Brexit process

[Vortex2]

Tory MEP candidates have been told to get ready for European elections.

https://www.conservativehome.com/parlia ... dates.html

[clv101]

Indeed, options are rapidly narrowing to no deal (which isn't going to happen) and extension beyond EU elections.

[Vortex2]

Question : have we actually paid any Brexit money to the EU yet?

[UndercoverElephant]

Tory MEP candidates have been told to get ready for European elections.

https://www.conservativehome.com/parlia ... dates.html

Hilarious. So the tory party doesn't have enough money to fight a general election, and now it has to fight a European election too. This really could be the end of them. It's that bad.

[raspberry-blower]

The reason why the Tories don't have any dosh - the rank and file have had more than enough:

Ian Dunt:

Theresa May's only consistency is failure

[Lord Beria3]

https://m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/no ... 5y0AWfQsw2

Leave voters prefer no deal.

[UndercoverElephant]

Leave voters prefer no deal.

You still think it is likely to happen???

[UndercoverElephant]

Cooper-Letwin is law, with a huge majority. Wow.

Theresa May must feel lonely tonight.

[Little John]

Her job is to break Brexit by any mean possible on behalf of the EU. So, she is doing her job.

However, the above being said, despite what the MSM and Remainers may say, the Cooper Letwin Bill passing and becoming Law does not intrinsically stop No Deal (though it does show, in stark relief, how our political class are able to just make the "rules" up as they go along). May had already requested another extension and so the Cooper Letwin Law changes nothing. No Deal can still happen if the EU reject a long extension and May still retains the legal power to walk away from negotiations and, at the risk of repetition, the legal default of the United Kingdom does remain No Deal.

The main obstacle to Brexit is not the Cooper Letwin Law. It is May.

It's always been May.

[UndercoverElephant]

So, looks like a one year extension.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... -more-time

With a year-long delay now on the cards, May embarked on a frenzy of last-minute diplomacy on Monday to reassure leaders that the UK would not seek to cause trouble during that period, even though one foot would be out of the door. This would mean a pledge to refrain from holding up processes such as the budget setting and potentially even step back from big decisions that relate to future issues after Brexit.

[Lord Beria3]

UE, short answer yes I think it is still likely.

Eurointeligence latest...

The European Council will meet tomorrow. Should we expect any surprises? 

In our view the chances of a no-deal Brexit remain as high as ever, but it will not happen this week. We expect the European Council to discuss two options, a short extension and a long one. We believe that the odds must favour a short one ending sometime between the European elections and the start of the parliament: end-May to end-June. The two long extension options are end-December this year or end-March 2020, but by the latter date the UK will have a new prime minister. Even end-December would stretch things out a bit too much. If Theresa May were still prime minister by then - which we think unlikely - she would for sure be challenged in December.

The talks with Labour are proceeding, but not about to conclude. May is preparing her party, very slowly, for the inevitability of having to compromise with Labour on the customs union. There is a risk that a large majority of the party would reject that option, so May has to tread carefully. She will need to carry at least some 120-150 of her own MPs to get over the line. The European Council will accept the talks with the Labour Party as sufficient cause to extend Brexit, but we struggle to see how a process that is likely to be concluded one way or the other in two or three weeks should give rise to a long extension.

There has been a lot of uninformed talk in the UK about Emmanuel Macron's position. Like anyone else, Macron is driven by self-interest. We think he will push for a short, and possibly final, extension to end some time before the beginning of July. He has no reason to accept a long extension. A long extension is therefore also not our main scenario.

Under a short extension, the risk of no deal would increase because the EU would then find it harder to extend again, except if the UK decided to hold general elections or a second referendum. We fail to see either. The Tories cannot afford to hold elections before May has left. A second referendum is also becoming increasingly unlikely. So far only a dozen Tory MPs have supported it in two indicative, multiple-choice votes. A group of 25 Labour MPs have written to Jeremy Corbyn to drop the second referendum pledge. For so long as the number of Labour opponents of a second referendum exceeds the number of Tory proponents, there is no majority for that option. It is possible, of course, that such a majority could materialise on the eve of a no-deal Brexit, but even this is far from guaranteed. The Cooper-Letwin bill, which last night received Royal Assent, is entirely irrelevant. All it does is force a prime minister to ask for an extension. May has already done so.   

