“He is, however, right on this.”
Leaving aside the fact that, like Baldric, I would not believe him if he told me the sun would be rising tomorrow, in what way is he right, Ikky?
The report says he believes the EU is willing to reform. Why should that be so? The only reason they are making these noises is because they face losing the second largest contributor to their ridiculous bloated and unaudited budget. The price they will try to extract to allow us favourable access to their precious Single Market will be almost as unacceptable as if we remained in the EU. They are wedded to freedom of movement of people and any compromise on it will be small and almost certainly temporary. (That’s how they work – concessions are swiftly swept away at the earliest opportunity). Their Single Market is not all it’s cracked up to be and anyway every country in the world has access to it. It’s nothing to make substantial sacrifices over.
Nothing has changed in the EU in the last 12 months. Its masters would like to portray that there is a new order since M. Macron was elected. This means nothing. The EU was constructed principally for Germany with France playing a distant second fiddle and M. Macron will quickly be made aware of this and be whipped into line. The remaining nations are woeful also-rans in the pecking order, there simply to make up the numbers, provide markets for overpriced German goods and (in our case) to provide funds for the Euromanics’ considerable largesse. Anybody who believes Mr Blair has the ear of anybody in the EU to see these principles change is suffering from a very serious delusion.