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WTO Brexit: When They Keep Bluffing, It’s Time to Call
Mrs May Leaves Brussels Brexit Talks Empty Handed:
Prime Minister Theresa May and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker had “robust” talks Thursday morning, which as promised by European leaders beforehand did nothing to advance the two parties towards a Brexit agreement.
The British leader was pictured giving the top Eurocrat a stern glare as the pair shook hands Thursday morning, a move likely calculated to communicate a business-like attitude to British watchers of the talks.
Nevertheless the negotiations, which were arranged after Britain’s Parliament voted against Theresa May’s deal and asked her to renegotiate, ultimately less resembled a negotiation and more a simple refusal by Europe to budge.
In a poker game, a favorite strategy is to bluff the other side out of the game. Especially when dealing with weak players who are afraid of high stakes, this can be very effective. However, an arrogant bluffer who misjudges a strong opponent may be in for a serious lesson. The strong opponent confident of his hand will let the bluffer raise and raise the stakes. Just when the bluffer thinks he’s in control, the strong opponent says, “I call.” Now it’s time to lay down your hand and see who is bluffing and who isn’t.
The bloviating arrogant EU has been bullying weak opponents into submission. Now they will discover why a Lion is the symbol of Britain. WTO Brexit, or as I like to call it Clean Brexit, is completely in the best interests of Great Britain. The EU has used every dirty trick they can muster to bluff Britain back into the EU. I don’t think it will work. It is the EU that will be severely damaged by WTO Brexit. They will be humiliated. Their member countries will mutiny and trade with Britain anyway. The political fallout for Merkel and Macron will be devastating. Mr. Juncker and Mr. Tusk will go down with the sinking ship. Only Soros will survive as arbitrageurs can always make money from disasters but I suspect it will never be the same for him (hallelujah).
Farage: EU ‘Scared’ of WTO Clean Brexit:
Brexit architect Nigel Farage has said that Brussels bureaucrats are “scared” of a no-deal, clean Brexit because of the cost to European manufacturers and the looming eurozone recession.
When asked on Sky News on Wednesday if he were offended by European Council President Donald Tusk saying there was a “special place in hell” for Brexiteers, the Leave Means Leave vice-chairman said, “No, not particularly. They’re scared, they’re rattled. They’re really worried.
“I was in the parliament last Wednesday, I said that their arrogance and the behaviour of the unelected elites was driving British public opinion towards a WTO ‘No Deal’ Brexit.
Nigel is saying to the EU, “I call.” Time to lay your cards down.
So, what are the odds that the 11pm UK time on Friday, 29 March 2019 deadline will stand—without any postponement for time to devise a BritRemain referendum ?
tog,
That’s what it’s all about. The EU is tying May’s hands. She will have absolutely nothing to work with. The fantasy that more time will do anything is a joke. It’s WTO and GO!
Regards,
Jim
History has shown that continental European nations will make stunningly bad choices about once per generation. There might have been a hiatus during the Cold War vacation from history, that’s debatable. I’m trying to factor that into what will happen between now and the Ends of March. What is the most self-aggrandizing act that Merkel, Macron, and the EU apparat could agree on?
Could be fun to watch.
Roar, Britain.
“Comments by Donald Tusk Wednesday afternoon were received as being unstatesmanlike even by the standards of Brexit debate, when he told a press conference there was a “special place in hell” for British Brexiteers.”
The irony of that remark is that Brexiteers have not been negotiating Brexit. May is not/has never been a Brexiteer. Ollie Robinson, one of the few people TM listens to and is a senior civil servant, is a through-and-through Remainer who would scuttle all of the Brexit proceedings. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond is a Remainer, and he should be preparing a fiscal stimulus package for delivery on March 29th. No such thing is happening. Liam Fox is the Trade Minister and a Brexiteer, but he is not someone Theresa May listens to. He should be preparing trade agreements with the US, Japan, Korea, Canada, and Mexico for signature on March 30th. But he has not been directed to do so.
“The date for the final vote on her Brexit deal has now been pushed back to the end of February, reports The Daily Telegraph, just a month before the legal Brexit date of March 29th is reached. Leaving this little time between vote and implementation almost certainly means the Prime Minister intends to delay Brexit altogether, reports the paper, a situation already accepted as fact by several senior cabinet ministers.”
The Brexit agony will continue. It is unlikely to end March 29th.
When does TM lose her job?
