Wait what? But wasn't the National Health Service supposed to be getting £350 million per week after Brexit? Alas, the EU has other ideas. They want the UK to cough up 5 times that weekly amount (for a year) upfront and in return they may play nice in the negotiations that follow.
Whether the UK pays this amount or not is going to come down to who is more afraid of a Hard Brexit. The remaining 27 EU member states vehemently agree that the UK owes €100 Billion. On the other hand, the British public and their leaders are not entertaining this claim for one minute. Boris Johnson went as far as saying that it is the EU that will end up owing the UK money. Thus, we have a classic game of political chicken and it is going to be fun to see who blinks first.
Those among us who are students of The Art of the Deal might be thinking, why doesn't the UK just concede in another area in return for paying a smaller divorce penalty? Unfortunately for the UK, the EU has no intention of making things easy and insists on finalizing the divorce bill question before anything else is discussed. So the UK is cornered and has to choose between paying up or going off the cliff edge into Hard Brexit land (future post).
We won't have a clear picture of where things are going until the UK election is over in 2 weeks. A few weeks ago it looked like it was going to be a landslide for the Conservatives and that PM May would be in a strong position. However, the latest polls show that Labour has reduced the Conservatives' 18 point lead into a 5 point one. I am no fan of opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn but this is impressive work. I had already started writing his obituary and now he's within the margin of error.
I have no horse in this race and so I'm just gonna be sitting on the sidelines with my popcorn. I encourage you to follow me so you can stay up-to-date on one of the more interesting political phenomenons of our time.
H.