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8. May's folly


Why did May ever think the EU autocracy would show her any more respect than it did Cameron? He trotted off to Brussels in early 2016, supposedly to re-negotiate a better deal for the UK, ahead of the referendum. He got nothing. Juncker and the rest of the panjandrums swatted him away like some annoying street urchin.

That was before the referendum, when it would have been easy to give Cameron at least something to take back to the British people. Had Brussels been prepared to bend, to offer some meaningful concession on freedom of movement, it would have been possible to guarantee the outcome of the referendum. But it didn’t. In time-honoured EU fashion it choose to ignore the impending deadline, confident in its belief that Cameron and his team of prefects would deliver the correct result – and, besides it was just a referendum, the result of which, if needs be, could be easily overturned as had been the case in Ireland and Denmark.

So, why on earth did May think that the panjandrums and apparatchiks were ever going to offer her any sort of an acceptable deal that came remotely close to satisfying her hopes for a new and mutually beneficial EU-UK relationship?  

15 Jan 2019 

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