the environment, and then for European affairs. Later, he became minister for foreign affairs, until losing his job when French voters rejected the European Union’s new Constitutional Treaty in a 2005 referendum. The shock of that result, and a similar one in the Netherlands, might have served as a cautionary tale for Prime Minister David Cameron’s government. (France later accepted a new version of the treaty agreement, after the election of President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007, by parliamentary assent.) [...]

This is the reason that the EU is so complex. It’s clearly possible to work here in Brussels with more democracy, less bureaucracy, but it will still remain complex—as it [the EU] wants to be united rather than uniform. This [compromise and negotiation] is the price we have to pay. We don’t want to become one nation or one people. There is no ambition to build a distinct and homogeneous federal state. We are twenty-eight, in a few months probably twenty-seven, with twenty-four languages. [...]

Looking at the causes of Brexit, we also find typically British reasons: the hope for a return to a powerful global Britain, nostalgia for the past—nostalgia serves no purpose in politics. In my country, too, some politicians still prefer to live in the past. But there were, also, people voting for Brexit who simply don’t want to accept rules. Some based in the City of London voted to leave, as they don’t want to accept the Union’s regulations on their trading; they want to speculate freely and the Union doesn’t allow them to do so. [...]

t’s a question of the fundamental reality of the single market, which is not a supermarket. Freedom of movement for goods, services, capital and, most importantly, freedom of movement for people are fundamental to the single market. The EU is not only an economic project; it’s also a political project. It’s also much more than a free-trade zone. The single market is a social, economic, and legal ecosystem, where, between twenty-eight countries, we have decided to live together, adopt the same standards and protection for consumers. Therefore, we cannot agree to cherry-picking.

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Politico: Michel Barnier back pushing his vision for EU’s future

The former French minister, European commissioner, and national and European parliamentarian, who has been center stage throughout the 18 months of Brexit negotiations with London, published an opinion piece outlining his priorities for the bloc in 2019.

The English-language article comes days after Barnier discussed his vision for Europe in a piece for Le Monde.

While German conservative Manfred Weber is the candidate for European Commission president of Barnier's European People's Party, the French politician's persistent speechmaking and tweeting on European topics have done nothing to quash rumors that he is interested in another EU top job after Brexit negotiations conclude. [...]

Barnier took a centrist path on migration: "Our response cannot be based on fears and myths, but nor can we ignore national debates and identities," he wrote. "In addition to consolidating the EU’s Frontex border-management system and creating common hotspots at our external borders and beyond, we must also harmonize national-level migration and asylum policies as much as possible," he added.

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Spiegel: A Series of Miscalculations Has Brought Britain to the Brink

For some it's anger at a political class that has made so many promises and kept so few of them. For others, it's anger at the nationalist tempters gambling away the country's future in a quest to reclaim past glory. There is anger at a government that no longer has the power to solve critical social problems. Anger that it's not over yet. And yes, also, self-directed anger. [...]

For non-Brits, the Brexiteers' chauvinist rhetoric may be hard to understand, but it is part of a long tradition. The Brits only hesitantly joined a united Europe in 1973. At the time, the plan's opponents had similar arguments to today's Brexiteers. Labour Party lawmaker Peter Shore later explained: "What the advocates of membership are saying is that we are finished as a country; that the long and famous story of the British nation and people has ended; that we are now so weak and powerless that we must accept terms and conditions, penalties and limitations almost as though we had suffered defeat in a war." [...]

The nostalgic nationalists told them so nonchalantly because none of them seriously expected that a majority of Brits would vote to leave the EU. It was easy to make these mistakes because their primary aim had been to exploit the referendum to win a fight within the Tory party. Ultimately, the people voted 52 to 48 percent in favor of Brexit. While the rest of the Europe unloaded its frustration with the status quo by swelling the ranks of right-wing populists, the Brits found their scapegoat in Brussels. [...]

May would later say that her stance represented what "British people want." But that wasn't true. The people were asked whether they wanted to leave the EU -- not how. Clearly, there wasn't just one way people wanted that to happen. And the more time that passed, the more it became clear that these many potential ways of exiting the EU were irreconcilable. [...]

The battle over Brexit has poisoned the United Kingdom. At some point in the not-too-distant future, it will be taught as a case study for political failure. Planning for a Brexit museum is likewise underway. Several activists have joined forces for the project, hoping to show how the United Kingdom took back its "sovereignty." Or not. Who knows, perhaps the museum will ultimately be home to a blue bus and a red bus.

