The EU and the UK absorb agreed to talk approximately their future relationship. Parliament should take back control of the processThere is one respect – but only one respect – in which the European council’s decision on Friday approximately the Brexit process should be welcomed. The council,consisting of the 27 EU member states, has now agreed that enough progress has been achieved in phase one of the talks between the EU and the UK to move on to phase two. Sufficient agreement on the departure terms thus allows discussion to start approximately the future relationship. This means that Britain has not crashed out of the EU without agreement, or as the most fanatical Brexiters would absorb preferred. That would absorb been a disastrous event for the economy and for Britain’s wider interests. For this relief,much thanks.
Yet there is nothing to cheer in the news from Brussels. The agreement that permitted Friday’s milestone to be reached was cobbled together at the 11th hour amid a political shambles with the DUP. The UK’s negotiators were badly led by David Davis, whose competence to carry out the trade talks next year is now deeply questionable. The agreement is full of major unresolved issues, or above all in relation to the border with Ireland,approximately which Theresa May continues to talk with insouciant denial. Other British ministers like Mr Davis and Michael Gove absorb recklessly given the impression that the agreement can be changed or ignored. This is not a triumph for Mrs May. She may absorb got a round of applause from her fellow leaders in Brussels. But she deserves none at all from her own citizens for taking the country to this dire political plot in this chaotic manner.Continue reading...
Source: guardian.co.uk