This tweet from Boris implies that George Eustice and his ministerial colleagues and indeed himself when he was a member of the Cabinet were involved in a private, confidential negotiation with the European Union. The key paragraph of George’s letter states “As a Defra Minister, I have enjoyed good relations with the European Commission and with Ministers from other member states. However, I do not believe that the Commission has behaved honourably during these negotiations. They have deliberately made progress slow and difficult. They have stated in terms that they will refuse to even hold substantive negotiations on a future partnership until after we leave. If the position of Parliament is now that we will refuse to leave without an agreement then we are somewhat stuck. This is uncomfortable for everyone, but we cannot negotiate a successful Brexit unless we are prepared to walk through the door.” So they both believe that a no deal demand is essential in order to defeat the EU, but in doing so they will put fear into the lives of many people in the UK. The reality is that private negotiations operate in a very different context to public negotiations and unless George and Boris can understand this, they will vote for the wrong things altogether. Public negotiations are not based on a cliff edge approaches and so they are much lower in risk terms and can achieve much less or a gain in terms of at the expense of the other party. Of course if George and Boris where involved in highly credible private negotiations they would discover that win win win negotiations avoid obtaining personal or corporate gain at the expense of the other party.