All the major players are locked, some might say imprisoned, by the positions they find themselves in. If Yanis Varoufakis is right and I believe he is, then there's not the slightest possibility of a favourable outcome for all parties, not because they don't desire it, but because they are incapable of delivering it, they are locked in to a mind set that makes it impossible.....
"If Yanis Varoufakis is right
and I believe he is............."
I really admire this guy. What a role model he has been at 'reinventing himself' - I am genuine in that comment - I really admire what he has achieved for himself
He is never off our televisions nowadays, being brought in to speak on panels such as Question Time etc. - popping up as an authoritative speaker on all matters of dealing with the EU on all the News channels and so on.
In doing so he is earning himself a healthy consultancy fee I am sure and further cementing himself as this authoritative speaker. He has a job for years. When it settles down in the UK, I am sure he will have become fluent in whichever language is needed to see him being asked to provide his expertise wherever the next exit from the EU crops up - although I bet he is privately hoping for Irexit.
So, lets just examine his credentials to be this Guru on all matters in successfully dealing with the EU.........
Hmmm, it seems to really simply be down to him having spent less than six months as Greece's Finance minister. That is less than six months in which his time was taken up in leading the negotiations with Greece's creditors during the Greek government-debt crisis. During this period, as he tells us endlessly, he spent his time being given the run around by the EU - failing at every turn to get people to even speak to him, let alone get answers from the EU to any proposal that he put forward.
Having totally failed he then resigned.
Yes, I can absolutely accept that he is fully qualified to speak about his one experience of just how arrogant and contemptuous the EU are - especially when the EU are dealing with an EU member that is essentially bankrupt and begging for a bailout.
I confess though to being a bit bemused about how this positions him to speak so authoritatively about how a nation that is the EU's 2nd largest economy should be planning to successfully negotiate with these same arrogant and contemptuous EU apparatchiks.
You select from this clip a few seconds in which he suggests that the UK are inane to put ending the FOM forward as being essential. Well I of course can understand that view, but this can be easily justified. To deliver Brexit May has rightly, IMO, interpreted that controls over our borders, money and laws are clearly viewed, by the UK electorate, as being right at the heart of the UK's decision to leave and therefore essential.
Much more interesting for me in that clip was the much longer period in which he spoke about the manner in which the EU obfuscate and avoid 'actual negotiations' - describing exactly the scenarios that we would have faced if the veto amendment had gone through or if May is not backed by a sufficient majority in Westminster.
You can actually find online other pieces of his wisdom, such as:
How the UK should unilaterally and immediately award UK citizenship to the 3.2m EU nationals here - he argues that in so doing it removes a negotiating chip from the EU - ???
or
How we should immediately act to trigger our joining the EEA to therefore give us an extra 5 years to conduct the negotiations with the EU. In this article he admits, as he does in the clip you pasted, that the EU will not negotiate seriously - they will continue to treat us with contempt and negotiations will not actually get anywhere. Of course we will have to be making full contributions during this period and accepting the 4 freedoms.
Yep, I have got him down as the 'go to guy' (not) for offering the UK authoritative advice in our dealings with the EU over the next 2 years to achieve a successful outcome for the UK.
As an aside - he says that he would opt for Corbyn over May to face-off against the EU in the negotiations. At least that would likely ensure that he, Yanis, did not go down in history as being the biggest failure when negotiating with the EU.
But as I say - I can really admire how he has established himself as some Oracle figure - on the back of what seems to be very limited credible experience
