Quote Originally Posted by Sir C View Post
The point is rather that the agreement lays out a framework for never actually Brexiting in any meaningful sense. I refer you to my previous predictions of the issue being fudged so that the establishment would, in future years, be able plausibly to claim to have abided by the result of the referendum, but without actually ever changing anything.

The agreement just fudges things along and lays the gorundwork for the further fudging to come.

It is a betrayal of democracy and, in effect, the establishment of a dictatorship utterly unaccountable to the views of the citizens of this country.

Welcome to the Stalinist EUSSR.
Hmmm, most of that reads as though you agree with what I said but that you think that when it comes down to negotiating what really matters - our future relationship with the EU - that the people involved will bottle it and negotiate a very watered down Brexit.

That's possible - of course - but I would point out that during this set of negotiations the UK has pretty much no leverage whatsoever beyond the threat of no deal (something we routinely tell everyone we want to avoid) as we're the ones asking to leave while at the same time making it clear we want access to the common market. That pretty much puts all the cards in the EU's hands. It's true that by making it clear what we expect with respect to the Irish border that we weakened our position a bit but I doubt it made much difference, they had all the cards they needed anyway.

As I pointed out a few days ago to Monty, what May has been asked to achieve is exceptionally difficult given our lack of leverage. And I doubt very much whether any deal agreed at this point would have been much different.

When we will have leverage is during the future relationship negotiations as at that point the impact of our leaving with no deal will be very clear to the EU countries at the table. I fail to see why we would be pessimistic about our ability to negotiate a deal that benefits those involved at that point.

And failing that, I still fail to see why we should be so afraid of no deal. As I said, much ado about nothing.