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Politico: How Barnier could be EU’s Trojan horse

EU national leaders, however, have already warned that legally they could not, and would not, be bound by the process, because it strips away their discretion. And some political groups, especially the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, have lost enthusiasm for the Sptizenkandidat system, viewing it as overwhelmingly favoring the EPP, the center-right party which is widely expected to once again win the most seats in Parliament next year.

However, Barnier’s decision not to seek the EPP nomination means that the Council could potentially draft him as a capable, and popular, candidate — presuming, of course, that he leads the Brexit talks to a successful outcome — even though he did not run as a Spitzenkandidat. [...]

In the short term, Barnier’s decision stands to boost the chances of former Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb, who is widely expected to join the contest for the EPP nomination. So far, the only declared candidate is Manfred Weber, the German leader of the EPP group in Parliament, who has the backing of Angela Merkel but no prior executive experience. [...]

Barnier’s predicament also highlights what critics of the Spitzenkandidat process cite as one of the system’s biggest flaws: anyone who already has an important job, particularly sitting heads of state or government, is unlikely to give that up to campaign for the chance of winning the Commission presidency.

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Politico: Last rites for Spitzenkandidat

Since then, the power-sharing agreement has collapsed, and the heads of government on the European Council have said they will not be bound by the Spitzenkandidat process. Meanwhile, parties other than the EPP have turned against the system, recognizing that it overwhelmingly benefits the conservatives, who are once again virtually guaranteed to win the most seats in Parliament in next year’s election. [...]

Some of the strongest resistance is coming from the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), which has only the fourth-largest faction in Parliament but has made strong gains in national elections and is soon expected to hold eight seats on the European Council — the same number as the EPP. [...]

For now, Merkel has backed Weber’s candidacy, but her endorsement is largely a necessity of national allegiance, and in announcing her support she made clear that merely winning the party’s nomination would not guarantee that Weber becomes Commission president — an implicit renunciation of the Spitzenkandidat system. [...]

But unlike national parliaments, the European Parliament is co-legislator along with the European Council, and members of the Council have made clear that they are not willing to relinquish their legal authority over nominating the Commission president in favor of an unwritten process that gives Parliament overwhelming control.

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The Observer view on Theresa May’s calamitous Brexit strategy | Observer editorial

It is certainly the case that Donald Tusk, president of the council of ministers, caught Mrs May unawares with his blunt declaration that her Chequers plan was unworkable. For the past two years, Mr Tusk has played good cop to bad cop Michel Barnier, the chief EU negotiator. But while Mr Tusk is an anglophile, he is also an ardent believer in the European project, as befits a former Polish prime minister. He has been a candid friend to Mrs May, but he could not force her to listen, so in the end he mockingly cast her adrift. [...]

From the start, EU leaders insisted no cherrypicking of withdrawal terms would be allowed. But Mrs May ignored them. The complex issues raised by the Northern Ireland border were flagged up early on. But only in recent months, to the profound frustration of the Irish government, have Mrs May and her cabinet taken this question seriously – and she still lacks a solution. EU officials complain, with justice, that her inflexible negotiating stance revealed an ignorant disregard, or lack of understanding, of the basic principles upon which the EU is based, namely the single market, free movement of people and goods and a common regulatory and legal framework. [...]

Perhaps the most startling aspect of Mrs May’s performance last week was that the EU leaders’ multiple rebuffs clearly took her by surprise. Why so? They were merely reiterating positions they have maintained for the past two years or more. Does she now, finally, grasp the evidence of her own eyes and ears? Does she understand her Chequers plan, rejected at home and abroad, is doomed? And does she really still believe a no-deal outcome could be anything other than a catastrophe? Judging by Friday’s negative, aggressive Downing Street statement, she remains in denial. She has learned nothing – and has absolutely nothing new to offer. Mrs May is in a very deep hole, but she will not stop digging.

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The Observer view on why Theresa May must stop the Brexit clock

The English, it is often said, lacking in language skills, have an unfortunate habit of shouting at foreigners when travelling abroad, assuming that by raising their voices and waving their arms, their needs will eventually be understood. This approach rarely works well. It tends to annoy those on the receiving end, while failing to assist mutual comprehension. Yet this, in sum, is what the hard Tory Brexiters have been reduced to as pressure grows to avoid a national “no-deal” catastrophe when the UK quits the EU next March. [...]

