The future

So Gove had the audacity to stand up and say that the EU has “refused to negotiate seriously for [the] last month or so” while completely ignoring that his own government has refused to negotiate seriously for the last four years or so.

The response to a gesture by the EU to try to get things moving…was Downing Street refusing to restart negotiations.

I rather suspect that certain influential people want a crash out, they probably think they can coin it and then bugger off to their offshore tax havens, and the fact that this may well break what remains of a divided country is merely collateral damage in the course of making money.

You’re not the only one to have exactly this suspicion, with which I’d use “strongly” rather than “rather”…

You’re not the only one to have exactly this suspicion, which I’d use “strongly” with rather than “rather”…

We are all pretty certain, just waiting for the event¹ as concrete evidence.

¹ An event we have no control over.

Or possibly Gove is playing Bad Cop so that Johnson can come to terms at the 59th minute of the 11th hour without losing face.
Two things (I think) I know: 1. Both sides want/need a deal; 2. There is still (just) enough time to play another round of Russian roulette; as Willie Walsh famously remarked: ‘reasonable people don’t win negotiations.’ Let’s hope someone on our side has the good judgment to know when we’ve pushed our luck as far as it will go, and come to terms.

so that Johnson can come to terms at the 59th minute of the 11th hour

That implies planning and foresight. The current shower don’t strike me as capable of either.

Both sides want/need a deal;

But vastly different ideas of what such an agreement would actually involve.

I don’t like the word “deal”, but the way it’s going, I can see Mr. Barnier simply saying “deal or no deal?” before they give up.

There is still (just) enough time to play another round of Russian roulette

Not really. What the British side doesn’t seem to understand is that it isn’t a simple “let’s bash out some rubbish on December 31st and when the EU agrees, it’s done and dusted”. When the EU agrees, it then needs to get the agreement of all of the member states, any of whom could throw a spanner in the works.

know when we’ve pushed our luck as far as it will go, and come to terms.

Well, that depends. Do you think they read the Express or the Telegraph? It seems both are of the opinion that Britain ought to tell the EU to get stuffed and choose “no deal” to preserve sovreignty and other excuses. Hmm… don’t several of the current twats-in-charge get paid to write columns of bollocks in The Torygraph?

I would like to see somebody pull a rabbit out of a hat, but watching this shitshow ¹ for four years now, I don’t have an awful lot of hope.

¹ What Germany’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs called Brexit; heh, I bet he had no idea as I think he said that pre-Johnson…

Or possibly Gove is playing Bad Cop so that Johnson can come to terms at the 59th minute of the 11th hour without losing face.

Nah, that would mean Gove allowing someone to mark him as stupid, and he’s way too arrogant to allow that the truth out.

Weather flash: fog in the channel, Europe cut off.