Looks like Europe is all set for Brexit and waiting for the other party to make its mind up. If the UK Supreme Court decides to carry on with Brexit, the two parties will be on the negotiations table pretty soon, but if the court rules against the UK government again, then no one knows how long it will take the UK parliament to make a decision.

Anyway, the EU is waiting and they already have the priorities on the table. The EU/Brexit negotiator was the first to make his appearance this morning and lay out the pillars of the EU once again, just to remind the Brits where the two camps stand in case they get any funny ideas such as having the cake and eating it themselves.

Merkel came up next and repeated the same comments, but the German elections are scheduled for next year so she might not even be around when the Brexit negotiations start.

Anyway, they both repeated that the aim for the EU is to keep the 27 countries united, a normal Brexit (neither hard nor soft) is mostly preferred, and the non-EU countries can't have the same rights as the member countries. I bet the delusional UK Brexit office still think they can have the same right once they leave the EU.

The most important comment though from both EU officials was exactly the same; “Britain cannot cherry pick when the time for negotiations comes”. Of course, they can't and Merkel made it clear that the four freedoms of the EU must be fully respected if the UK wants single market access.

The four freedoms comprise of free movement of capital, goods, services, and labour. We know that the UK is particularly sensitive to the last two freedoms; it wants to keep doing business with the EU (financials spring to mind) while closing the border for EU labour.

Personally, having lived in the UK for about a decade and thus having an insight of the situation in the country, I don't think that closing the border for the EU citizens will keep immigration at check. People from all over the world will still try and enter the country in lorries from Calais. There are already about 5 times as many other nationalities in the UK as EU citizens, so I have no idea what the Brexit office is thinking. My logic hurts.