May’s cabinet colleagues, fanning out across the continent like Patton’s Third Army to advance her Chequers compromise, do not appear to have fared any better. Especially embarrassing are the efforts of Jeremy Hunt, the new foreign secretary. He gravely warned puzzled Europeans last week that Britain was heading for “no-deal by accident” by pushing itself off a cliff. The UK would not “blink first”, he added. Perhaps Hunt thinks he is Clint Eastwood. It matters not. On Brexit, this government has its eyes tight shut. It is blind to the consequences – and the waiting chasm. Blinking does not come into it. [...]

“The UK knows well the benefits of the single market. It has contributed to shaping our rules over the last 45 years. And yet some UK proposals would undermine our single market, which is one of the EU’s biggest achievements. The UK wants to keep free movement of goods between us, but not of people and services. And it proposes to apply EU customs rules without being part of the EU’s legal order. The UK wants to take back sovereignty and control of its own laws, which we respect, but it cannot ask the EU to lose control of its borders and laws,” Barnier wrote.

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Politico: EU shoots down Theresa May’s customs plan

“The EU cannot — and the EU will not — delegate the application of its customs policy and rules, VAT and excise duty collection, to a non-member who would not be subject to the EU’s governance structures,” Barnier said. [...]

While Barnier and Raab reiterated their hope of completing a withdrawal treaty by October, they also said negotiators would not meet again until mid-August — a schedule that calls into question their repeated statements that talks need to be intensified and infused with new energy. Meanwhile, there has been a flurry of increased activity in Brussels and London to prepare for the possibility of a so-called “no-deal” scenario under which the U.K. would crash out of the EU on March 29, 2019 without a formal treaty. [...]

Barnier restated the EU27’s long-declared and brightest red lines: the single market and the four freedoms, including the freedom of movement of workers, are indivisible and non-negotiable. But on Thursday he was more explicit in saying that the EU would not cede “control of our money, law and borders” to the U.K. if it is not bound to the bloc.  [...]

“President Juncker’s visit to Washington yesterday shows the importance of our Common Commercial Policy,” Barnier said. “It shows that we are stronger together.” Juncker’s deal with Trump also illustrated how firmly the EU stays committed to its core principles even in the toughest of negotiations.

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The New Yorker: Theresa May’s Impossible Choice

As a result, it is hard to sense what May is thinking or to predict what she will do next. “No one knows where they are at any point in time when they are working for Theresa May,” one of her former staffers said. May rejects the inevitable comparisons to Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first female Prime Minister, because Thatcher had an agenda that was overtly ideological. May, unlike Thatcher, would not enjoy being photographed driving a tank. Her definition of politics is “doing something, not being someone.” People say that she would have made a fine lawyer or judge. But she happens to be the leader of the United Kingdom—a divided nation of sixty-five million people, Europe’s second-largest economy, and America’s closest ally—as it chooses how it wants to proceed in the world. This summer, that choice, which is frankly overwhelming, came to rest with May. Britain waited and watched. May made her call, and then her government more or less exploded. And that was before Donald Trump showed up. [...]

Since the referendum, the central task in British politics has been to try to square two conflicting demands: to respect the democratic impulse of Brexit while limiting the economic consequences. It is a version of the challenge posed by populist anger everywhere. How far should governments go in tearing up systems that people say they dislike—the alienating structures of global capitalism and multilateral government—when the alternatives risk making populations poorer, and therefore presumably more furious than before? [...]

And that’s Brexit, in a way. “Every single element in this is connected,” the senior official told me. The mightiest riddles, such as the customs union, have dominated the political conversation, but the truth is that it’s nitty-gritty all the way down. During its forty-five years in the E.U., Britain has imported around nineteen thousand European laws and regulations. The fabric of the acquis, as the legal framework is known, is the fabric of political life. E.U. articles and directives govern everything from equal pay for men and women to the international trade of the hairy-vetch seed. Two days before I went to Dover, a fourteen-page update from the Brexit negotiations included progress on the status of staff employed on British military bases in Cyprus, the ownership of fissile nuclear materials, and the future administration of sales taxes. One of the reasons that people voted to leave the E.U. is its totalizing nature, and the sense that it had penetrated too far into British life. But the years of membership, the weaving of the acquis, have constructed a reality that is hard to change—and even harder to imagine a life outside.  [...]