If the Remainers are stuck with Brexit, they want the EU without all the regulations. The EU has absolutely no desire to let Britain go, so why would they agree to giving them all the bennies and remove themselves from supreme lord commander of all British decisions?
TM & co are foolish if they think they can negotiate with that. They only hold actual cards if they walk out without looking back. From the very beginning, it needed to be the EU crawling on their bellies begging for a deal to get them to stay. The whole situation is inverted.
The EU is behaving as if the UK is seceding rather than departing voluntarily, which to my mind completely justifies the U.K. in leaving before it is irretrievably entangled in EU laws and loses its sovereignty. Sadly Ireland is allowing itself to be the stick with which Junker, Tusk and Co are trying to beat the U.K. into submission: the idea is that we must have a “backstop” to guarantee that there will be no “hard border” on the island of Ireland. No-one wants a hard border but the threat of it is being spoken of in the most doom-laden terms. It’s as if it is either a hard border and chaos or the U.K. must remain in the EU; as if it is impossible to find a way to square the circle of having free movement between two adjacent jurisdictions with different rules. As for the Irish government sucking up to the EU, that democratically deficient institution has done us terrible harm in recent years and will happily shaft us again when Brexit is resolved one way or the other, particularly by outlawing our competitive corporation tax rates which drive the foreign direct investment which is essential to our economic well-being.
There are many reasons for Irish people to resent British interference with our own freedom in past times but on this issue I am with the Brexiteers.
Charles,
I agree with you 100%. Rees-Mogg went to Ireland and did a nice report on the border issue. He sees very little problem. Ireland actually is only doing 15% of its business across the Northern Irish border. Plus, much of its trade is already on WTO rules outside of the EU. Of course, everyone in the world is already familiar with WTO rules so it’s not like you’ve got to reinvent the wheel.
Rees-Mogg felt that with the most minor accommodation between Ireland and Great Britain that there would be almost no change in trade across the border. I am inclined to believe Rees-Mogg. He has been a consistent straight shooter. It is the EU and the Remainers that makeup fantasy disasters to try to discredit Brexit.
Regards,
Jim
What would Lady Thatcher do?
What would Winston Churchill do?
What would Ronald Reagan do? (Yes, I know that Reagan was the Greatest President of the United States of the Twentieth Century, but what would he do if he were the U.K.’s Prime Minister?)
That is what Theresa May should do!
But won’t.
The EU is demonstrating why Britain wanted to leave in the first place. What First World country would want to be in that association? I hope the Anglosphere has some back channel preparations in place to help out should the EU ultimately make this as painful as possible.
The UK needs to get the hell out of that centralized doom machine.
http://financialrepressionauthority.com/2019/01/31/the-roundtable-insight-yra-harris-and-bill-laggner-on-global-financial-and-economic-risks/
That hard border between the US and Canada is just killing both economies isn’t it? Well, isn’t it?
The backstop is not an economic necessity, but a political one which is designed to create the illusion of a unified Ireland without really confronting the divided sovereignty.
Ari & Gary,
This is the hard reality that Mrs. May doesn’t seem to recognize. The EU has had the opportunity for 20 years to institute democratic reforms so that as it makes the claim to be the “United States of Europe” it’s not a bad joke. We know when Donald Trump must face reelection. We know when Theresa May must face reelection and with the parliamentary system, it could happen even before then. When will Juncker face reelection? This is a trick question. He was never elected in the first place. At least nothing like an election in which all of the citizens of the “United States of Europe” got a chance to vote him in or out.
I had hoped she would rise to the occasion as Gary is suggesting. Now, if she just follows the law and allows WTO Brexit to happen on March 29, 2019, that will be sufficient.
Good Shabbos All. Talk to you in 25 hours.
Regards,
Jim
What would King Henry VIII do?
A Protestant Reformation split. Brussels is like the 16th Century Papacy.
Henry VIII knew something about divorces and chopping heads.
He would get the hell out of the EU, but many, many GOP are not Friedrich Hayek-ian like Reagan was philosophically. This has been incredibly eye-opening to watch.
Good Shabbos to you too.
I’m having difficulty believing there are enough Brits with the stomach to leave the EU. Hope I’m wrong.
Actually old boy the Leave vote has held up tremendously against almost three years of Project Fear and now the so-called no deal option is pretty much the Brexiteers’ position of choice.
Even if the political class prevent us leaving in March we now see it as inevitable, we are just waiting to see if the Conservative Party will deliver it by accident or destroy themselves preventing it.