Why are we still gambling with the EU on Brexit?

Dicey games for Boris in the Last Chance Brexit Saloon

Brexit Facts4EU.Org Sunday editorial looking at Boris’s odds in the EU’s casino

Readers will be aware from news reports yesterday that the vaunted telephone call between the Prime Minister and the President of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, failed to change a thing. The two sides are still a long way apart, despite having had four-and-a-half years to sort out the arrangements for the UK’s departure from the European Union.

Has Brexit really come down to the 2.8% chance of throwing a double-six?

Last night a UK Government source said:

“This is the final throw of the dice. There is a fair deal to be done that works for both sides but
this will only happen if the EU is willing to respect the fundamental principles of sovereignty and control.”

Most of the media picked up on the soundbite of “the final throw of the dice” without questioning that this phrase suggests the last move in a 'dicey' game of chance. We believe that a great many voters would have hoped that the terms of the UK’s final exit from the EU would have involved rather more deliberation and certainty.

This is still about ‘fundamental principles’, not the details of cod quotas

The second question for the Prime Minister is this:

If the EU is still failing “to respect the fundamental principles of sovereignty and control,”
then how is it remotely possible that “There is a fair deal to be done”?

If the EU hasn’t understood the basic premise of Brexit in four-and-a-half years, what chance is there of it suddenly seeing the light in the final hours left before the EU Summit on Thursday? For “a fair deal to be done”, the EU would have to make a complete volte-face and then alter almost every aspect and detail of its unreasonable demands. This would have to happen on everything from cod quotas to complex ‘rules of origin’ percentages to the complete removal of the ECJ from any arbitration role in UK life. And a hundred other major issues on top.

In the words of the old song, “That ain’t going to happen”. This is not like trying to throw a double-six when the dice are loaded to land on ones, it’s more like trying to throw a double-six when the EU supplied the dice and finding that each face only contains a single black dot.

So what is going to happen tomorrow?

Tomorrow (Monday) evening, the Prime Minister is due to speak to the EU Commission President again, to review the state of play after the two sets of negotiators have spent a further two days talking. Quite what the point was of sending poor Lord Frost back to Brussels when the EU’s negotiating mandate hasn’t changed – and indeed has hardened thanks to the French and a few other countries – is beyond our understanding.

In essence there are two broad schools of thought amongst the community of major Brexit organisations. One school believes that the Prime Minister and his team will not compromise on sovereignty and that they have played a waiting game to force the EU into declaring an untenable position from which the UK can then walk away. This school argues that Mr Johnson must be seen to have ‘gone the extra mile’.

The second school of thought amongst Brexit organisations comes from a lack of trust in the Prime Minister. They believe that the moves for some time have been ‘choreographed’ and that a fudged deal will miraculously be announced this week, with a resounding “I said we’d get Brexit done and we have! We stood firm and against all the odds we’ve won a marvellous victory for the country!”

Observations

Where will Brexit Facts4EU.Org stand?

We will continue to maintain our independent stance and will review the outcomes next week in a dispassionate and factual manner. Our first question will always be:

“Does this outcome deliver a fully free, fully independent, and fully sovereign United Kingdom?”

Please do let us know your thoughts, using our comment facility below.

We hope to have your continued support and readership, during the critical days which follow. In the meantime, please help to keep our essential work going by making a donation today. As a result of Covid the level of donations we have been receiving is well below that which we need to survive. Quick, secure and confidential donation links are below, and you will receive a warm and friendly ‘thank you’ email from a member of our team.

