Brexit process

[Mark]

OK...having spent considerable time trying to get to grips with the detail of this, my position has changed. Why? Because I think this deal is looking pretty bad for the EU. Yes, signing up to a backstop we cannot get out of looks pretty bad, but to give TM any hope of getting it through Parliament, Barnier had to give away much more than he wanted to. The UK has succeeded in picking cherries, and they are legally binding in the backstop. I think France and Spain are very worried about the UK ending up stuck in the backstop.

What do we get if we're stuck in the backstop? We get tariff-free access to the single market (for goods), free movement is ended, and we get out of both the CAP and the CFP. Spain and France are clamouring now for changes to the political declaration (on future relationships) to "make clear that (after the backstop) our fishermen will retain access to UK waters", but that it not legally binding. This is the EU's own insistence that the WA is agreed before the trade deal coming back to bite them. But this gives us major leverage in future trade talks.

What all this means is that the EU will not want the UK to end up stuck in the backstop. Taking the deal also has the added advantage of injecting some serious poison into the tory party. A lot of their grass roots hate the deal, for the same reason the "hardline brexiteers" hate it. And yet what will they be able to do? Significant chunks of their vote with go over to UKIP.

I think as it becomes obvious in the next few days how upset the French and Spanish are about this deal, support for it in the UK will firm up. Whether it firms up enough to get it through parliament is another matter, but I'd give it a 50% chance.

At the end of the day, it's about the ECONOMY.
Whether we like it or not, big chunks of our economy are closely tied to the EU.
Business is lobbying HMG really hard, and I'm guessing individual MPs too.....
There will be a lot of politics between now and the end of March.

In a divorce, neither side gets 100% of what it wants, but unfortunately 'Leave' promised the world
A 'not so bad' deal will always be better than 'no deal'.

[Lord Beria3]

Eurointelligence latest...

Two victories for Theresa May, and one setback

People don’t write letters any more. This sad fact should perhaps have been taken into account by British eurosceptics, who at the end of last week appeared certain to would get the 48 MP's letters needed to trigger a leadership election. It appears this morning that this latest attempt to unseat Theresa May has failed. The Daily Telegraph is saying so and, since no newspaper wanted a leadership contest more badly, we tend to believe them on this.

Another illusion went out of the window yesterday. The withdrawal agreement will not be renegotiated. Michael Gove and his gang-of-five wanted to persuade Theresa May to reopen the discussion, but they were told that this is not possible. This goes for both sides. France is trying to secure fishing rights in UK waters while Spain wants assurances on Gibraltar. There are demands for side-declarations, according to the FT. They will no doubt be discussed, but also fiercely resisted by May. The withdrawal deal as it stands constitutes a finely-calibrated compromise that, in our view, would unravel if re-opened. Michel Barnier is also strongly resisting this pressure.

There is room, however, for discussion on the political declaration, which so far only consists of seven pages. The declaration does not have the same legal weight as the agreement itself, but it matters because it sets the parameters for the upcoming talks on the future relationship.

The noisy eurosceptic rebellion seems to be losing some steam as people are slowly acquainting themselves with the political reality that there is no alternative to this specific deal - other than no Brexit or no deal. May seems to have persuaded Gove and some of the eurosceptics who visited her yesterday - including the former leader Ian Duncan Smith - to hold their fire.

The parliamentary arithmetic to pass the deal has not changed. May will need to compensate for any majority MPs voting against the withdrawal agreement by securing support from Labour MPs. We believe that the strategy will be to split the sceptics, and to persuade wavering Labour MPs that there would be no election in case the deal is voted down. We believe that the EU will collude with this strategy - rather than accept a process that would lead to a second referendum.

The DUP, however, remains intransigent. The informal agreement to sustain May’s minority government was thrown into doubt yesterday when the DUP abstained at a vote on the finance bill - the budget. The purpose of yesterday’s abstention was to signal to May that the party is willing to use its voting power. 

[UndercoverElephant]

It has been obvious for some time that the only two sensible ways forward were remaining as a full member of the EU, or a hard (or no deal) brexit which allowed us to bypass the process of paying lots of money for a shitty deal. Theresa May made fundamental strategic mistake by going for a “bacon trifle� soft-ish brexit which nobody actually wants. And even though the EU has been terrified enough of a no deal to offer May a considerably better deal than it wanted to, that deal still looks worse to some remainers than no deal, and worse to some leavers than remaining.

But an even bigger mistake was flip-flopping between “it's my deal or no deal� and “it's my deal or cancel brexit�. And that means that a lot of leavers won't back the deal because they still hope for a no deal, and a lot of remainers won't back it because they still hope for brexit being cancelled. Meanwhile, May sticks doggedly to the lonely hope that her deal somehow gets through a parliament that looks increasingly unlikely to back it. And it gets worse - the only thing she's consistently ruled out is a second referendum, but nobody believes her because that's what she said about a snap election. And since we don't know what will be on the ballot paper if it happens, this just leaves another route open to both no deal and cancelling brexit.

The only way to break the deadlock is to eliminate one of the two “extreme� options (no deal and cancelling brexit). That's why remainers are claiming that “parliament will not allow no deal�, even though it is the default and it is very unclear how parliament is guaranteed to be able to prevent it, and why they are saying “no deal� shouldn't be on the ballot paper if there's a referendum. And it is why leavers are (rightly) pointing out that cancelling brexit does not end this crisis, but just stores up even bigger problems for the future.

