The EU/Brexit Blog

Well this week has already been an eventful week. Theresa May has announced that MPs will not only be able to have a final vote on her Brexit deal on the 12th of March, but if her deal is rejected by MPs, MPs will then proceed to vote on how to proceed - with a no deal or extending Article 50. The vote again on Mrs May's deal is slightly irrelevant. It is a vote that we already know the answer to, it will suffer another landslide defeat. However, the vote is a placeholder so that MPs can proceed to vote on the next path that the UK follows, a no deal or extending the process of Article 50. We can hypothesise till the cows come home how these votes will end but what we can do is examine what will  happen if either motion is approved by the Commons. Parliament approves the UK leaving the EU without a deal: The vast majority of small businesses do not have the cash available to prepare for the various outcomes of Brexit. This means there are series of outcomes still possible t...

(Written on Friday the 23rd November 2018) I sit here today and I have been listening to all kinds of qualms and complaints from across the political spectrum directed at Mrs May's Withdrawal Agreement. This has left the state of the Brexit deal in tatters but what does this mean for Mrs May, the Government and Brexit overall? Mrs May: It's no secret that Mrs May isn't well supported by many fellow Tories but nonetheless, the BBC finds only 26 Tory MPs have sent letters of no confidence to Sir Graham Brady. I want to state my belief that despite the catastrophic negotiating tactics of the May and her administration, only 26 letters of no confidence have been sent in and I highly doubt that within the next five months, a further 22 letters will be sent in. So, first of all, I am highly sceptical that the required 48 letters of no confidence in the PM will be sent in. Furthermore, a majority of Tory MPs would need to vote that they have no confidence in the PM and wit...

(Written on Saturday 17th November 2018) When sitting at my desk earlier today, examining my blog, I remembered it was named the EU/Brexit Blog and rather ironically, the one thing I haven't referred to as much as I should have has been the EU. Our constitutional crisis no doubt usurps the qualms of the EU but it is important to consider the likelihood that the Draft Agreement may not pass through the Commons. As much as we want to promote national sovereignty and inflate our global position, the EU has just as much interest in this topic as the nation. What does happen if Parliament votes down the deal? Well, as I am sure my trusty readers know, I addressed these points fairly comprehensively in my previous post, but, could we see the EU supporting other options that may not be on the table today. I read this brilliant piece from the BBC's Katya Adler who addressed this precise issue. Clearly, no deal is completely out of the EU's best interests, hell, Michel Barnie...

(Written on Friday 16th November 2018) No doubt anyone has escaped the frenzy that is Brexit over the past few days. Theresa May has made the significant breakthrough of securing a deal with the EU and securing cabinet approval for the deal. In this post, I will address the Withdrawal Agreement and explore the various articles and clauses contained within the deal. I will then discuss the forward path from now onwards. The Withdrawal Agreement is a 585 page document that outlines outcomes from security co-operation to the contentious backstop agreement. Everyone will have their own opinions regarding each clause so I will endeavour to address each clause from an economic and practical standpoint. It astounds me that the document is so large but be so vague in language. We know the impact of uncertainty. The Pound is at its most volatile since June 2016 and this further uncertainty is further going to affect the UK economy as well as investment into the nation. The Backstop Arran...

Okay so this was poorly planned on my behalf, or rather, posting my initial Commons Arithmetic on Friday did not account for events that would take place on Saturday. So when I read Jeremy Corbyn's quote in Der Spiegel stating that he believed 'There's no stopping Brexit', I could only throw my hands into the air in despair because this quote has huge implications for Brexit. The Commons requires 322 votes as a general rule of thumb for a bill to pass and although all MPs might not be present in the Brexit vote which will most likely be in September, the required vote count will likely be somewhere near that total. To start off with, we have the 60 Tory MPs rebelling that are led by Rees-Mogg and we also have the People's Vote so called 'rebels' made up of Anna Soubry, Phillip Lee, Guto Bebb and a few more who also strongly refute the government's Brexit proposals. However, and more crucially, we see government support inside government diminishing,...

