Negotiating For the Future of the UK

So now we know, the proposed referendum question is to be, yes or no:

"Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?"

The baseline from which we will be expected to make our judgement will, presumably, be revealed after a period of negotiation with our EU partners.  I think that will be too late.  It seems to me, unless it is our intention to arrive "naked in the conference chamber of Europe," we must previously have prepared a clear position upon what it is we wish to negotiate and the lengths to which we could be prepared to go to get what we want (undisclosed to our European "partners").  Will the Government start from the presumption that we wish to stay in (with some sort of "better" deal) or from a clean sheet of paper upon which there are no preconditions?   There is, obviously, a huge difference between the 2 negotiating standpoints. 

In his book "Why You Lose at Bridge" the great bridge expert, SJ Simon, represented a similar dilemma as the distinction between "the best result possible" as opposed to "the best possible result." The first case is the typical pragmatic negotiation - what could I hope to achieve in the circumstances?  The latter looks beyond current constraints towards the best of all worlds.  In other words, the percentage play versus perfection.  In advising improving bridge players to seek the best result possible rather than the best possible result, there was one vital constraint.  Simon assumed that his aspiring audience wanted to continue to play bridge and that there was no possibility of them resigning from the bridge club and taking up tennis, for example.

If, as Bismarck noted, that politics was the art of the possible and given a predisposition to stay in, it could be possible to represent almost any negotiated settlement as "the best result possible"  and recommend it to the referendum as a triumph of diplomacy and persistence.  Vote "yes" because we are not going to get a better deal in the circumstances!  But this is a non sequitur.

The crucial difference is that we don't have to stay in the EU. For taking up tennis substitute alternative trading arrangements with the rest of the world.  Indeed, we may judge that our economic prospects inside a declining EU are, on balance worse, than going it alone. So it does not follow that the best deal possible, as outlined above, is necessarily the right course for the future.  On the contrary, without a predisposition to stay in, even one implied, we could haggle for the best possible outcome for UK.  Thus our final judgement must be based upon all possibilities and, in particular, the advantages of leaving the EU.  Let us, therefore, start from a clean sheet of paper!