Brexit - a difficult balancing act all round

LATE last year, the EU and UK negotiators on Brexit agreed that they could move on to talks about the UK's relationship with the EU after it withdraws in 2019. Currently, talks continue but behind the scenes, with both parties very coy about the content. Long may this continue, so that the media is frustrated and cannot speculate with any overt evidence.

But this does not stop speculation by the press on either side's position, not helped by the inability of both sides to keep their mouths shut. Such it ever was.

There have been quite significant developments within both negotiating parties. The EU's talisperson (post Weismann PC language) - Angela Merkel - has been replaced by Emmanuel Macron of France, as Germany cannot form a government. He has recently been in the UK on a supposed friendly visit, the major outcome of which is an agreement to lend the UK the original Bayeux Tapestry, which celebrates the last time that France won an argument against Britain (1066), but was woven in England. Very weird diplomacy and quite obviously a disguised insult. However, it won him funding from the UK to defend the French border at Calais against immigrants who could not be stopped at other EU borders because of the Schengen Agreement, to which the UK is not a part. Other EU members are beginning to indicate that if the UK actually does leave the EU, they are not up for redressing the deficit in the budget and the EU cloth must be cut accordingly. This is worrisome to the E…