All week I have had at the back of my mind the idea of writing something about where we are – on Brexit, on everything in UK politics at the moment – without really knowing what to say. Everything comes down to “the deal” – which is not, amazingly enough, going to be a deal at all, but rather the vague outline of a possible, future deal, with the actual legal commitments entered into being to formalise what happens along the way if that deal doesn’t happen, or at least takes longer than expected.
Anyhow, “the deal” is expected to be announced next week, apparently. Again, this is mere rumours and could change any time. Cutting through the heavy semantics that will no doubt be involved, we already know what “the deal” will be: after March 29th of next year, the UK enters a “transition period” that could be due to end in December 2020, or December 2021; the transition is to a new trade deal between the UK and the EU, the details of which are going to be, putting this politely, a little bare bones at this point; if a deal does not arise between the UK and the EU during the transition period, the backstop is triggered, which will amount to the UK staying in the Customs Union and almost certainly the Single Market for goods at the very least, possibly for a very long time, possibly forever.
The only question now is whether this gets through parliament or not – and if does not, what happens next. The variables are too many to even begin to predict. So, we wait.
I was thinking today that Jeremy Corbyn not coming out for the People’s Vote in public actually makes it more likely to happen than if he had. Think about it: parliament votes down “the deal”; could be that a second referendum is all there is left in the end. Yet if it is seen to be a Labour thing, this will scare away Tory MPs, even those most predisposed to the People’s Vote, from voting for it. If it isn’t anyone’s policy, it thus has more of a chance of happening. How 2018 is that then?
Meanwhile we all talk about a no deal scenario that is incredibly unlikely to unfold, yet without knowing the exact way in which it will be avoided given it is the default setting. It’s like being in a car that is going down a perfectly straight road towards a giant brick wall with five people inside, all of whom can drive perfectly well, yet none of whom are driving at present. You think, one of them will take the wheel and stop the car, surely, or turn it around, or do something before they all hit the brick wall. Yet, I suppose not. Three of them will assume that someone will grab the wheel at the last second and they don’t want it to have to be them; one of them is sure the brick wall is an illusion; the fifth one is actually thinking that hitting a brick wall might be good for him and everyone else inside the vehicle.
One other thing we know now is that the government has been refused leave to appeal against the referral to the European Court of the question of whether the UK could revoke its Article 50 notification, and the case is expected to be heard in two and a half weeks’ time:
http://uk.businessinsider.com/theresa-may-fails-block-case-allow-uk-to-stop-brexit-50-article-2018-11
Chris –
I think this case is a side issue to be honest. The British government has made it very clear that it does not intend to revoke the Article 50 notification. Even if it changed its mind, willingly or not, the politics of the situation would involve getting consent for such action from the European Council. The same goes for an extension of the Article 50 process (which I think is a bit more likely to happen, subject to complications involving the late May 2019 European Parliament elections being addressed).
I think it is quite possible, (though it is a guess), that the European Court could clarify the notification process to require future European Council consent in order to protect the European Union from Member states gaming the Article 50 process in order to gain some temporary political leverage or advantage.
That said, legislative action in the UK would be required in order to revoke or extend the Article 50 notification. Resolutions calling for revocation or extension in one or both Houses of Parliament would not be enough on their own to have legal (as opposed to political) effect.
I don’t think a referendum is likely, but if there were one it would make a big difference whether the UK could unilaterally revoke its notification or whether it would need to get the unanimous agreement of all the other members to reverse the process. Negotiating terms with a large group of people whose unanimous agreement you need is not a strategy that would be easy to sell to the electorate.
I don’t think there would be any problem with the UK revoking the notification: remember, the EU really really wants the UK to be humiliated and beg to stay because leaving is too hard, so that it can be used as an example in the future to any other country that thinks of leaving: ‘Look, the UK tried to leave, couldn’t manage it, and had to come limping back with their tail between their legs, do you think you can do better?’
