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If Brexit is painful, it is because the British public made the demand that it be so - repeatedly. The EU has done remarkably little to make Brexit 'painful', and any pain the Brits suffer is somewhere between an unforced error and a deliberate choice. The EU very much could have done more to put on the screws, and didn't. The obvious consequences of leaving the EU market are not, in fact, some shadowy Franco-German plot to hurt those who leave.
Well, besides refusing to consider ultimately-accepted Irish border inspection measures for several years, selective laxening of migrant enforcement across the channel, coordinated media campaigns, grouping in various European projects the British were already paying members of that don't require EU membership to renegotiation as part of the broader trade deal negotiations, immediate objection on safety grounds of standards that were still in alignment at arbitrary cutoff dates, and deliberate demands for politically unviable demands that led to the collapse of the entire pro-EU British establishment when they tried to actually deliver a Brexit-in-name-only but which were dropped afterwards.
As a project to actually keep Britain in the European orbit, as was initially attempted by trying to offer an exceptional number of 'you can change your mind' avenues and the May BINO terms while heightening the prospects of departure with numerous techhniques, the EU position was a bumbling failure of trying to not-lose one of their most significant strategic-relevance contributors, and ended up in the impressive result of starting with a Parliamentary practical-majority of Remainers to negotiate with at the start changing to a hard-Brexit wave. As a secondary effort to try and keep the EU together, it was a decent success, albeit missing the obvious third order effects for how Euroskeptical states would adjust policy on the expectation of staying in the EU.
That there were options the EU could have done and didn't does not mean that they weren't also options that the Europeans didn't have to do, but did.
Of course not. It was just formal policy by various European leaders to show that exiting the EU would hurt anyone more than staying in, while taking multiple efforts to undermine confidence in the departed member's business environment, maintaining various European Union media campaigns continuing cultivate Brexit messaging themes years after macro-economic trends surpassed it, and post-Brexit attempts by the German and French governments to try to centralize power in European institutions they collectively dominated in the absence of British obstruction.
Things do not need to be shadowy plots to be confluence of interests between parties. 'Soft Brexit' was never going to be an option due to interests, not technical impossiblity.
Yes, the EU could've gone out of its way to offer favorable stuff to a nation leaving the union. For no reason, nor any gain to itself. A painful Brexit could well have gone further than close existing deals and have the EU dip out, which (again!) is precisely what the British public voter repeatedly asked for. I will not blame the EU for giving the Brits what they asked for, nor will I blame them for failing to go out of their way to put on the kid gloves. 'Not maximally lenient' does not painful equate.
Yes, the EU did not go out of its way to be maximally lenient. I don't want it to become a second Canada, where the Quebecois can extract cash and prizes by holding the rest of the nation hostage - I would much prefer the Brits don't get theirs either. This doesn't require hurting them, which the EU still didn't do. It just requires you don't let them keep the spoils while shedding the burdens, which still isn't putting on the hurt. Any whinging on the Brits' part they got no special concessions is just that - whinging.
This doesn't read as a strong condemnation to me. An organisation... Wants to convince people they're better off with than without? Don't want those inside to leave? Want not to be the single most centralised monstrosity int he world?
If this is the EU working to hurt Britain, it is the most benign institution known to man; the very weakest level of wrath ever conceived of. If this is the EU being evil, eurosceptics are the most ornery of men for finding the absolute horror that is an organisation not caving for defectors intolerable in the face of generations-spanning peace.
Or maybe, this one time, we needn't treat the EU as a big boogeyman. The British asked for something, did it again, had years to figure out themselves, and got what they wanted. Good and hard, as they saying goes. I wish them good luck, I sincerely hope they do well for themselves, but speaking ill of the EU for not giving them more than they got and calling it hardball is silly as silly gets.
That is because it is not a condemnation, and suggests to me that you are mis-interpreting the position.
As @Harlequin5942 stated, I am not condemning. I maintain the EU made Brexit more painful than it had to be. Making things more painful than necessary is only a condemnation if you believe the point of geopolitics and diplomatic negotiations with allies is to minimize harm to all parties involved.
In so much as I condemn the EU's handling of Brexit, it is on grounds of competence in pursuit of what I view was their desired results of the negotiation strategy.
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Britain gets hurt leaving the EU simply by trade distance. They really never had a choice about being in the EU. Replacing more trade with America was never possible. The distances are too far. And I don’t mean actual physical trade. Like a merchant banker in the UK would never be financing a factory at the same ability in North Carolina as he would in Southern France.
Geography binds them to Europe. And while certain things on a lot fronts need standardized to reduce all sorts of trade frictions there’s also a desire to not have to take on all European cultural demands.
And part of Brexxit was not just cultural but a realization EU had bad policy. Monetary was far too tight leading to bad growth and then Syria happened because we fucked up Syria and a bunch of poor brown people invaded Europe that no one really wanted.
Yes, and they did this to themselves. You need no malice, not a shred, to explain this. Merely an absence of saintliness for not extending to the British all the benefits that come with the EU anyway.
Yes, the EU has poor policy along with good policy - so it goes. Not really relevant to the meme of someone shoving a stick up their bicycle's stake and crying why the EU would do this.
Who is attributing malice? The initial topic of your debate was whether EU actions had made Brexit more or less painful than it had to be.
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