Simple Question

[weecalf]

If Donal Trump had done the negotiation for Britain leaving would we have got a better deal ?

[Mamyalynne]

Ah wee Donal, I knew his Mother.

[weecalf]

Donald i ment

[Ken4155]

Donald Trump gets away with what he does because he is the most powerful man in the world - and a bully. If he were PM, he would carry as much clout as May - i.e. none whatsoever.

[jim360]

No.

[Ken4155]

Didn't know we had a deal?

[anneasquith]

My dog could get a better deal than this present government .!!!!

[naomi24]

If only! A deal wouldn't have been on the agenda. We'd have been out.

[jim360]

It isn't even a question of Trump's abilities as a negotiator, though -- he, or anyone else in the position of PM, would still have been bound by the Lisbon Treaty and the UK Constitution, as well as political realities. The first two essentially force the UK to wait two years from notification to leave anyway; the second means that no matter what the UK PM says or does, the EU would have stuck to its general position.

Of course, since Trump's suggestion recently was to "sue the EU", one might also question whether he'd really be an improvement, but the fact of the matter is that no one person could make much of a difference to the present situation.

[naomi24]

He wouldn’t be negotiating. He’d have fulfilled our obligations and we’d have been out - which is exactly what the government SHOULD have done.

[jim360]

Our obligations include abiding by the Lisbon Treaty, though -- which mandates that, if countries wish to leave the EU, then "... the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that [country], setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal ...", and that this negotiation period effectively only ends when the remaining EU members (through the EU Parliament and the Council of the EU) agree to the treaty. Taken with Article 50(3) this implies that we would almost certainly never have been able to leave prior to two years after notification regardless.

[jim360]

A couple of small corrections because it's late: I meant the European Council, not the Council of the EU.#

The full article is here:

http://www.lisbon-treaty.org/wcm/the-lisbon-treaty/treaty-on-European-union-and-comments/title-6-final-provisions/137-article-50.html

In any case, the point is that negotiating an agreement is part of our obligations under the Lisbon Treaty, so it's meaningless to say that "we should just have fulfilled our obligations rather than negotiating"...

[naomi24]

As I said he’d have fulfilled our obligations and we’d have been out.

[jim360]

What obligations are those, I wonder, if they do not include abiding by Treaties of which we are signatories?

[naomi24]

Jim, In my opinion Mr Trump would have fulfilled our obligations and we’d have been out. Whether fulfilling our obligations means abiding by treaties to which we are bound for eternity and from which we have no legitimate means of escape (and I don’t think anything like that exists), or doing what’s necessary to release us, Mr Trump would have done what is required to deliver what should be delivered.

I get the sense that you are about to embark upon yet another of your regular trips around the houses. Unless you change your mind, you’ll forgive me if I leave you to travel further along that road alone.

[1ozzy]

//Mr Trump would have done what is required to deliver what should be delivered.//

Yes, Donald should be "potusuk"

[Garaman]

The OP is merely introducing hypothesis into the familiar question 'Is no deal better than a deal?'.

[1ozzy]

That sounds like a cheap tv quiz show ;-/

[jim360]

I'm not travelling round the houses, I'm simply stating that "our obligations" are far more complicated (and lengthy) than you are giving them credit for, regardless of what you think about Trump's abilities to navigate them.

As you might have guessed, I think you're wrong about that, too, but I suppose you're in the fortunate position of stating the purest of pure hypothetical (ie, utterly untestable) claims.

[woofgang]

potusuk? gods forbid!