Skip to main content

Secrecy in the Brexit negotiations

Secrecy is a democratic outrage that gains us very little

The Independent: Brexit negotiation details will be kept secret from Parliament, David Davis says (12th September 2016)

David Davis has unilaterally decided that it's necessary to keep their Brexit discussions "secret" from parliament. I suspect that the real reason for this is for the convenience of Mr Davis, who is tired of constant scrutiny. Scrutiny would show just how ill-informed and unprepared DExEU really is, and Mr Davis wants to save himself embarrassment. [Edited to add: This also seems like a cynical ploy to prevent the Tory party from blowing up.]

The reason given is that it would "undermine our negotiating stance". Davis imagines himself to be a hard-nosed negotiator who will outwit the Europeans like we did in World War 2. I cannot conceive what possible advantages this secret ploy will gain, unless the secret ploy is that there isn't one. As soon as we engage with the EU, everything will be public anyway. I for one (and the government should too) would dearly like to know what DExEU is planning so we can whip the rug out from under them if needed.

Davis thinks that negotiations are all about who will blink first. This is the Leaver's delusion that the UK is holding the upper hand and the EU will blink first. It won't. If the UK is uncooperative, then we are squandering our precious two years after invoking Article 50 and there simply won't be time for an orderly exit.

(We're not even members of the WTO yet, and guess what, Argentina want the Falkland Islands and Spain wants Gibraltar. If mishandled Britain is in all sorts of trouble. I for one will be stocking up on food.)


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Breaking the Article 50 Impasse

Andrew Tyrie overestimates the UK's control over when the UK government can invoke Article 50. As with much of the Brexit debate, hope and aspiration trump cold hard reality. The next few months will see a lot of work by the UK government setting up new departments and policy positions relating to the triggering of Article 50 and Britain's exit from the EU. This is a sensible and necessary delay. However this article by The Independent makes the case that the UK should delay invoking Article 50 until we establish an informal agreement with the EU on our exit terms. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-theresa-may-andrew-tyrie-must-manage-unrealistic-expectations-warns-tory-mp-a7220681.html This is very desirable from the UK's perspective, but flatly contradicts statements by the EU (including direct statements by Jean-Claude Juncker, Donald Tusk and Cecilia Malmström, as well as official EU policy) that no talks can happen prior to invoking Article 50...
3 comments
Read more

Can information theory prove the existence of God?

I recently came across this website by Perry Marshall, which makes a really interesting proof of the existence of God. The argument is basically that DNA constitutes information (a code), yet all information that we know of is the product of a mind. Randomness cannot create information. Therefore, God exists. Lovely argument. Now let's pick some holes. 1) My first observation is that this argument is almost exactly the same as entropy. The argument is that DNA is a low entropy state. Yet randomness always increases entropy. Therefore DNA cannot be the product of random processes, therefore it must be the work of God (or Maxwell's Demon). However this argument is invalid because localised decreases in entropy are perfectly possible, and expected, even though the entropy of the system as a whole increases. Considering that the site claims to make use of information theory, it presumably is aware of information entropy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_entropy It fo...
3 comments
Read more

There are no 'F's in Brexit Dividend

One of the most galling aspects of Brexit is the realisation of how much politicians lie. This week, there has been a coordinated PR effort amongst Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Theresa May to talk about the "Brexit Dividend" being used on the NHS. Yet the government's own economic analysis shows that there is no Brexit dividend. Every scenario makes us poorer. There's no f'in Brexit Dividend. Do the politicians really believe their own nonsense, or are they lying? Either option is frankly horrifying. This whole thing really typifies what has gone wrong. Ideology trumps evidence and experts. What is most frightening is that the rot goes all the way up to the Prime Minister herself. It makes absolutely no sense to try to rally the country around a lie, as the lie will eventually be exposed, and the sooner the better.
Post a Comment
Read more