High Peak Liberal Democrats

Nick Clegg: Summer posturing has done little to advance Brexit

Writing in the Financial Times, Nick Clegg gives his assessment of where we are with Brexit at the moment. He is unimpressed with the Government's Brexit papers, describing them as technocratic, insubstantial and lacking in leadership. He also sees Labour's so called great shift on the single market as nothing more than a statement of the obvious.

The EU doesn't escape criticism either, as he points out that they are being way too rigid on the timetable - but that, as he adds, is something that could easily have been foreseen.

There is a profound misreading among British negotiators of the psychology of their EU counterparts. This is not just the familiar difference in the political styles - the improvised repartee of Westminster versus a more formal and legalistic political culture - it relates to a deeper question: who bears responsibility? Across European capitals, there is a strongly held view that the UK has taken a decision that they wish had not happened, which they do not fully understand, and which they believe will make life harder for everyone. Some are aghast that, at a time when Europe faces US isolationism, Russian belligerence, a refugee crisis and threats from terrorism to climate change, the UK should choose to pitch everyone into an interminable navel-gazing negotiation. Not unreasonably, they believe that the overwhelming onus should be on the UK to explain what it wants from Brexit. Surely, they ask, if Brexiters have spent a lifetime campaigning to quit the EU, they should have developed answers as to how that should be achieved?

He's not worried about the argument over money. We all knew this would happen and it'll sort itself out. There are much bigger problems emanating from the Government's incompetence, though.

What is more serious, because it is much more unexpected, is the petulant way in which Mrs May and David Davis, Brexit secretary, appear to believe that, having published such insubstantial papers, it is now up to Brussels to fill in all the gaps. It is difficult to exaggerate how unreasonable the UK will appear if it carries on passing the buck like this. We created the problem, yet our government seems to want to wash its hands of any serious responsibility to solve it. That is not how a great country should behave.

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