We hear relentlessly the pressures on all sides on May's Brexit deal for it to be able to pass into legislation. It has to not cross the EU, DUP, Commons and, for that matter, Ireland's red lines - in this context I refer red lines to being the points of a deal that make a deal inconceivable. The EU and Ireland are closely intertwined in their desires, Ireland desires to have no border across the North and South divide which requires frictionless trade for Northern Ireland - a customs union membership which we can now refer to as the backstop arrangement. In order to prevent this red line being breached, it remains impossible for a deal to be struck that doesn't ensure frictionless trade across the Irish border - i.e Customs Union membership. Then we proceed onto the DUP, they threaten to topple the government and provide concern for the future union of the United Kingdom if a border develops down the Irish Sea. This, in all fairness, is a largely expected and natural ...

First of all I want to address the breakthrough piece of news this week that stated that Corbyn and the Labour Party would be willing to accept a deal that Theresa May negotiates with the EU if   the UK remains part of some customs union. Now whilst key Labour cabinet members attempted to trivialise the significance of this statement, for example Barry Gardiner on the ever wonderful Peston show, said the deal had been on the table for the last 18 months, the significance of this remark is undoubtedly clear - it is a lifeline for May. One of the clear issues for Theresa May has been getting the deal negotiated with the EU to pass through the Commons. With around 60 hardline Tory MPs prepared to #ChuckChequers it remains to be seen whether the Tory Party will comjure the required votes from Labour and the Lib Dems to secure the bill passing through the Commons. Let us do some very quick maths, a bill needs around 322 votes to pass through the Commons and lets say the Tory P...

First of all, I want to make clear that these points that I make below are not criticisms of the PM but rather me stating the facts and whether her Chequers Plan will survive as a result. In the first instance, the famous Chequers Plan sets out a common rulebook for some goods and services subject to agreement with the EU, a joint jurisdiction area whereby UK courts could uphold EU/UK regulations whilst still being aware of precedent and expectations of the EU - i.e removing ECJ jurisdiction and bring back 'control' back onto the mainland. Finally, the Chequers Plan sets out a maximum facilitation agreement whereby the UK would collect tariffs on products headed to the EU and pay those tariffs directly to the EU whilst still applying its own tariffs post-Brexit. As of the 21st of September 2018, the Prime Minister has come under immense scrutiny from members of her own cabinet and party, First Ministers across the UK and in particular, the EU - Juncker, Barnier and Tu...

We are back again with a new instalment based upon the European Research Group’s proposal on solving the issue surrounding the Irish Border. What is important to establish initially is that Brexiteers do not see the Irish Border as a problem that requires a solution - so sorry if I misled you in the title of the Blog. Their statement states the only action required along the border is ‘modifying existing arrangements’. There are many reasons why I believe that is far from feasible. Firstly, if anyone has read the Good Friday Agreement, they will know that regulatory alignment is mandatory when discussing the Irish Border and anything that deviates from that will likely cause the collapse of the socially and politically invaluable agreement. The modifications of existing agreements, as wishful as it sounds, is inconceivable with the proposals put forward just a few days prior. The idea that the UK can remove itself from a common rule book yet have frictionless trade is dream like...

From the introduction of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, the Delors Administration saw a new Europe built for the future in which close integration and regulation were to be key in uniting all European states. It was also the start of the first significant enlargement of the EU where three new states joined the EU and plans for Eastern European states to join were being initiated. Enlargement gave the EU and it’s commission more power and prestige as it began negotiating trade deals. This mass reform not only led to a more diverse European labour and services market but greater foreign investment as services could integrate more easily among member states. Even though each President of the European Commision since Delors has seemed slightly insignificant, they have all continued with this directive of enlarging the EU and increasing it’s power and Brexit threatens to undermine the very institution itself. The whole premise of Brexit is that Britain could be better off once they...

I think for pretty much everyone here it’s clear that Theresa May is a significantly weakened individual and has been for the past year – especially since she called the GE2017 in which she lost her majority in the Commons. It’s not just that though, personally, I feel  somewhat  sorry for her as she has been left to rot by pretty much her entire party and Mrs May has lost significant support in what was a distinctly presidential General Election last year that has undoubtedly made her job at negotiating Brexit unquestionably more difficult. Let’s start with the General Election last year. May was advised to be largely indistinct during the election campaign, both because of her shyness and her huge and unprecedented popularity amongst the electorate, in order to retain the voters they had and increase the Conservative’s negotiating power in Brexit with the intention of a greater majority in the Commons. However, May and her advisers pretty much underwent the greatest ...