Barnier deserves better than Brexit insults
Reader believes EU negotiator was dealt tough hand and lacks so-called 'arrogance'
To the Editor,
I am writing following your publication of a reader letter regarding Michel Barnier and UK-EU relations.
I have to take issue with the opinion that Mr Barnier "does not admit to his own brutal arrogance when conduction negotiations with the UK."
I saw it rather differently.
While Mr Barnier tried to conduct some serious negotiation and arrived at sessions with documents, he was met with the smirking indifference of David Davis, who turned up without a single sheet of paper, obviously having no intention whatsoever of treating the negotiations seriously.
This was followed with the thuggishness of Dominic Raab and ended with the aggressive intransigence of David Frost.
Mr Barnier tried again and again to get the UK to treat the issue with the gravity it deserved, but to no avail.
You say that Mr Barnier "should have conceded something" to the UK. Why, exactly?
The referendum vote in favour of leaving the EU was carried by a slim margin of less than 1,500,000, out of nearly 34,000,000 votes cast, meaning your statement that “the UK population including me were further convinced of the intolerable arrogance and intractability of the EU” is false.
If it is an instance of arrogance that you want to recall, remember the words of Boris Johnson when asked in the UK parliament why he was convinced that the EU would give the UK a beneficial Brexit deal: "Because they would be stupid not to."
A decade ago, Brexiteers confidently predicted the imminent break-up of the EU, and the death of the euro within a couple of years, yet this is yet to come to fruition.
Personally, I have never regretted the decision to make my post-Brexit home in mainland Europe.
Yours faithfully,
P.D. (via email)
