On Brexit, What the EU Tells You 10 Times Is True
Prime Minister Theresa May should finally stop ignoring her negotiating partners’ red lines.
Barnier may be smiling, but May should know he’s not joking.
Photographer: Jack Taylor/Getty Images
When she started learning to play chess, my younger daughter was aghast that the pieces could’t always go where she wanted them to; she still ignores, for the most part, her opponent’s moves, figuring it’s enough for a victory to make good ones of her own.
For two years, U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May has exhibited the same behavior. She shouldn’t be surprised that on Thursday, the European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, shot down her latest plan for the future relationship between the EU and the U.K., on which May had expended much of her political capital. Nor should she be surprised that attempts to get a different reaction out of individual EU leaders will go nowhere again.