Iain Duncan Smith: EU leaders are 'panicking and desperate' about a no-deal Brexit

European Union leaders are increasingly "panicking and desperate" that Britain might leave the EU without a deal, Iain Duncan Smith says today.

Speaking on Chopper's Brexit Podcast - which you can listen to easily on the player above - the former Conservative party leader said: "The European Union, behind the scenes, is panicking and desperate. They know that they have to have a deal.

"They also know that extending is a very poor option for them because it creates the continuous chaos.

"So we hear a lot about the UK having chaos; the truth is I know a lot of people who work in and around the European Union and they’re all telling me nobody wants is another extension.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/09/20/iain-duncan-smith-eu-leaders-panicking-desperate-no-deal-brexit/


Video on link

Telegraph wrote:...the former Conservative party leader said: "The European Union, behind the scenes, is panicking and desperate. They know that they have to have a deal.

Wishes and dreams. Pablum for the base.

Quill, neither do you live in Britain ,you know fuck all about It !

nicko wrote:Quill, neither do you live in Britain ,you know fuck all about It !

I read and listen to the news. Try it sometime...

Why would anyone in the UK or the EU cut their nose off to spite their face? Are politicians so seriously stupid and infantile to make things more difficult because they can both sides loose a lot if we don't work this out to a mutual benefit.
Don't know what Quill is on about doesn't he advocate California leaving the Union because it'll benefit them more than being in it or is that a bluff...

Vintage wrote:Why would anyone in the UK or the EU cut their nose off to spite their face? Are politicians so seriously stupid and infantile to make things more difficult because they can both sides loose a lot if we don't work this out to a mutual benefit.
Don't know what Quill is on about doesn't he advocate California leaving the Union because it'll benefit them more than being in it or is that a bluff...

For the EU I think the reasons not to make it easy are obvious - if the UK gets to enjoy all the trade benefits without being a member then other members will inevitably consider the same. That could lead to the break up of the EU.

The reasons are obvious I agree but its more beneficial to have people onside and at least co operating even if they aren't politically shackled to an entity. In the current climate we need to co operate especially on security, climate change and in helping to make third world countries more viable so that their citizens aren't forced to risk everything to get to a more prosperous country, where ordinary people are feeling side lined and forgotten. I don't think we need binding treaties of the EU kind to do that, we are all in the same boat in the long run, our needs are the same, its time we realised it and gave up the one up manship and work for our mutual benefits especially in trade. It will take the majority of the world to get together, voluntarily, to solve or at least alleviate our problems.

Vintage wrote:The reasons are obvious I agree but its more beneficial to have people onside and at least co operating even if they aren't politically shackled to an entity. In the current climate we need to co operate especially on security, climate change and in helping to make third world countries more viable so that their citizens aren't forced to risk everything to get to a more prosperous country, where ordinary people are feeling side lined and forgotten. I don't think we need binding treaties of the EU kind to do that, we are all in the same boat in the long run, our needs are the same, its time we realised it and gave up the one up manship and work for our mutual benefits especially in trade. It will take the majority of the world to get together, voluntarily, to solve or at least alleviate our problems.

All true, but the EU still has survival at the forefront of its concerns.

Honestly, I think we have two likely options.

1. (the less likely option maybe) Boris gets a deal and manages by some miracle to get it through parliament. The deal will be almost identical to May's but they'll have renamed the backstop and BoJo will do an incredible job of selling it as a completely different outcome to what May would have brought. We'll remain very much aligned with the EU but with no seat at the table and some control of our borders.

2. (more likely, maybe) We exit without a deal then immediately to scramble to form a deal afterwards (because regardless of the nonsense ideas of being close to the Commonwealth, the absolute fact is we will HAVE TO have a trade deal of some kind with the EU) which will probably end up little different to the one drawn up now - something akin to that of Norway or Switzerland.

And the world will go on as it was. We'll be out of, but tied to the EU still, but with no influence or power within it.

Still tied to the EU ? perish the thought !

Can't argue with your options, although it never seemed to me that we ever had much influence in the EU, perhaps because our representatives weren't actually doing their jobs I don't know. When it came to treaties I think each country should have had a referendum, they are so important and are legally binding, the ordinary person should have been informed of the consequences and aims of each one.
I certainly don't want to isolate the UK far from it and I don't even remember the glory days of the Empire and was too young to be aware of its ending, I think it was only glorious for a certain amount of elite, just as the EU is only glorious to a certain elite and those in the right place at the right time. There are so many who feel the EU have at best done nothing to help them and at worst have even lost them jobs. I doubt their lot will change in or out, I think people are fed up of being ignored though and of being called racist and xenophobic for not wanting their particular way of life changed by rules made by someone they've never seen or heard of and had no say in.

Eilzel wrote:

Vintage wrote:Why would anyone in the UK or the EU cut their nose off to spite their face? Are politicians so seriously stupid and infantile to make things more difficult because they can both sides loose a lot if we don't work this out to a mutual benefit.
Don't know what Quill is on about doesn't he advocate California leaving the Union because it'll benefit them more than being in it or is that a bluff...

For the EU I think the reasons not to make it easy are obvious - if the UK gets to enjoy all the trade benefits without being a member then other members will inevitably consider the same. That could lead to the break up of the EU.

All we want is a bit of trade... and for the last 40 years we have continuously been told that the EU is only about trade... and if that was true then we wouldn't have voted to leave...

Vintage wrote:Don't know what Quill is on about doesn't he advocate California leaving the Union because it'll benefit them more than being in it or is that a bluff...

I also advocated independence for Scotland.  That is more akin to a separate Pacific States.

You are treating separation from the EU as the break up of the whole.  There are a lot of people who would take offense at that.  If the whole is the EU, and GB is only California, doesn't that reverse presumptions against Brexiteers?  The whole point that tommy makes is that GB was and is, first, a compact nation without the EU.