In article , pamela
writes
On 19:41 7 Nov 2016, bert wrote:

In article , pamela
writes
On 20:23 6 Nov 2016, bert wrote:

In article , pamela
writes
On 11:43 6 Nov 2016, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

In article ,
pamela wrote:
On 00:13 6 Nov 2016, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

In article ,
pamela wrote:
It looks as if our negotiating position with the EU will
be made weaker by public debates about our stance in
Parliament. Bad though that is it's still not a
sufficient reason to deny Parliament and the people it
represents their rights.

I really don't see how. As soon as real negotiations
start on any new deal with the EU, it'll be public
anyway.


I was taught to determine three positions before starting a
formal negotiation: what you would LIKE to get, would you
INTEND to get and what you MUST get. You open with your
LIKE position and walk away if you can't get your MUST
position.

Sort of.

Parliamentary debate would probably establish the MUST
position but it woul dbe done publicly. If that's known to
the other party then they can completely ignore proposals
in your opening LIKE position.

On the other hand, having your MUST position known can be a
strength if the other party wants a deal and accepts it
can't push you beyond your MUST position.

But you're forgetting we will also know what the EU wants.

Unfotunately I don't think the EU wants a deal
as much as we do.

It does - but likely for different things. They basically
sell more goods to us than we do to them. So a pure trade
deal would be in their favour. When it comes to services,
the position is reversed. But then, many services are based
in the UK (London) because we have unfettered access to the
EU.

It's probably not quite so simple because we don't know what
they want from us. I was also taught that in a simple
two-sided negotiation there are four important points of view.

Your perception about your own strengths.
Their perception of your own strengths.
Your perception about their strengths.
Their perception about their strengths.

These perceptions (none of which may actually be correct) will
change where you place your LIKE, INTEND, MUST positions.

Unfortunately the perceptions of Brexiteers about our
strengths and those of the EU seem be founded on their
referendum bravado. However we are now back in the real world.

The main strength of the EU negotiators will be that they
actually don't give a s*** about the well-being of their own
citizens as they cannot vote them out.

I imagine the EU will appoint negotiators from MEPs who, as we
know, have all been directly voted in by a public ballot in
their constituency.

You obviously don't follow EU politics very closely. The
commission has won that particular battle and appointed their
chief negotiator.

I posted about him a couple of months ago. He's an MEP. Fancy
that.

"The EU Parliament has appointed Verhofstadt as its lead
negotiator who "has been talking frankly about how difficult
he plans to make Britain's withdrawal from the European Union".

http://al.howardknight.net/msgid.cgi?ID=147855352100

"He will participate in the talks along with negotiators from the
European Commission and the ministerial Council" - so not other MEPs
--
bert