Brexit process

[Lord Beria3]

https://www.eurointelligence.com/public/

Fascinating briefing today.

Key features:

1) they are sceptical of boe scaremongering
2) think tommy Robinson is a major threat
3) deal is still doable

Should there be an attempt to stop brexit violent civil unrest will occur spearheaded by Tommy Robinson.

[Lord Beria3]

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/u ... referendum

But in the Labour heartlands I’ve visited since the poll came out, both MPs and activists claim they can see very little of this change on the ground. And even among Labour members who themselves might support a second referendum, there is no enthusiasm for holding one. The reason for this has not been picked up in any poll, because the question the pollsters would have to ask is: do you think Tommy Robinson is right?

Robinson, together with a reviving Ukip more clearly oriented towards copying the AfD, looks entirely capable of launching a Pegida-style movement backed by money from the American alt-right. The 10,000-plus people who marched and rioted in Whitehall on 9 June did not simply melt into the background after his release.

Over the summer, all the same grassroots activists who warned me of Ukip’s rise, and that Leave would win, began warning there will be social unrest if the 2016 result is seen to be stolen or negated by political establishment. If we get this wrong, the “elite theft of Brexit� could become the UK equivalent of the “stab in the back� myth that fuelled the far right in Germany in the 1920s. Whether Robinson himself is allowed into Ukip is secondary: the street level alliance, and the arguments on the closed Facebook groups in Leave-supporting towns, will be what matters. Many of the Labour activists I've spoken to in these towns are, for this reason, pretty unenthusiastic about re-running the referendum.

This is a key feature. Even a soft brexit deal could spark a severe backlash from working class communities. Tories will need to move with care

[fuzzy]

We are reaching a point where a large enough minority of the public have twigged that the media - old or new style, are simply there to sell them a bum steer.

[UndercoverElephant]

There isn't going to be a second referendum, unless this government collapses. I think the tories understand that whatever the result of the referendum, the political fallout would be unmanageable. The reason being that there's noway it would produce a big victory for either side. It would be pretty much guaranteed to produce a close result, probably a narrow remain victory, and that would resolve absolutely nothing. Remainers would claim victory, but even they would realise that would be a hollow victory seen an entirely illegitimate by the 45%+ who voted for brexit again, because there would be a justified belief that Theresa May f*cked up the negotiations (possibly intentionally). They'd believe that the brexit process had been systematically mismanaged, and that is why we ended up having to have a second referendum.

Yes, this would lead to serious civil unrest and there would be no obvious way to stop it. I think a second referendum would run a severe risk of letting a nightmare genie out of the bottle.

However, if the government collapses then all bets are off. Anything could happen.

[fuzzy]

The only people saying that remain would win are the same people saying they would win first time - the media. I think you underestimate the average view of the public, who have, ONLY ONCE in 70 years, been offered a national vote on reducing immigration.

[kenneal - lagger]

If there was to be another vote on the result of the negotiations the EU would give us the worst possible result so that the new referendum would go their way. Seems common sense to me but most Remainers are either too thick or too naive to see it or they think that I am so thick that I won't see their little trick.

[Little John]

The vote would be rigged.

A second referendum's questions would be framed such that the Leave vote would be split. And the terms of the referendum would be such that which ever individual choice garnered the most votes would be the one employed.

For example:

1. Do you want a soft, pointless Brexit

2. Do you want a hard, are you insane, Brexit

3. Do you want to Remain, like a sensible person, after all

[Potemkin Villager]

Even more deviationism!

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... our-corbyn


[/i]
" Sam Tarry, national political officer of the TSSA union, who used to work for Corbyn, said the left of the Labour party was uniting behind demands for another vote: “The sheer weight of anti-Brexit motions going to conference is unlike anything I have ever seen – and the only force in the Labour party capable of pulling that off is the left. The trade union movement has moved quickly towards an anti-Tory Brexit position this summer. There is this feeling that we, the socialist left, simply cannot stand by and watch while workers and communities are sacrificed at the altar of Tory dogma and imperial nostalgia.�

[Lord Beria3]

I still don't understand what the question would be?

If it is no deal versus the government deal, the chances of a majority for no deal would be quite high.

If the will of the British people is no deal exit, then the uk would crash out and fall back on WTO.

https://theconversation.com/want-a-brex ... ked-102678

Yet there is an obvious difficulty with asking the electorate the simple question, “Should the UK accept the deal?�. If they answer yes, well and good. But if it’s no, what next? Should the UK leave anyway, or remain?

The trouble stems from the fact that there are three options to choose from: Leave with Deal, Leave with No Deal, and Remain. Indeed, a three-way referendum has already been suggested, by former minister Justine Greening and journalist Andrew Rawnsley, for example. But how exactly would such a referendum work? The difficulties have not, I think, been fully appreciated.

Quite so!

Suppose in our example we move a few voters, 3% of the total, from line six to line five, so that No Deal/Remain/Deal is on 8% and No Deal/Deal/Remain is on 31%. This reverses the result of the Remain-Deal head-to-head, while the others stay the same as before: so now Remain beats Deal, Deal beats No Deal, and No Deal beats Remain. Like scissors-paper-stone, each beats one and loses to another.

Any three way referendum would be a total mess and lack legitimacy. I can't see it working, whether technically (given the deadline in March) or politically.

[UndercoverElephant]

Yes, there is a serious problem with any sort of second referendum. It's not so much that there are three choices, but that the "middle way" choice is so disliked by so many people. That makes it very difficult for any 3-way system to look legitimate, but it also clear that a 2-way choice also doesn't work.

