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...

I apologise for my recent lack of posts but there have been many factors in my decision not to post anything on my blog over the last four weeks. Back when Theresa May's Brexit deal was rejected emphatically by Parliament back in mid January, I thought to myself, well at least Mrs May now has a mandate to either remove the backstop or end negotiations. In my mind it was clear, the backstop was an issue of ginormous magnitude for the Commons and one that EU leaders would fail to avoid. Unless the issue could be resolved, there would be no deal. So I waited. I waited for progress to be made to resolve the issue of the backstop. I waited for a compromise, a sensible and reasonable compromise which could see the issue become less volatile or even solved. However, as I waited, I fully noticed the incompetence of both Mrs May and Mr Corbyn who failed to even discuss or resolve the issue. In fact, both were more concerned about keeping their respective parties in tact - something the la...

(Written on Tuesday the 4th of December 2018) As I sit here on a cold Tuesday evening, I remember thinking at 4pm that today had been relatively quiet so far in terms of news - with the headline being the BBC pulling out of a Brexit debate designed to be ahead of the Brexit vote in just one weeks time. Then I chuckled to myself as I remembered that the government would face two further votes in the Commons that would have immense implications for the nation and Brexit. So, whilst the Government had earlier lost a vote asking that the issue of contempt be referred to the Commons Privilege Committee but that had been defeated by MPs earlier today. The issue of contempt is substantial. A vote in the Commons passed on the 13th of November requiring the government to publish the entire legal text regarding Brexit. The way I like to think about this is the Attorney General is the government's lawyer. They have to determine whether legislation is legal and compatible in the UK and ...