A Van, yes there has been a demand for the sum of 100 billion Euro's in Brexit reparations. Most of us agree the UK is prepared to pay what it owes...but being as the only identified expense was pensions and the total demanded adds up to over €2,000,000 per EU employee it does seem rather high. Your "gangsta song" description is close to the mark and we may be in for a "hard Brexit" whatever anyone in UK wants. The only remotely comparable situation (which I agree isn't strictly comparable) was France leaving NATO. This imposed major costs on remaining members and France took possession of several expensively NATO funded bases. They paid, ...er, nothing at all! You're right again that minimising such a bill in order to minimise cuts to forces (and everything else!) ought to have been top of the list for whoever won the election. One candidate stated in advance that he would not leave negotiations without a deal at any price. Hardly a strong negotiating position. Fortunately (although he did better than expected) he didn't win.
Last edited by ShotOne; 12th Jun 2017 at 22:16.