In fact I can't see any outcome to this process apart from a hard/no-deal brexit that can ever look legitimate, and the remainers will disagree with that until they are blue in the face. What this ultimately boils down to is that Article 50 was designed to be unusable in order to make it impossible for any country to actually leave the EU, but British democracy has stuck two fingers up at that and now we have an almighty mess.

[Lord Beria3]

Like Greer i think a no deal/hard Brexit would benefit the UK. So messy as it clearly is in the long run historians will hail it as a key moment in our history.

[Potemkin Villager]

One subject on which there has been a profound silence in the Brexit debate is the subject of Value Added Tax aka VAT. This Eurotax has been part of the scenery of life for so long that is now scarcely noticed.

According to wikipedia "The co-ordinated administration of value added tax within the EU VAT area is an important part of the single market. Cross-border VAT is declared in the same way as domestic VAT, which facilitates the elimination of border controls between member states, saving costs and reducing delays. It also simplifies administrative work for freight forwarders. Previously, in spite of the customs union, the differing VAT rates and the separate VAT administration processes resulted in a high administrative and cost burden for cross-border trade."

Abolishing VAT and opting opt of the co-ordinated EU administration of course would be hugely popular but like all political strokes it would have consequences.

[Little John]

I can hear the sound of scraping at the bottom of a barrel

[Lord Beria3]

Chequers could be in real trouble as EU offers compromise on Irish border



We were never truly convinced that the Brexit negotiations would break down over Northern Ireland, or that the border issue was even the main problem. We noted a story this morning that Michel Barnier is now saying that he is ready to improve on the EU's previous proposals. We almost fell off the chair when we read the following quote:


"What we are talking about is not a border, neither on land nor at sea. It is a set of technical controls and checks."


Is this not what Theresa May has been saying all along? But there is still a big problem for her. If the EU is happy to fudge the border issue, as is now obviously the case, it robs the Chequers proposal of its claim that there can be no alternative. A Canada-type deal suddenly becomes viable.


The eurosceptics in the Tory party took a fraction of a second to recognise their chance. William Rees-Mogg, the chairman of the European Research Group, is saying that he and his fellow MPs will vote against the Chequers plan because they have a better one, and they now see a way how it could succeed. Their plan is essentially a clean Brexit with no special commercial ties other than a free-trade agreement, a little deeper than Ceta perhaps. In an opinion article in the Telegraph Rees-Mogg makes the observation that his group's proposals


"were given further substance by the reports that the EU is considering compromise and technological solutions for its backstop proposal. This may extend to flows between Great Britain and Ireland, which has become important to them because of the volume of Irish trade that passes through the mainland, using it effectively as a bridge."



Their political bet is that, by voting down Chequers, they will be in a position to renegotiate the political declaration (though not the withdrawal treaty itself) ahead of March 2019. A no vote could have several consequences. It is not inconceivable that Theresa May and the EU could amend the political declaration in one direction or other. There could be a leadership challenge followed by new elections, with uncertain outcome. But the eurosceptics see an asymmetric game in their favour. There is little risk of a Brexit reversal. And parliament is more likely to accept a clean FTA than a no-deal Brexit.


The hard Remainers make a similar calculation - that a no-vote on a withdrawal treaty would lead to a second referendum. We think they miscalculate the odds as they miscalculated every step in the Brexit process so far - the vote itself, the behaviour of the economy post-referendum, and the political sentiment.


We thought it was interesting to see how the Labour leadership is looking at the trade-offs that lie ahead. In a Guardian story about a clash between Jeremy Corbyn and his Brexit spokesman Sir Keir Starmer we noted an interesting snippet of information. As is almost always the case in good journalism, it comes at the very end of the story. It said that Labour strategists were sceptical about a second referendum because it would pitch one group of Labour supporters against another. Fear of a second referendum might unite the Tory Party around the Chequers proposal. Labour also wants Chequers voted down, not to undo Brexit but to achieve a customs union deal instead. We find this quote from an unnamed Labour strategist very interesting:


"The only way that her deal is going to get voted down, is if some of the European Research Group vote against it – and they’re not voting against it if they believe one of the options then is a second referendum. The surefire way to get the ERG to vote with the government is to talk about a second referendum."


The chances of a deal are rising as the EU is now, for the first time, contemplating compromises. There is simply too much at stake for the EU as well. The impact of a hard Brexit would be undoubtedly worse for the UK, but the point that is often overlooked is that the EU has a much lower pain tolerance, since nobody on the continent voted for Brexit.


While the Irish border is quickly dissipating as a potential obstacle to a deal, immigration policy is not disappearing. Yesterday’s report by the UK government’s migration advisory committee suggested that EU workers shall in future be treated the same as workers from non-EU countries, and recommend to set an annual income of £30,000 as a threshold for employment in the UK. This means that the UK would be endorsing an immigration regime that allows almost every German worker in, and almost nobody from eastern Europe. The EU and the UK may choose not to raise this issue at this point, but there is no way the EU could accept such discrimination for any preferential trade scheme such as Chequers. The Canada option is the only one consistent with an autonomous immigration policy. And, on this point, the Labour Party is also not aligned with the EU’s position. Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary.

Fascinating post.

[Potemkin Villager]

I can hear the sound of scraping at the bottom of a barrel

I am not trying to constantly show what a contemptuous clever dick I am and having a huge need to prove myself right all the time. I am curious about other peoples views, even some of the very curious views on this forum where the authors seem compelled to declare their personal infallibility and unquestionable correctness with bold print and capitals.