So how does the deadlock get broken? Parliament voting the deal down by a large margin does not end it. Could May somehow categorically rule out no deal or cancelling brexit? No. Firstly it is not clear how she could do it, and secondly, the moment she rules out one of these outcomes then all hell will break loose, both within the tory party and further afield, and it probably ends her political career rather abruptly. She will not do it. But nobody else can do it.

And that means we are heading, deadlocked, straight towards the legally binding end date on January 21st. At that point, if there's still no prospect of May's deal getting through parliament, then we will have at least eliminated one possible outcome: May's deal being approved by parliament rather than a referendum. The government then has to choose between announcing a no deal, cancelling brexit, calling a second referendum or dissolving parliament and holding a general election. If it chooses a no deal or cancels brexit, I believe the government will fall to a vote of no confidence, and we have to pray that the EU grants an A50 extension in order to avoid a no-deal (and it surely would).

If this analysis is good, then it means the only way the government can avoid a general election being before Brexit Day is to hold a second referendum with all three options (at least) on the ballot paper.

[UndercoverElephant]

Eurointelligence latest...

Is it you writing these?

[Little John]

There should NOT be an option on any "people's vote" referendum to Remain since that question has already been asked and answered.

Therefore, the only two questions that could be conceivably democratically legitimately asked are the deal on offer or Leave on WTO.

But, since the leaving of the customs union and the leaving of the single market as a consequence of voting Leave were made abundantly clear by both the Leave and Remain campaigns in the referendum, there should not even be an option on any future referendum that includes a deal that involves continued membership of either of these two constructs.

Which leaves, insofar as the current deal is concerned and insofar as democracy is actually worth a damn, only one option.

Leave on WTO.

Which is what should have happened two years ago.

[UndercoverElephant]

There should NOT be an option on any "people's vote" referendum to Remain since that question has already been asked and answered.

Therefore, the only two questions that could be conceivably democratically legitimately asked are the deal on offer or Leave on WTO.

All three options have to be on the ballot paper, or the deadlock remains. The referendum bill won't pass unless remain is an option.

[Little John]

So, what you are saying, when all the details, the obfuscations and the bullshit is stripped away from this farce, is that the people have voted but, since the political class do not wish their democratic mandate be carried through, their democratic mandate is going to be betrayed and the reason it will be betrayed is because, by having remain, as well as taking the deal, on the ballot paper, the Leave vote is likely to be split (deliberately engineered to be so). In turn, causing the biggest minority vote on the ballot paper to be likely to be remain.

Okay

Then politics in this country will change

[clv101]

There should NOT be an option on any "people's vote" referendum to Remain since that question has already been asked and answered.

Wouldn't it be worth checking, just in case, that the 'will of the people' is still to leave? It would be pretty silly to leave, if there happened to be a majority to remain today! I'm sure you'd agree.

A three way vote checks the leave/remain state, then in event of leave, checks the deal/no-deal state.

The problem of essentially asking the same question again is trivial to the problem of going ahead with leaving if the majority today don't actually support that.

[Little John]

And if opinion shifts following a second referendum, a third one? A fourth?

You are bullshitting and you know it.

But, worse than that, you are promoting a kind of fascism. A very British, bureaucratic, middle class, polite form of fascism. But, fascism nonetheless. It would seem Trump and Brexit weren't enough to have you finally pull your heads out of your arses. So, now we get to find out what will.

There will be a price paid for this. You and people like you are playing with fire.

[careful_eugene]

There will be a price paid for this. You and people like you are playing with fire.

Do you think so? We have a government that is actively trying to starve poor people, kill the disabled and destroy the NHS. They've introduced universal credit which is impoverishing people whilst working to increase the gap between the richest and poorest. More billionaires than ever before but also more foodbanks, cuts to police forces, crime on the increase, unsafe streets, anti-social behaviour is commonplace. I don't see any rioting in the streets because of this, maybe there should be! If for whatever reason, brexit was revoked they'd be some small scale protests and a lot of grumbling about how "we've been betrayed by the government" and "politicians are duplicitous and can't be trusted", there wouldn't be civil war.

[vtsnowedin]

If for whatever reason, brexit was revoked they'd be some small scale protests and a lot of grumbling about how "we've been betrayed by the government" and "politicians are duplicitous and can't be trusted", there wouldn't be civil war.

But there would be an election!!

[Lord Beria3]

You all assume the EU would go along with extending article 50 for second referendum with no guarantee that it would clarify UK relationship with the EU.

I think it is very unlikely to happen.

EU accept Brexit and want to move on.

If we wish to rejoin the EU under article 49 it will be after we exit the EU on March 2019.

[UndercoverElephant]

You all assume the EU would go along with extending article 50 for second referendum with no guarantee that it would clarify UK relationship with the EU.

I think it is very unlikely to happen.

I am pretty sure they extend it for a second referendum on the condition that no deal is not on the ballot paper.

[Lord Beria3]

Really! Do you have any evidence of that?

[Little John]

If you are talking about regulatory/legislative evidence, there is none needed. All that is needed is the political will. And there would certainly be such a will on the EU side.