Sunday 10 July 2016

Mission: Impossible - The Brexit, part five

One karate chop to the back of the neck later...


"Jim, I'm having doubts about this part of the plan. Why offer concessions to Cameron at all? Won't the voters be more likely to support Remain if they think they're getting a better deal from the European Union?"


"If we were making just any concessions then I'd agree with you, Rollin. The trick is to make concessions that Cameron and the 'Vote Remain' politicians will be happy with, but that the voting public won't understand, let alone accept. If we play our cards right then Cameron will become overconfident, believing he has a much stronger hand than he has in reality.
Anyway, it's now time for Juncker's meeting with Cameron, so Willy and I had better clear out of here. Good luck Rollin."


"Good afternoon President Juncker. I've come to speak to you about what concessions you can offer me to help keep my country from leaving the European Union."


"Good afternoon to you, Prime Minister Cameron. I know why you are here. I expect you think you can just waltz in here and demand concessions from us and we will just roll over and play puppydog, eh? You English believe that we in the European Union need you more than you need us, is that not so?"


"Now wait a minute..."


"...And in this case you are absolutely right! You want concessions? I'll give you concessions! What do you have in mind?"


"Well, first we want to opt out of further political integration into the European Union. And we want to be able to block European Union legislation from being imposed on our national parliament."


"All right, you got it. We'll give you a 'red card' (you like football, no? "two world wars and one world cup" and all that?) with which you can block our proposals. Provided you get a majority of the national parliaments to support you, naturally."


"Naturally. That's a good start. We also want to stop European Union migrants from coming to our country to claim benefits and acting as a drain on our Welfare State."


"I see. I believe you have already been granted the power to deport those who are jobless for six months, so I take it you want to restrict their in-work benefits now? Very well. How about we permit you to phase in the benefits they are allowed to claim over the course of their first four years in your country? And I suppose we can amend regulation 883/2004 while we're at it, I'm sure I don't need to tell you how helpful that would be to your Remain argument."


"Erm, no, no, of course not. That would be most acceptable, thank you. Lastly I want reassurance - a firm commitment - that my country will not be compelled to adopt the euro currency, and we will not be required to help bail out eurozone countries that get into financial difficulties."


"You want to keep your queen on the money eh? Tricky. But possible. We will explicitly recognize that the European Union has more than one currency. We let you keep your queen - for now. And you will not have to fund euro bailouts, as I am reliably informed by top experts that there will not be any more of those."


"I'm glad to hear it. Well now, it seems to me these talks have been highly satisfactory. Can I have your concessions written down on a piece of paper for me to take back in my hand to show everyone?"


"Of course. I should warn you that this deal will need to be renegotiated after seven years - but you will not be Prime Minister by then, so it will be somebody else's problem, no?"


"Ha ha ha ha ha... fuck you."

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