Why has Britain unconditionally surrendered to the EU?

The Brexit negotiations are moving along. That is establishment-speak for the fact that last December’s sell-out has now been followed by a further sell-out this month. The arrangements for the transition period (why are we even countenancing a transition period?) have now been agreed, which is a euphemistic way of saying that Britain has erased all its red lines and submitted to everything the EU demanded.

Freedom of movement, the key issue in the EU referendum vote, will not end in March 2019 but at the end of 2020 (at which point some new ploy will presumably be brought into play to delay indefinitely Britain’s resuming control of its borders). Britain’s fishing industry has been sold down the river, with Britain merely being “consulted” on quotas (“Ye-e-s, we hear what you are saying”…) until December 2020.

The “punishment clause” enabling our rulers in Brussels to suspend the “benefits” of the single market at their discretion remains in force. Most ominously, the so-called “backstop” clause on the Irish border has been conceded by the UK.

Yet it is not all gloom and doom: there is a “Rejoice” Rejoice!” factor as well, since the EU has graciously agreed to allow Britain to ratify trade deals during the transition period. It is embarrassing to see the political eunuchs on the Tory benches trying to hail this as some kind of masterly diplomatic coup.

The reality is that we could have saved a lot of money by not sending any negotiators to Brussels. For this outcome all that was needed was for Michel Barnier to email a list of his humiliating demands for our leaders obediently to tick each box and return the form. What kind of “negotiations” are these? The Japanese extracted a better deal from America after being atom-bombed: they insisted on retaining their emperor.

In normal negotiations, which is to say every set of negotiations in recorded history until now, both sides engage in some give and take. Often one party is stronger and that is reflected in the outcome; but it has hitherto been unknown, except in cases of unconditional surrender at the end of a war, for one side to dictate the agenda and the terms and the other party meekly to accede.

The Brexit negotiations have been conducted as if Britain had lost a disastrous war and Brussels were the victor, dictating terms. The question many people are now asking is: why? Why is the British government surrendering to Brussels on every issue? A no deal outcome would have more serious consequences for the European Union than for the United Kingdom. We hold the better cards, but our negotiators threw them onto the floor on the first day.

This question will have to be answered. What is it that makes a supposed pro-Leave bruiser such as David Davis turn into a jellyfish as soon as he enters the negotiating chamber? Why did the British team allow Brussels to set the ludicrous agenda – a punishing obstacle course for Britain – instead of sticking by its insistence that trade talks should proceed in tandem with other issues? Why did the government agree to throw £39bn of taxpayers’ money at the Brussels kleptocracy in payment of a wholly imaginary debt?

The British electorate voted in June 2016 to leave the European Union. We should have been out by October that year. Instead, the government waited for nine months before triggering Article 50, unnecessarily taking the masochistic path through a minefield crafted by uber-Remainer Lord Kerr. We were told the nine months were necessary for “preparations”. Those preparations have really paid off, haven’t they?

Then the “transition” notion suddenly appeared out of the blue, a blatant device to keep Britain under the power of Brussels for a further period of time. “Business” – that is to say large corporations and lobby groups such as the busted-flush CBI (“We must join the euro now!” – remember?) – supported the transition period, leaving the SMEs that contribute the major portion of GDP swinging in the wind. Now, a year and nine months after voting to leave the EU, we still have not held substantive trade talks.

The most intriguing and, for the politicians responsible for this farce, most existential question is: how will the British public finally react? The public is unreadable. In Britain the population has a tradition, once an election or other major decision is concluded, of turning away its attention and leaving the politicians to get on with it. Normally that is what happens; but this situation is totally abnormal. When the electorate eventually re-focuses on Brexit and fully realizes what has been done – or not done – in its name, the response could be explosive.

In that context, the cynical sell-out of Britain’s fishermen may have been a betrayal too far. Who negotiated the fisheries agreement – Bob Geldof? Britain’s fishermen may only contribute 0.5 per cent of GDP, but they have an iconic significance, particularly in relation to Brexit. People living far inland have a sentimental esteem for fishermen, one of the few workforces in Britain that still ply a rugged trade in the face of the elements. For an island nation control of our waters has a totemic value as an expression of sovereignty.

It is also an industry mainly based in Scotland, with a resultant backwash in Scottish politics. This fiasco ends the myth of Ruth Davidson’s huge influence in Number 10. It also endangers the new dispensation whereby more than one Scottish Conservative MP sits at Westminster. Meanwhile, there is considerable entertainment value in watching the SNP striving to find a plausible way of denouncing this Tory betrayal when its own preferred option is continued membership of the EU and its Common Fisheries Policy.

This Brexit charade, which provocatively demonstrates how pervasive the Remainer mentality is at all levels of the British establishment, cannot go on indefinitely. At some point the public will turn on those who have made Britain a global laughing stock: not, as the Remainer media would claim, the Brexiteers, but the government that has truckled and deferred to the Brussels bullies.

Their torment is far from over. Brussels is transparently preparing a grand denouement when it will seek to use the “backstop” clause on the Irish border – a non-issue in whose inflation by Brussels the British government has been fatuously complicit – either to dismantle the United Kingdom or pull the plug on the whole ramshackle negotiation at the last moment. What will the British public say then?

Britain’s Remainer-inspired cowardice and abject submission to Brussels has destroyed its international standing. This loss of respect is already being manifested in areas far removed from Brexit. Having observed Britain’s craven conduct, is it any wonder Vladimir Putin should have concluded that a nation adopting so servile a posture towards a bunch of suits in Brussels would pose little threat to a country with a ruthless intelligence service and military power ranging from special forces to nuclear weapons?

It will take a generation for Britain to recover from the humiliation visited upon her by Theresa May and her confederates. Meanwhile, we should end the farcical negotiations, trade with Europe under WTO rules and kick-start our national life out of its EU-induced state of suspended animation.