BREXIT

To:     The Right Honourable UK Prime Minister Mrs. Theresa May

From: Athinarayanan Sanjeevraja

Date: November 13, 2018

RE:     BREXIT

Suggestion:

Mrs. Prime Minister let me start by paying my respects to you and through you to. I just heard from BBC World news that “BREXIT talk in end game”. Well but we all wanted to know what sort of end game? We are still waiting to find out what BREXIT means. The UK trade with the EU talks have not even started yet. IMHO, the UK trade deal will not have been settled by the end of the transition period. Mark my words. That is why the Irish backstop has become so redlines during the BREXIT negotiations. If you allowed the UK trade deal with the EU to be unhitched from the BREXIT negotiations, the UK will going to be losing every step of the way. Remember. Let me put it very clearly, the EU is not punishing the UK. Nevertheless, the EU has made a major concession to the UK by agreeing in principle the UK’s request that the UK custom wide agreement be part of the withdrawal agreement and therefore binding instead of being merely in the political declaration (non-binding). The EU has made very significant concessions of agreeing the UK wide customs union in the binding withdrawal agreement. The EU withdrawal agreement could only contain trade provision in relations to Northern Ireland. Indeed, the EU withdrawal agreement will guarantee that the UK will not use this to undercut the EU companies. In my opinion, the UK can’t become more competitive than the EU after BREXIT. Mark my words. Competition is to be cherished the EU; it pushes the standards to new heights.

Mrs. Prime Minister, your BREXIT negotiations has been case study in how not to conduct negotiations. BREXIT begin without a clear idea of the UK goals, set-early on red-lines which must later be abandoned as unrealistic, make concessions without understanding the EU full implications, change the UK position fundamentally halfway through without the agreement of key constituents of your BREXIT team, fail to prepare for the adverse outcome of the BREXIT negotiation so that no deal is an increasing pressure point and do all this against a deadline which favours your counterparty. 

Mrs. Prime Minister, I would like to recall the history, the UK had found its place in the world and restored its economic competence through it’s the EU membership. Personally, I admire your tenacity and your capacity for hard work. But as the Prime Minister of the UK, you must hope for those qualities to be combined with an excellent sense of strategic analysis and an ability to lead the UK not just BREXIT. You have the responsibility to lead the UK in the best direction for its people. You could have made different choices for BREXIT and the obvious one would have been to immediately declare for the Norway option or you can have the temporary membership of the Customs Union but cannot unilaterally leave it and must agree to a mass of regulatory alignment. Non-membership of the EU was always going to be inferior to the EU membership.

If the UK is not part of the EU membership, then the UK cannot have the same membership benefits. The UK never gets a better deal than the one the UK has.  Let’s keep the facts straight.    

Thank you very much for your attention.

Respectfully yours

Athinarayanan Sanjeevraja.

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Athinarayanan Advisory Authority.