We need a new negotiating team – who will come in hard, making it clear to the EU that we are not going to roll over.
As Michael Gove hints this morning, the Cabinet must finally debate and decide which route it prefers.
The run-up to the European Council meetings next week could decide the future of the negotiations.
Plus: Englishness in Norwich. Remainer complaints everywhere. And: Noel Gallagher, political philosopher, gives his view of Corbyn.
If the measures involved prove unnecessary, any money lost will be a fraction of the financial gains from having secured a mutually acceptable deal.
DExEU people are whispering “48” as the upper end of the UK’s potential liability. But that level of commitment or specificity is not necessarily required at this stage.
Our best chance of getting a deal remains developing a solid, credible alternative plan, and showing that we are prepared to implement it.
There’s more than a hint in the air that they are happy to let the negotiation get sticky – and wait for capital to flee the UK and for investment to plummet.
I can say, with hand on humble heart, that I have never seen, or even heard of, a document so unconstructively negative as the Guidelines.
Already, the EU is demanding discussion of certain trade matters which, according to its repeated statements, should not be brought up until the next phase of talks.
The arrogant behaviour of the EU so far, bordering on the deliberately offensive, is a bluff that we need to call.
The Brexit Secretary points to the Government’s “concrete proposals”, and puts the ball back into the EU’s court.
Pro-Leave MPs must ensure that ministers and the civil service prepare a credible plan for ‘no deal’ and place strict limits on any transition.
There is no guarantee that the EU27 and the Commission will accept her ideas. And there may be no deal at all. In which case the question lingers: are we ready?
The Prime Minister spells out the likely length that she desires for the period between Britain formally leaving the the EU and doing so in full effect.
We need a new negotiating team – who will come in hard, making it clear to the EU that we are not going to roll over.