"No Deal Better Than A Bad Deal" Was Most Mindless Brexit Gambit, Says James O'Brien
12 April 2019, 12:15 | Updated: 12 April 2019, 13:26
James O'Brien claims that Theresa May used the 'no-deal is better than a bad deal' line in order to placate people but that it was her most "stupid" Brexit gambit.
"What we have today is the No Deal Brexit planning, which is breathtaking actually", James O'Brien says.
James reveals that he has seen figures reported variously - from £1.5 billion to £4.2 billion - spent on planning for a no-deal Brexit which is now "on ice".
"What an absolute waste. Do you know we're still paying for the ferries which Chris Grayling organised? And we've been paying for them since March the 29th?" James says incredulously.
And the idea that we'd get the European Union to "bow to our will" by threatening a no deal was never going to work, he says.
Referring to the argument that 'you never go into a negotiation without being prepared to walk away', James points out that this observation neglects the fact that when you walk away, you walk back to where you started.
"You don't threaten to walk away from a negotiation, if you don't know where you're walking to", he says.
Giving an analogy of buying a house, James points out that you'd only pull out of a house purchase if you got to stay in your old house.
"This line that 'no deal is better than a bad deal' was the single most stupid gambit that Theresa May chose to employ...she chose it in order to keep the headbangers, the liars and the racists quiet, on the fringes of her own party and beyond."
"It failed because it wasn't true, and she's now reduced to saying that 'any deal is better than no deal', because it was true all along".
