BIll Carmichael: 'EU is in no position to dictate over Brexit'

“I’ll pay anything you like and I won’t walk away from the negotiation no matter how unreasonable you are,” you tell him.

Do you reckon you would end up with a good deal? No, neither do I, but that these are exactly the tactics backed by Labour, the Lib Dems and, incredibly, some Conservatives with regard to our negotiations to cut free from the moribund European Union.

When the Euro-fanatics say we must have a deal “at any price” and we won’t walk away without deal, they simply encourage the EU side to ask for the moon.

This isn’t negotiation as much as total capitulation, and by giving the EU a blank cheque we would gravely damage our economy and future prosperity.

Sadly many Remoaners are well aware of this. They would rather see British people suffer at the hands of a punitive EU than admit they were wrong and that the UK does indeed have a viable future as an independent self-governing democracy.

When people like the Chancellor Philip Hammond, whose singular achievement in office so far is to produce a Budget so catastrophically inept it had to be junked before the ink was dry, repeat the same old tired Remoaner talking points, it simply encourages the EU side to be obstinate and unreasonable.

Every meaningful negotiation must involve some give and take on both sides. But the EU, encouraged by their allies here in the UK, have so far been all take and absolutely no give.In sharp contrast, the UK side has bent over backwards to reach a compromise. It has, for example, made an incredibly generous offer to EU citizens settled in the UK, and put forward practical proposals to create a frictionless border with the Irish Republic.

To cap it all, Prime Minister Theresa May has indicated we are prepared to pay £20bn to secure a trade deal, even though we are not legally obliged to pay the EU a single penny.

The EU side has greedily gobbled up each and every concession and then stubbornly refused to budge an inch from its entrenched positions.

As a result, the Brexit negotiations have slowed to a crawl and, at the EU’s intransient insistence, we have not even begun to talk about the most important issue – a free trade deal that would benefit both sides.

We can only go on like this for so long. At some point we may have to accept that the EU is not serious about striking any sort of deal and we should walk away. The £20bn we’ve promised to the EU can instead be used to help prepare businesses for Brexit and to strike free trade deals with countries around the world that are, unlike the EU, economically thriving.That’s the message Mrs May should be giving to the other 27 member states at the latest EU summit in Brussels.

And let us not forget the UK is in a strong position. As this week’s employment statistics demonstrate, the UK economy continues to thrive, which is in sharp contrast to many other European countries where the jobless rate, particularly among young people, remains worrying high.

Spain is disintegrating, Austria has moved to the far right, Greece will never pay off its debts, the Italian banks are holed below the waterline and in Germany Angela Merkel is badly wounded as a result of her irresponsible open borders immigration policy.

Even France’s Emmanuel Macron, once the great hope of the Europhiles, has seen his approval ratings plummet disastrously since taking office in June.

The European Union is in a terrible mess, and it is in no position to be dictating terms to a successful and prosperous country like the UK. The last thing manufacturers in the EU member states want is to be cut off from their most valuable export market in the UK.

I suspect the business community, particularly in Germany, which exports more than 800,000 cars a year to the UK, understand this and at some point they will step in to shake some sense into the ideologues in Brussels.

But we may have to threaten to walk out on the talks – and make good on the threat if necessary – before this happens.