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The art of negotiation is starting with a certain figure/offer and then bargain until you either get an acceptable deal or you walk away.
She's not got the authority to do that, she's a fatally wounded Prime Minister. The only thing she cares about is staying in Number 10 for as long as she can. The minute she starts making rash decisions that makes one side of the Tory Party happy and the other fuming is the moment the political knives will come out for her. I think her speech was less about trying to kick start the Article 50 negotiations and more to do with getting herself safely through the party conference. Though as I recall IDS and Thatcher made it through Party Conferences and were booted from the leadership within 6 or 7 weeks.
It seems aimed at making it look like the cabinet is united to get her through the Tory Party conference and maybe an attempt to redirect anger at the EU (and away from her) when they inevitably say "More detail and that's not enough to cover promised monies". Though I don't think the Tory Party is daft enough to fall for that one.....
It's either the opening offer with the intent of getting the EU to settle on a figure that's around £40 or £45 billion. "Hey look I negotiated the exit bill cost down, I'm so clever". Or she knows the EU will laugh at the offer and it's designed to stoke up the Party Faithful against the EU and not at her at the Party conference. It was a classic May speech. A lot of waffle and slogans with hardly any substance. Most of it, we've heard before and a transitional period is a sensible plan to ease our way out with a small bump, rather than taking a running jump over a cliff into the murky waters of the unknown. An acceptable Brexit Deal is one that protects the Economy as much as possible, yes we are leaving. But we don't have to pig headed about it.
For minute I thought we were back in the General Election campaign. I almost lost the will to stay awake at various points. |
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