After boldly caving in to the EU negotiators on day one of talks the Brexit minister, David Davis, was in a bullish mood.
“We have made real progress,” he was reported as saying. “By strongly and securely chickening out of contesting the so-called divorce settlement, we have removed one of the principal stumbling blocks at a stroke.”
The amount of the settlement varies depending upon who you ask, but is in the region of £50 billion, at a modest estimate.
A hard-line Conservative estimate suggests that the EU should be paying the UK to leave, but this is widely believed to be ideological nonsense.
After promising to wage the row of the summer over this very issue, Davis can at least be confident that he is enhancing the May government’s reputation for startling U-turns.
If Davis continues to follow this bold strategy of agreeing meekly to everything that Michel Barnier suggests, then there are several obvious implications.
Firstly, the UK’s reputation as a dominant power within Europe will be enhanced, since almost everyone agrees that this reputation is satirical in nature.
Secondly, the moment Barnier suggests that the whole thing should be dropped and Brexit confined to the dustbin of history, Davis is likely to say, “Oh, come on, old boy, that’s not cricket!”, but then, with startling agility, concede an audacious defeat.
Finally, Brexit negotiations should be completed in time for Davis’s summer holiday.
“Honestly, I can’t see a flaw with this strategy,” Davis apparently boasted. “Being obstructive, and, frankly, bloody difficult, is going to get us nowhere, and nobody wants a bad Brexit.”
