Thanks for all the fish, obviously
This is how you do negotiations. You say sure, we want to do a deal, let’s talk. And you make clear that if the deal is not to your liking then you’ll storm off in a huff and look, look, here’s the alternative we prepared earlier out of the sticky back plastic.
Boris Johnson has left the door open to coming out of the EU on World Trade Organization terms next year, after his foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said it was “absolutely” right to keep a no-deal outcome on the table in trade talks.
The prime minister was grilled about Raab’s statement after his cabinet minister appeared to let slip the government’s negotiating plans in an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday.
Johnson shook his head as it was mentioned but then three times declined the opportunity to refute Raab’s position or to tell businesses to stop their no-deal planning.
That’s simply how you do that making a deal stuff. Have an extreme position which you must be tempted in from. How else does anyone think it is done?
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How do they think it is done? Agree to everything the EU demands, that's the progressive way.
The way negotiations involving the State always go:
NHS procurement manager: We want to buy 100m bandages for the NHS please.
Bandage manufacturer: that'll be £2 each, £200m cash up front.[Thinks: We'd take £1 each paid in arrears, but always good to start high...]
NHS procurement manager: Great, were do we send the cheque? [Thinks: what do I care what bandages cost? Its not my money, and I get paid regardless!]
And yet somehow they still end up paying £500 million for all the kick backs bribes and general stupidity of the NHS.