€60 Billion EU Divorce Bill - It's Not About The Money Though

In a perfect democracy citizens would calmly look at the proposals for the EU divorce settlement and assess it in the light of the costs and benefits to the country as a whole and to their own personal finances and make a considered judgement.  Unfortunately most of us have no clue about what any of these figures mean apart from they all sound like very big numbers.


The EU have picked up the initiative by producing the first figure, and so that is what subsequent discussions will be anchored to.   Whatever the results, the UK is now playing on a field of the EU's choosing.  I remember writing at the time of the vote that the only advantage the UK had in the talks was surprise and shock.  To keep the initiative we needed to get Article 50 initiated immediately before the other parties had a chance to get their ducks lined up.  Had we done so it could have been Britain getting the figure out first.  That is a chance that has been lost.

But negotiations are now about to start, and it will be interesting to see how they develop.  If you want Britain to rejoin as soon as possible the best way the talks should go would be to be as good tempered and swift as possible.  This isn't the way to get the best deal in the short run, but is definitely the ideal in the longer term.  It will be the objective of most people on the European side and although they won't want to say it out loud of quite a few on the British side too.

The big factor is how it will all play out as reported by the tabloids. It would be a mistake to think that they will necessarily use this story as another opportunity to undermine the country's best interested.  The phone hackers and other assorted vermin who own and write for the gutter press are always more interested in a good story than making a good point.  They might find it more fun to investigate the private goings on of the negotiating team in Brussels than the dreary business of the actual terms being agreed.  But if they decide to portray the EU team as villains trying to hoodwink brave little Blightie then a lot of harm could be done.

The ideal scenario from a national interest point of view is for the whole leaving process to be a bit of a damp squib.  If people are wondering what all the fuss was about it will be much easier to win people over to the idea that we might as well go back in.