One-Upmanship is a way of gaining a superior advantage over another person or organisation. It’s a method employed in the game of politics and that is exactly what is happening right now at the EU-UK Brexit negotiations. The UK make an offer the EU can’t refuse, and yet that’s exactly what they do by coming back and saying the UK offer “falls short of what was expected.” Now the onus is on the UK to do better. The same thing will happen and the shoe, I’m sure, will be on the other foot as we go back and forth on the negotiations over the next two years until the divorce is finalised.

What we are seeing in this game is the ability of politicians to add spin to a story, to alter something subtly in order to gain advantage over an adversary that is going to be playing out over these next two years. Be prepared after each daily round of talks to listen to an EU or UK official giving a press conference and bemoaning the other sides offer “falling short.” This will go on until we are all thoroughly sick and tired of it, probably around Christmas time, at which point many will have stopped Paying Attention. That’s when all the real stuff will start happening and nobody will be paying attention until it’s too late.

Did I say adversary in the last paragraph? To those of us who are the pawns in these negotiations, i.e., the EU & UK citizens that these negotiations affect, that’s what it sometimes feels like, we are pawns in a multi-dimensional game of chess over which we have no control.

Let’s face it, it’s all political manoeuvring so that politicians at the end of the day can say “we got the best deal” and then move on to the next issue. It will not make much of a difference what we want, it will all end up cut and dried, signed sealed and delivered… no matter what you or I want.

It’s a long way to go until March 2019, try not to get too bored.

Tom Kane © 2017
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