One of the central difficulties of coming to an agreement is the different way that the two sides imagine politics. The Lisbon Treaty, which serves as the E.U.’s constitution, is two hundred and seventy-one pages long; the U.K. has no such thing. In Westminster, no situation is completely unfixable; the rules can be made to bend. For this reason, Brexiteers have always believed that Britain’s economic and military importance to the E.U. would prompt it—or, rather, its German car manufacturers, or its Dutch oil refiners—to offer the nation a singularly advantageous deal. (May often talks about a “bespoke” Brexit.) But, since the vote in 2016, the E.U. has maintained that Britain can choose only from a menu of trading relationships that already exist. “I explained that to May,” Verhofstadt said. “I said, You have a problem, you try to solve it. We on the Continent are different. We need first a concept. If we have a concept, then we are going to try and put every problem that we have inside that concept.”

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Politico: Barnier dismantles UK’s Brexit white paper

Barnier went to great lengths to avoid saying that the white paper is a nonstarter — a position that EU officials and diplomats have been reluctant to voice aloud for fear of creating further chaos in Britain or even helping topple May’s government. But Barnier’s reiteration of the EU’s commitment to the single market, and the indivisibility of its four freedoms — notably the freedom of movement for workers — effectively rejects the core elements of May’s plan. [...]

Barnier then punched a hole in Britain’s proposal for regulatory alignment only on certain manufactured goods. “The U.K. said it was ready to align with Union standards for goods but only for those controlled at the borders — so it would not be aligned with our agrifood standards likes GMOs, pesticides, since there is no control over whether or not these rules are respected,” Barnier said. [...]

However, Barnier was unable to explain why the backstop issue had to be solved before the conclusion of the formal withdrawal agreement, which currently provides for a 21-month transition period in which nothing would change on the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Barnier insisted that the backstop is needed “now” and noted that May has twice previously agreed that a backstop for Ireland is necessary. In a speech Friday in Belfast, May said the EU’s own version of the backstop is unworkable and potentially violates the Good Friday Agreement, and called for Brussels to renegotiate it.

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The Guardian: EU negotiator Michel Barnier says 80% of Brexit deal is agreed

Speaking in New York on Tuesday, Michel Barnier said: “After 12 months of negotiations we have agreed on 80% of the negotiations.” He added that he was determined to negotiate a deal on the remaining 20%.

The declaration that four-fifths of the deal is done is a significant change of tone from the EU after months of protests that it could not negotiate because the UK had not put its own proposals on the table. [...]

Barnier said he had never been shown how Brexit provided added value when the world faced challenges from terrorism and climate change to migration, poverty and financial instability. [...]

He said the detailed UK proposals would be assessed in the light of the EU’s clear position on the indivisible four freedoms of movement of people, goods, services and capital. The EU is ready to start negotiating on free trade and customs agreements with the UK, he said.  

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Politico: Brussels sheds no tears for Davis and Johnson

But neither of them has played a prominent role in negotiations over the U.K.’s departure from the European Union next March. The EU’s main interlocutor has long been Oliver Robbins, May’s top Europe advisor (poached from Davis’ Department for Exiting the EU late last year). The bloc’s top Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, made exactly that point at an EU summit late last month. [...]

For Brussels and the EU27 nations, what Britain puts on the negotiating table is far more important than who sits at it. On that score, May’s latest customs and trading proposal was greeted with the same muted shrug as the resignations. [...]

Calling the single market “the heart of the European project,” Barnier said in a speech at the Institute of International and European Affairs think tank: “There will be no damage to it.” He added, “There will be no unraveling of what we’ve achieved.”

For Brussels, May’s push at Chequers for a softer Brexit amounted to an important but still insufficient step toward the U.K.’s eventual acceptance of EU negotiating proposals that have not changed in more than a year. And it was not immediately clear that further resignations, or even the collapse of May’s government, would change anything.

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DW English: Nicola Sturgeon: UK lacks realism in Brexit negotiations

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon discussed the ongoing Brexit negotiations between the UK and the EU during an interview with DW. She said the Tories' accusations that the SNP was "weaponizing" Brexit to undermine negotiations were "nonsense."