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Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Sun 06 Dec 2020

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Reader Comments 31

21. Jonathan Harrison , Monday, December 07, 2020, 06:54:

Boris we must have no deal if nothing agreed by Tuesday, personally everything we have seen from EU over the last 4 years they have no intentions of letting U.K. have full sovereignty

22. Soon 2 Be Expat , Monday, December 07, 2020, 08:15:

Brexit, in it's entirety is a gamble, against the house - all in! If you can keep your penny while everyone else is losing theirs, why, you have to be a Tory. This is more than just pitch & toss. It's people's lives. I won't keep playing with addicted gamblers who never lose anything personally. It's no wonder modern politics resembles the stock market's "drunken sailor".
A quick reminder, so you'll not conveniently forget - we all knew it would come to this, even without your admittance. Brexiteers have heard all this. Yet, you just keep "raising" with chips from the future. This is the part where the statistician's term - "Gambler's Ruin" takes on a very relevant meaning. To the rest of us, this feels like déjà vu, while you are still surprised, shocked even. This must be what living with a gambling addict feels like.

23. AJ , Monday, December 07, 2020, 14:39:

The reason we're still negotiating with the EU is that reality has collided with the no deal rhetoric. Despite the emotions involved, no UK government is ever going to voluntarily incinerate its own economy, nor is the EU going to willingly damage itself (albeit to a much lesser extent).

24. William Davison , Monday, December 07, 2020, 15:04:

I wouldn't trust Boris Johnson as far as I could throw him. He came to Northern Ireland and promised there would be no border down the Irish Sea, no tariffs, or restrictions on trade, either east-west, or vice versa. We all know how that turned out. In his obsession with getting a deal done before the end of a calendar year he signed up to all of the above and those erstwhile friends of The Union, the E.R.G., trooped through the lobby behind him, no matter that they were conniving in the breaking of the Good Friday Agreement (enshrined in international law), turning N.I. into an E.U. protectorate and turning myself and everyone else in N.I. into second class citizens. If he could sign up to that, he could sign up to anything. In Boris's case expediency will always trump integrity.

25. Michael Burnhill , Monday, December 07, 2020, 15:29:

Nothing the EU is demanding is possible if we are to be a sovereign country running its own affairs. So yes why are we trying to achieve the impossible when WTO rules will serve our purpose well until the EU comes to its senses. The trouble is Boris won't walk away to find out. He is a weak willed man not up to the job.

26. Bob , Monday, December 07, 2020, 15:38:

Who decides on what the WTO rules are? It's not the UK on its own, but lots of countries working together. Kind of like the EU if you think about it. I think we should refuse to be bound by WTO rules as well.

27. Steven , Monday, December 07, 2020, 15:48:

I agree with you 100%, William Davison. Boris is an untrustworthy scumbag whose only real interest is himself and achieving his only real long term ambition ie being PM. I have distrusted him for many years now and thought he was entirely unsuitable to be PM. More fool those irresponsible journalists who have spent the best part of the last twenty odd years building him up to be the next Tory PM!
NI has been treated despicably by Boris, the scumbags of the ERG and too many others within the so-called Conservative AND UNIONIST Party. if I had known in 2016 NI would be viewed as an inconvenience and the integrity of our United Kingdom been put under severe strain like this I wouldn’t have voted for Brexit but, instead, have abstained or even voted Remain. The question on the ballot paper was, ‘ Should the UNITED KINGDOM remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?’ NOT, ‘Should England, Wales and Scotland remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union whilst ignoring the referendum-approved, clear, present, constitutional status of NI’?
Brexit is NOT worth breaking-up the United Kingdom for and the so-called Conservative AND UNIONIST Party needs to understand that sharpish!
Many of us within the UK-WIDE electorate have been lied to by the Jacob Rees-Moggs and Daniel Hannan’s this world and it is time they were brought to account for these lies.

28. Colin J Moon , Monday, December 07, 2020, 15:54:

We need to walk away so we can ditch the terrible WA and PD and then watch Merkel and her gang come running back within months demanding a deal

29. Keith Evans , Monday, December 07, 2020, 16:03:

Just walk away Boris the Eu will never negotiate in a fair manner until they are forced to by us being independent

30. Soon To Be Expat , Tuesday, December 08, 2020, 16:35:

26. Bob Lol, a collective that bargains in the interest of it's members will always win against a single nation that thinks it's too special to play by the rules. The only way out is to join nations that harbour the same feelings - like Russia & so on.

31 comments, page 3 of 4

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