The UK and EU Spar Over Rules but it is clear Johnson is calling the shots.
Ground Rules
- “There is no need for a free trade agreement to involve accepting EU rules on competition policy, subsidies, social protection, the environment or anything similar, any more than the EU should be obliged to accept UK rules,” Johnson said.
- “The choice is emphatically not ‘deal or no-deal’. The question is whether we agree a trading relationship with the EU comparable to Canada’s – or more like Australia’s,” he said in the Painted Hall at the Greenwich Royal Naval College where grand 18th Century paintings celebrate Britain’s naval power.
- “Humanity needs … some country ready to take off its Clark Kent spectacles and leap into the phone booth and emerge with his cloak flowing as the supercharged champion of the right of populations of the earth to buy and sell freely among each other,” he said, referring to Superman’s alternate character.
That lays it right on the line.
In Wake of Brexit, EU Will Cave In to UK Once Again
Yesterday, I commented In Wake of Brexit, EU Will Cave In to UK Once Again
Johnson’s comments today confirm that position.
The EU has a choice. It can agree to a Canada-Style agreement or not.
Given events in Germany (demise of cars) and France (Macron’s problems at home), the EU needs a deal more than the UK.
Expect a deal, just not a comprehensive one. The EU is too pathetically slow to work out a comprehensive deal and that is another reason the UK was wise to leave.
If the EU does not cave, they will be hurt far more than the UK. So, expect them to cave.
With Theresa May, the EU attempted to stall the UK into submission. Much sterner material is now at the UK helm.
Germany will soon panic.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
The EU caving to UK is premised on:
The Eurocrats are accountable to the popular will (and not a world to themselves).
The commissars think in terms of economy rather than ideology (they can afford the latter if the response to the first is negative).
There are zealots in the EU, not to be trusted & more than willing to negotiate in bad faith to protect their project.
When I said ideology, I had in mind that super delusional Guy Verhofstadt and the likes. Apparently, the establishment has taken a lesson from Brexit, and the message is: greater integration, no opt-outs.
Nigel Farage was cut off by these freeloaders: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIgmfpHBiDw&feature=youtu.be
I just wished he included into his speech that the UKIP MEPs have voted themselves out of a very cushy, lucrative, low stress job.
I think the EU are beholden to globalist power networks including Senior Secretaries thereof like Soros and BIS etc, but also countries who in turn answer to various ‘special interests’ (like automobile makers in Germany). They will be pushing the relevant EU officials into keeping things flowing freely from the get-go. Mish is right, they will cave, but I think the interesting dynamic to follow is internal, i.e. they haven’t sorted out within themselves what they want to achieve now that Brexit is a done deal and their prior tactics of distracting, stalling, demanding the unreasonable etc. are no longer going to work.
The point being there are power networks in play to which the EU are beholden, though none of them involve being ‘accountable to the popular will’ per se.