Independent: I work in Brussels alongside the EU Brexit negotiators and I find it incredible how little the UK government understands

Everyone I meet, wherever I am these days, asks me the same thing: “What are the Brits doing?” Even Brits ask me what we’re doing. And I wish I knew what we were doing, I really do. The trouble is that all we’ve received from the British government in the last year and a half has been overused slogans, half-baked threats and undercooked plans. Just one thing has been resoundingly clear from the government: Brexit means Brexit. [...]

As a third country, it has been confirmed by EU negotiator Michel Barnier that the UK will not be in the EU’s crime-fighting intelligence agency Europol or the EU’s satellite project Galileo. It’s not a matter of money – no amount of cash is going to allow Britain to continue being in Europol or Galileo. It’s about trust.

Nick Gutteridge, a journalist in Brussels, recently tweeted a comment from an unnamed EU official who summarised the third country conundrum perfectly. I will quote the entire thing because it is really quite brilliant: “There is not an issue of general distrust towards the UK. That’s not the issue, but the EU is a rules-based system. Why is that? It’s because 28 member states do not trust each other spontaneously; they trust each other because they work on the basis of agreed common rules with common enforcement, common supervision and under a European court that will make sure they all apply the same rules in the same manner. They trust each other because there are remedies available. If you don’t have these remedies, you’re a third country.”

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VICE News: Michel Barnier Is Negotiating Brexit For The 500 Million EU Citizens That Remain (HBO)

The EU AND UK will soon launch the latest round of Brexit talks next week, and one man will be speaking for the 27 remaining countries: Michel Barnier.

The future rights of 500 million citizens and and the world’s most powerful trading bloc are riding on the deal his team brokers with the UK.

Barnier has a reputation as a hardliner, which stems primarily from the strong banking reforms he introduced as the EU internal market commission between 2010 and 2014. And his opponents have seized on that reputation to paint him as a villain in current Brexit talks.

With Brexit’s deadline looming, VICE News sat down with Barnier to discuss the the status of the world’s largest divorce proceedings.

“Right now, I have no certainty,” Barnier tells VICE News. "I can see the difficulty and the intensity of this debate. We’re waiting for the British to have a clear position and choices."

Bloomberg: Theresa the Delayer: May's Secret to Surviving in Brexit Britain

The minister’s colleague was more sanguine. May has survived so long by avoiding confrontation and would continue by finding a compromise that enables both sides to declare victory.

At least part of May’s strategy appears to be more procrastination: An inner cabinet meeting was canceled Thursday, and another scheduled on Tuesday is now uncertain. Meanwhile, lawmakers wonder when they’ll get the chance to vote on key pieces of Brexit legislation. Two have been on pause since February, and May has now put her flagship EU withdrawal bill on ice. [...]

Debates in the House of Commons on May’s Brexit laws, when they come, are likely to expose her predicament even further -- she’s stuck between a likely majority for a customs union, and the more than 60 lawmakers in her Conservative Party threatening to derail her government if she goes for one. [...]

Delaying to apply pressure would anger her lawmakers, but this is where May’s capacity for long-suffering helps. With the Conservatives divided on Brexit, neither wing of the party is keen to remove her in case they like her replacement even less. Surrounded by critics and undermined by her Cabinet, May stays for as long as she can stand it.

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Politico: Barnier can’t succeed Juncker if French don’t agree

The pro-European former foreign minister and two-term commissioner belongs to the powerful European People’s Party parliamentary group. He narrowly lost out to Jean-Claude Juncker for its nomination in 2014. This time around, he has a job championing Europe that includes a campaign-style tour of the 27 countries that will choose the next Commission chief. It’s little wonder he’s been widely considered a front-runner for the position when it comes up for grabs in 2019. [...]

To secure the EPP’s nomination, Barnier needs to run as the choice of his French conservative party back home, which is unlikely to happen. And his ascent to the presidency would be nearly impossible without the support of French President Emmanuel Macron. And that’s less than a sure bet. [...]

When asked about his 2019 plans, Barnier says he’s focused on Brexit, but his ambition is an open secret in Brussels. He has the credentials for the job, with two stints in Brussels and four stints as a French Cabinet member. He is lauded throughout Europe for his his so-far successful negotiating tactics and his talent at keeping the EU27 united throughout the Brexit talks. And yet, it will take more than encouragements from Brussels and the rest of the bloc to secure the Commission presidency. [...]