Under a short extension all would depend on whether May and Corbyn could reach a deal. Caution is in order. We agree with Michael Heseltine’s assessment, which he gave in an interview with Lionel Barber in the FT: opposition parties do not bail out governments. Everybody plays their part. Nobody wants to be blamed. But agreeing to a deal with May would create internal strains for Labour that could more easily be avoided if the UK were to crash out without a deal.

Another strand of the story to watch out for is the Tory party’s slow-motion heart-attack. Can May really govern against her parliamentary party and the grassroots? There will be local elections in early May and European elections in late May - two occasions where the Tories might get hammered. Or not. Is it possible, as Barber tweeted this morning, that pro-EU parties pick up votes in the European elections, and that this changes the political dynamics? We believe it would. But even gains for Labour would not really fit that description, since Labour would still run on a pro-Brexit platform.

There are attempts under way to persuade May to step down early. The European Council will need to take this into account when deciding on a short vs long extension. May will probably survive for so long as the talks with Corbyn persist, but what if they were to fail? Will she perhaps hang on and switch towards supporting a second referendum? What we know is that she will go to extremes to get her Brexit deal approved, but we see no chance that a second referendum pitching her deal against any other option would achieve that. We also do not agree with the political consensus in the UK that it would be possible to have a two-way referendum between Remain and Deal, given the large number of people who support no deal. We believe the eurosceptics would support Remain in this case, topple May in December, and trigger Brexit again if they were to win an election, with an explicit commitment to a no-deal Brexit. That election would override the second referendum, just as the second referendum would have overridden the first.

The euro crisis taught us never to bet against the European Council kicking the can down the road. But the obstacles along the road are more visible because they are political, rather than economic. And the interests of EU leader are less aligned.

If May's talks with Labour were to fail, it really is hard to see a positive outcome. All a long extension would do is accelerate the change of leadership in the Tory party, get Boris Johnson Johnson into Downing Street and a snap election followed by a hard Brexit. A short extension, not renewable, is not guaranteed to deliver ratification of the withdrawal agreement. But it still stands a better chance than the alternative options.

[careful_eugene]

Leave voters prefer no deal.

Here's one prominent brexiter who disagrees with that.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opende ... ink-again/

[RevdTess]

(though it does show, in stark relief, how our political class are able to just make the "rules" up as they go along).

Yeah, exactly, which is one of the main reasons I don't trust the UK parliament with our sovereignty. They are a body who can not only change laws but also change the way we make laws, on a whim, almost literally overnight. I always saw the stability and bureaucracy of the EU as a bulwark against this sort of nonsense. And our FPTP voting system means we're even more vulnerable to minority domination of our so-called democratic system than countries with convoluted PR-induced coalitions. I know Brexiteers want sovereignty back for our country from the EU, but really everything I'm seeing in parliament just reminds me why being in the EU is so vital at the moment. Our political system just isn't fit for purpose.

[UndercoverElephant]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... lause.html

Merkel welcomes desperate May to Berlin as EU prepares to impose a YEAR-LONG Brexit delay including a 'stop Boris' clause that will strip Britain of voting rights to prevent a new Brexiteer PM causing havoc

Theresa May will jet to Berlin and then on to Paris today to urge Merkel and Macron to agree Brexit delay

Their price is expected to be to refuse to let the UK have any say in future EU budget talks and trade deals

Cabinet Brexiteer Andrea Leadsom stabs May in the back by demanding Merkel supports a 'proper Brexit'

Hour later EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier said: 'The withdrawal agreement is not going to be reopened'

Prime Minister is yet to make a customs union offer to Labour, who are split over holding second referendum

Government officials triggered EU elections for May 23 – at estimated cost to the taxpayer of £108m

Only last month, the Prime Minister said it would be 'unacceptable' to take part in the poll after vote to leave

It is the clearest indication yet that Britain is facing a lengthy delay to Brexit, probably till the end of the year

Her humiliation, and that of the entire tory party, is now complete. Looks very much we are now going to remain in the EU for another year, with no voting rights, and with an attempt made to muzzle/handcuff whoever replaces her.

Every time you think it can't get any worse for May and the tories, it gets worse.

[RevdTess]

Here's one prominent brexiter who disagrees with that.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opende ... ink-again/

That's a really good article imo. I don't agree with his political perspective but I agree with his arguments and analysis.