Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Zanza]

Oh wow, laughing and pointing to the empty podium the whole way
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2019/sep/16/brexit-latest-news-boris-johnson-talks-juncker-eu-must-show-flexibility-says-raab-ahead-of-boris-johnsons-key-meeting-with-juncker-live-news-latest-news

Wow, that's not a very diplomatic way to handle this. Either he was just seriously pissed off and didn't care anymore or it is part of a PR operation to clearly state that Johnson is to blame for all that is to come. Considering he spoke English, not French or Luxembourgish, the intended audience was probably the British press and public, so it might be the second.

[Habbaku]

It's not diplomatic at all, but at what point are people no longer required to play nice with the likes of Johnson? Refusing to work with them and playing the hardliner might actually be the most productive way to go about this whole mess.

[Josquius]

Seems a good strategy to me, to meet someone playing the tough guy hardliner completely out of place, with ridicule.

[Sheilbh]

Only tangentially related to Brexit: a very interesting article on the Single Market. It points out its main flaw: missing service market liberalisation. While it has a lot of valid criticism, there is no other real way than deepening the Single Market further. Without an institutional framework like the EU, services market liberalisation looks hopeless. It will be necessary to be able to compete with service giants from China or the US, both bigger, more coherent markets. Britain leaving won't help at all, but I also don't see how Britain can achieve anything in that field on its own.

Yet, ironically, this is part of the reason why the university-educated, London heavy, remain voting services sector is broadly in a better position if no deal happens than manufacturing or agriculture

Basically a defence against the UK being a cock and kicking off war in Ireland.

Ish. It does present very real challenges to the Good Friday Agreement and the unionist community, which is why May got it done on an all-UK basis. But it is striking that the DUP were the only pro-leave mainstream unionist party, but once the backstop was revealed all the moderate unions came out in favour of no deal over the backstop.

Wow, that's not a very diplomatic way to handle this. Either he was just seriously pissed off and didn't care anymore or it is part of a PR operation to clearly state that Johnson is to blame for all that is to come. Considering he spoke English, not French or Luxembourgish, the intended audience was probably the British press and public, so it might be the second.

And needless to say it's polarised exactly as you'd expect. Remainers are revelling in it; Brexiteers complaining that even if you dislike Johnson this isn't how you treat a PM.

Personally both the UK and Luxembourg explanations seem plausible to me. I kind of think the EU and European leaders have been to focused on being polite in public while briefing off the record about their issues with the UK, so maybe this could be helpful.

[Habbaku]

Agreed. The EU has been very, very patient and tolerant of Britain's antics. To play nice at this point in the hopes that Britain will come to their senses before an election is just going to encourage more bamboozling and buffoonery by Johnson, I think.

[Sheilbh]

Flipside. There is a bit of me that thinks this is Parliament and the system working in the context of working out what the democratic mandate is, and sort of seizing power and forcing time.

I think British governments have generally been shocking.

[The Minsky Moment]

The closer the train gets to smashing up, the more all sides are going to focus on damage control and blame gaming as opposed to last ditch efforts to averting the crash. 

The trick is that blame gaming and damage control are not necessarily consistent objectives.  Assuming that UK is going to crash out, its in the interest of EU leaders to make it clear to the public that Johnson made no serious effort to avoid that outcome.  On the other hand, there is a decent likelihood that Johnson continues on as PM and the EU will have to deal with him going forward.

[Josquius]

How on earth are the leavers spinning this one well?

Incidentally there seems to be an uptick in pro leave fake news lately. A lot of "OMG if we stay in the EU then all our youth will be conscripted to the EU army and sent to the Russia-Ukraine border!" going about.
Which yes. Makes no sense on many levels.

[Sheilbh]

Daniel Hannan's tweets:

The Luxembourg PM chose to go ahead with what was, in effect, an anti-Brexit rally rather than a press conference. Petty but calculated gestures of this kind from Euro-federalists pushed Britain into wanting to leave in the first place.
Any normal, neutral observer would be shocked by the violation of protocol and the deliberately provocative gesture. The fact that some British Remainers are now so far gone that they cheer this behaviour against a UK Prime Minister helps explain why they are losing.

Lots of that and this tone: "This presser thing, facisinating to watch the binary in reactions. All the Remain brits giving it the 'yes foreign leader, stick it to our PM' stuff. Extraordinary stuff. I'm on the other side of that binary btw."

The average punter will probably look at that and see it as a deliberate attempt to humiliate the UK's Prime Minister and not be amazingly overjoyed at it.

For what it's worth I think there's some truth to this. Between this sort of thing and the Lib Dem Party conference I am still very much not convinced Remain would win a second referendum.

[Iormlund]

It _was_ a deliberate attempt to humiliate Boris.

That this has taken place shows how low the UK's standing has fallen. You wouldn't dream to do this to the president of a tin-pot little African country.

[Zanza]

This is the "small, but noisy crowd" that made The Incredible Sulk skip the press conference. 

[Valmy]

For what it's worth I think there's some truth to this. Between this sort of thing and the Lib Dem Party conference I am still very much not convinced Remain would win a second referendum.

I mean the British politicians went down there to the EU parliament and basically told the EU they were shit by turning around and facing away during the EU Anthem. It is kind of weird to be super sensitive if that is how the British are conducting themselves.

[The Minsky Moment]

Yes but people don't like to be told they are making asses of themselves.  Especially if they are really making asses of themselves.

[Zoupa]

I hope there's no further extension. Are we going to have to suffer through this stupidity every 3 months?

[ulmont]

I hope there's no further extension. Are we going to have to suffer through this stupidity every 3 months?

Please.  Watching Brexit is the only thing that makes me feel better about US politics.