Laurent Wauquiez, the arch-conservative head of Barnier’s French party, Les Républicains, is the deadliest difficulty. The youthful leader of the former moderately conservative party has steered it on a hard-right course, with little patience for anything that looks like European integration. In a 2014 book titled “Europe: Everything must change,” Wauquiez even suggests the EU go back to its six original founding members.

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The Spectator: Britain has lost control of the Brexit talks

Perhaps most worryingly, the idea that Northern Ireland could remain permanently in the customs union — which Theresa May once said ‘no British prime minister could ever concede’ — remains on the table. This brings about the prospect of an internal border within the UK in the Irish Sea — a situation which ministers know will prove unacceptable to a very large proportion of Northern Irish residents, not least among them the DUP, on whose votes the government relies for support. If the government does fall on a confidence vote before the projected date of the next election, in 2022, its demise may well be traceable to this week. [...]

Michel Barnier has been criticised for his obstinacy and his lack of imagination in solving issues such as the Irish border. It is true that his constant stonewalling of suggestions put forward by Britain shows the EU in bad light and is a reminder of the freedoms we might enjoy outside the bloc. His tone has been needlessly caustic, and he has seemed to take the Brexit talks as an audition for succeeding Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European Commission. But his stubbornness is working: putting Britain on the back foot, forever struggling to defend itself. The government’s failure to come up with proposals has left a vacuum in which the EU is suggesting them for us. [...]

Also, the member states’ power over the European Commission is waning. In Britain, the EU is often thought about as a single entity — and one that in the end will do whatever Germany says. But Angela Merkel is struggling to exert control over her own government, let alone the continent. Juncker and Barnier see an EU that does not take its orders from member states, but draws (or claims to draw) its own democratic legitimacy from the European Parliament. The EU member states have an interest in a good deal with Britain. But the European Commission — the apparatus in Brussels — has an interest in Britain being seen to be worse off after leaving the EU. The Commission would also receive 80 per cent of the tariff revenue from UK exports to the EU, making ‘no deal’ more appealing to Brussels than to member states.

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Politico: May’s divorce deal doesn’t add up

It could also convince some banks and companies to put on hold plans to relocate jobs and production to Continental Europe in the next few months, while the two sides discuss a transition period and the outlines of a future trade relationship. London was desperate to start that second phase of talks before businesses voted with their feet and left the U.K. [...]

How do you keep regulations aligned between the United Kingdom and the EU to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, as Theresa May has promised, while simultaneously insisting that Britain will leave the single market and the customs union and preserving the constitutional and economic integrity of the U.K? [...]

And there’s nothing in the agreement that indicates it has been answered. EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier appeared to acknowledge that five days of redrafting had merely glossed over the problem rather than truly resolving it. “No one should underestimate the difficulties we will face on this issue,” he said. “Nobody.”

The only way to square the circle would be for the U.K. to continue indefinitely observing EU rules, norms and standards like Norway — not just during a transition period but as part of a future trade agreement, without becoming a formal member of the European Economic Area.

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The Guardian: Brexiters nowhere to be seen as UK raises white flag over EU divorce bill

Faced with such an ultimatum, Charles Grant, the director of the Centre for European Reform, said he believed Britain had little realistic choice but to cave in on money, citizens’ rights and the Irish border if it wanted to get to phase two talks on trade. “It is dressed up as a negotiation, but it’s really been a story of the British taking time to realise that they have got to accept what the EU demands of them,” he said. “The EU is intelligent enough not to pursue this in a humiliating way, but the truth is that we have to accept.” [...]

Meanwhile, the prime minister prepared the ground among her Brexit hardliners in government, first at a subcommittee of the cabinet last week and then a meeting of the full cabinet on Monday. If the final loose ends can be tied up by Robbins and Weyand on Ireland and the role of the European court of justice (ECJ) in protecting citizens’ rights, May is expected to present Britain’s final offer in person to the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, next Monday. [...]

“The truth is if you want to join, you join on their terms. You can quibble about the details, but the broad lines are decided by the EU and dressed up as a negotiation. Similarly, when you leave the EU, once you declare your red lines, the ECJ and free movement being two important ones, then the range of opportunities for the future relationship are very limited.”

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