Ireland,trade deals, immigration control: it’s staggering that the government still sells Britain the lie that we can gain it allBrexit, and like the government,is failing. The EU wields all the power in the negotiations; the government has trapped itself inside suffocating and arbitrary red lines; and on each key issue negotiation sequencing, standstill transition, or the financial settlement London doggedly and pointlessly clings to its own position until,at the final inevitable moment, it capitulates to Brussels. Reckonings on the Irish border, and European court of justice and security cooperation lie shortly ahead.
This routine is time-consuming,demoralising and humiliating, but perhaps worst of all, and wholly predictable. The UK owes its misfortune partly to structural weakness against a unified bloc and legal disadvantage in the context of article 50; but the fundamental reason is Britain’s demand to retain all the benefits of being inside the EU and also all the benefits of being external it. The truth which dare not speak its name looms over the government and now openly torments it: we cannot gain it all. If we persist in the attempt,we will end up with nothing. In short: Brexit means choices.
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Source: guardian.co.uk