Quote Originally Posted by Wheeze View Post
Oracle, why would the EU negotiate in good faith or even at all? It is not vaguely in their interests to allow one of the strongest partners to leave. Anyone who thinks there would be an acceptable negotiated position is living in la la land. The only way to negotiate is to leave with no agreement and then thrash out the details afterwards. A leaving party has no negotiating position. A left party has plenty.
Of course I am privileged by having been paid in a previous existence to plan and execute industrial relations negotiations where a decimal point or two on a paybill of several £billion could end up as serious money, but the greatest crime of this government was naively thinking that the big hitters of the EU were their friends and would happily reach an amicable agreement etc etc.

I think Margaret Thatcher's advice would have been "Theresa, think of the EU as the NUM and you won't go far wrong".