Prime Minister

[whiskeryron]

Is our Prime Minister doing us any good in her Brexit negotiations with the EU ?

[ToraToraTora]

she's doing what she can given the constant sniping of the SGB the VB and other assorted rissoles that she must endure and yes it's partly her own fault for having the GE then ballsing it right up.

[jourdain2]

Not so far. Getting a bit critical now.

[Zacs-Master]

She’s not doing too badly after being handed the hot potato that is Brexit by cowardly Cameron. The GE, as Tora says, was a big mistake and coming out of the customs union was also. There’s a long way to go though and there will be many a slip twixt the cup and the lip.

[Zacs-Master]

If indeed we are coming out of the CU.

[cassa333]

What else can she do.

I often think she talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk.

In other words she sounds good but caves in at the slightest wife of opposition.

We have to come out of the customs union and single market. That is part of the leave deal that was voted in favour of.

What we are able to negotiate is another matter.

[foxspur]

We won't know until the negotiations are completed. But it is noticeable how everything the EU says is treated as immutable truth, and everything our government says is trashed.

[douglas9401]

The woman is like a rabbit caught in the headlights and is either trying to pluck up the courage to dump the whole lot and end what career she's had or is trying to use witchcraft to summon up a knight in shining armour from among the continentals who will offer some kind of workable compromise as her 'team' have no clue what to do.

My money's on the first option. :-)

[Old_Geezer]

Unimpressed so far. But maybe negotiation and EU are incompatible.
Nevertheless capitulation is not a valid response.
Awaiting an indication of a genuine fair agreement between the two sides, on something, somewhere.

[david small]

She sits on the fence. Will she fall or be pushed. Wrong person in the wrong job.

[jno]

That's hardly the question yet. All the negotiation at the moment is within the Tory party as she tries to herd cats. At present Britain has no idea what its going to try to negotiate.

Time marches on.

She didn't have to take on the job, ZM. Her choice (one of several bad ones she's made.)

[Khandro]

With the exception of M. Thatcher, all women lack the qualities required for leadership at national level, and Teresa May proves the point along with Angela Merkel in Germany, who has prevaricated on every issue during her career and waited to see how the tide was turning before acting, the only time she made a decision by herself (allowing a million+ plus immigrants in) was a disaster. Likewise May's only real decision was to go to the country to 'strengthen her position' - and, ditto result.
Then we have Green/red self-congratulatory, “First Feminist World’s Government” of Sweden, who do make decisions, but ones that are wrecking their country with astonishing consequences.

[naomi24]

I don't know. I'm not at the meetings.

[douglas9401]

I see what you did there. :-)

[naomi24]

Who, moi? :o)

[RobNorth]

She's doing what Sir Humphrey tells her she can do. These politicians pop over to Brussels now and again to give the impression that they are doing all the stuff, but it's Humph and his team of 1195 experts that are working at it full time, likewise with Juncker - they are just figureheads who are seen to be talking about it now and again between all the other business and long lunches...the Brexit Minister could be replaced tomorrow by someone you never heard of who has been say pensions Minister for six months. This new supremo could be in Brussels the next day "negotiating hard" on our withdrawal from the EU, having overnight become expert on commerce, customs, tariffs, defence, fisheries, farming and two hundred and thirty two other complex subjects...I don't think.
Something you'll never hear the Prime Minister or any politician say when asked a question "we don't know yet until we hear from the experts at the Foreign Office/Treasury/ Home Office" - even if they've only been in a job for a few hours they still have to give the impression that they are heroically doing it all alone, when in fact they do very little.
When you add up all the holidays, sorry "breaks" and the short weeks, short days, they don't have time to do much.

[Gromit]

// We have to come out of the customs union and single market. That is part of the leave deal that was voted in favour of. //

No it wasn’t. We voted to leave the EU, hardly anyone had even heard of the customs union let alone thought they were voting to leave it. We were constantly told that we should be like Norway, outside the EU but in the European Economic Area. That concept had a lot of legs, but since the vote, the result has been interpretted as a vote for hard brexit, and leaving everything European.

[jno]

The Norway model was torpedoed when May promised a frictionless border with Ireland. That's not what Norway has with Sweden.

https://www.politico.eu/article/brexit-ireland-border-customs-norway-sweden/

[Gromit]

May is against a Customs Union, but in favour of a frictionless border with the EU.

So we set our own tarrifs, but do not check them adequately at the border. That really isn’t going to work.

[youngmafbog]

The reality is you cannot have a custom union or free trade (whatever you want to call it) and not have freedom of movement. This is from the EU. In addition you cannot have it without kow towing to the EU rules regulation and judiciary. Again what the EU are demanding. You cannot have it and then be allowed other deals with other countries Another non negotiable from the EU.

So all the posturing about customs union is pointless because to have it you have to have all the bad points (including paying and no say in rules) and non of the good).

No one can blame the EU for this but the Remoaners just dont seem to get what the word 'negotiation' means (and neither do the EU which is one reason we are leaving).