The EU’s best outcome from this would be for it to be their American Civil War moment: before the American Civil War it was an undecided question whether becoming a state was reversible, then a bunch of them tried to secede, they were roundly defeated, and since then nobody has ever seriously suggested that becoming a state of the USA is anything but a one-way process. The EU would like ‘becoming a member of the EU’ to be seen as just as much a one-way process as becoming a state of the USA, and the UK undergoing the national humiliation of begging to have its Article 50 notification revoked would provide much the same outcome as the American Civil War, without all the untidy bloodshed.
This is of course the foremost reason why the UK must not, and will not, revoke it.
“remember, the EU really really wants the UK to be humiliated and beg to stay because leaving is too hard”
Well, in that case, the very best outcome for the EU would be to make it a condition of revocation that the special conditions previously negotiated by the UK would no longer apply. The UK would be in an extremely weak position if the rest of the members made that a condition. Or – as unanimity would be required – even if just one of the other members made it a condition.
The People’s Vote campaign is insisting that we have the right to revoke our notification unilaterally, and that in that case “we wouldn’t lose access to any of our privileges because we would never have left the EU in the first place.” If the court finds that we don’t have that right, then on the contrary it becomes a matter of negotiation.
If the court finds that we don’t have that right, then on the contrary it becomes a matter of negotiation.
It does, but the EU will, if there’s a chance of the UK rejoining, not impose any conditions which might lead to the UK walking away anyway.
That is: the EU would prefer the UK rejoined and lost its special privileges, but if the price of the UK suffering a humiliating defeat is that it gets to keep its privileges, then the EU will let it keep them in order to achieve the larger goal of providing that leaving is impossible.
Basically if the UK expresses a wish to rescind its Article 50 notification before it actually leaves the EU, then a way will be found, legally or politically, to let it stay. the EU will bend and and all of its own rules to ensure that (the EU is always happy to bend its own rules in furtherance of the EU project).
That is why we must not rescind our notification. It would mean we’d be trapped in the EU — for ever.
How did this country ever have an empire when the best education leads to a parliament filled with rabbits caught in the headlights
Frozen
What leads to that is, partly, having decades in which politicians ducked hard decisions by passing the buck to Brussels: ‘Oh no we don’t want to do that but it’s too hard to properly think about it so we’ll just say the EU won’t let us.’
Once we’re out of the EU our politicians will have to grow up because they will no longer have anything to hide behind.
M –
“Once we’re out of the EU our politicians will have to grow up because they will no longer have anything to hide behind.”
That is one of the strongest democratic arguments for leaving the EU.
Exactly who are the brexit sunny uplands going to blame when nobody can be arsed to use their hands
We can always call on the Windrush to come out of retirement like they did in the fifties
Empire 2
“It does, but the EU will, if there’s a chance of the UK rejoining, not impose any conditions which might lead to the UK walking away anyway.”
You might just as well say that the UK will, if there’s a chance of its not being allowed to rejoin, not refuse to agree to any conditions that would prevent its rejoining!
It would be a negotiation, and generally negotiations don’t result in either side getting everything it wants. But it’s difficult to overestimate the weakness of the negotiating position of one country trying to seek the unanimous consent of 27 other countries.
You might just as well say that the UK will, if there’s a chance of its not being allowed to rejoin, not refuse to agree to any conditions that would prevent its rejoining!
But the UK’s desire to rejoin would be fragile. There are millions of people who would be against rejoining, on any terms. It would be quite easy for the UK to flip from wanting to rescind article 50, if it ever got there, back to ‘fine we’ll just leave with no deal’ and the EU imposing punative terms would be just the thing to do it. .
It would be a negotiation, and generally negotiations don’t result in either side getting everything it wants.
Negotiations are always won by the party who is most willing to simply walk away, and in this case, that would be the UK.
(Beside which if there were another referendum you can expect the reinvigorated Leave campaign to make a big deal out of the EU’s confirming that the British rebate is going to be phased out if the UK stays in, whatever happens, because that was already planned for in the budgets.)
M –
And don’t forget the European Army which isn’t going to happen, but which seems to be on the stocks all the same!
Admit it leavers you are up it creek without a paddle
You had a good run
It’s over
Oh dear. The European Union really is the gift that keeps giving:
“It’s about Europe having to become a kind of Empire, as China is. And how the US is”, said the French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, to the German newspaper Handelsblatt [reports 12.11.2018].