Re: 2 years?
"We hold all the cards"
As Frasier once memorably enquired: "What colour is the sky in your world?"
Save arguably in financial services and defence, Britain needs the EU much, much more—almost tearfully more—than the EU needs Britain.
Financial services will lose their passporting rights and so London will cease to be the principal European trading hub. Frankfurt and Dublin will benefit, much relocation will occur, Britain will be tens of billions worse off.
Defence would have been a bit of an ace ... 20/30 years ago when we still had decent-sized and resourced armed forces. Now we have our smallest ever military, starring the useless Trident and two aircraft carriers which: have no planes; will eventually get the appalling F-35B garbage; have woefully insufficient escorts (cut by half); and a survivability expectation of less than 24 hours against any competent foe.
Add to that the Europeans are clearly and correctly determined to see that Britain gets no reward for Brexit (pour encourager les autres), and the simple non-negotiability of the four freedoms ... and "we have all the cards" is just risible. We have hardly any. Which is of course, why May and Davis and the other fools keep talking about playing it close to the chest: it's the best way to disguise the fact you don't even have a hand.
Sorry if I sound a bit acerbic, but I really don't know what Kool-Aid people have been drinking when they talk about Britain having a negotiating position ... much less a 'strong' one.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
