Politics & Government Brexit 2016, the people have spoken

[Smeg Head]

I wonder if there is going to be any sort of 'brain drain' resulting from Brexit.

Currently there are around 1-1.5m UK citizens living in other EU nations for various reasons.

Brexit isn't going to stop movement of people between the UK and EU nations altogether nor is it going to stop permanent migration from the UK.

The economy tanking would result in a loss of jobs across the board and a brain drain, but then people will come back when the jobs do.

 

[Scotland]

The economy tanking would result in a loss of jobs across the board and a brain drain, but then people will come back when the jobs do.

But how accommodating are the EU/UK going to be about it?

Right I can't just up and go and work in Belgium. If I were a UK citizen, I could.

Depending on what agreements are negotiated, this may no longer be the case for UK citizens.

 

[Scotland]

Talk of abandoning English as an official language of the EU now. Ireland and Malta have nominated Gaelic and Maltese respectively and they don't know if countries can nominate two official languages. They should be able to. Somewhere like Belgium that is genuinely multilingual could reasonably expect communications in Flemish and French, so if for some reason France ever bailed or got punted they'd be left without French...

http://www.politico.eu/article/english-will-not-be-an-official-eu-language-after-brexit-senior-mep/

Silly posturing if you ask me. English isn't going to go away if the UK leave the EU. It's ingrained as the default second language on the continent, taught extensively in schools and used widely in business. The biggest trading partner of the EU is the US anyway and they're not about to start making a hash of another language. What do they hope to achieve by this?

 

[Bomberboyokay]

But how accommodating are the EU/UK going to be about it?

Right I can't just up and go and work in Belgium. If I were a UK citizen, I could.

Depending on what agreements are negotiated, this may no longer be the case for UK citizens.

It's all in flux but I see two possible outcomes,

1) EU gives UK a s**t departure deal as punishment. Trade market access + all that good stuff gone.

2) EU lets the UK stay in the European Economic Area (which Iceland and Norway are in). Unfortunately for Leave voters 'concerned' about immigration freedom of movement is non-negotiable and they'll have to keep to all the EU laws and regulations they claim to despise. Being in the EEA is a bit like being in the EU except you don't get a seat the decision table.

Given it's at least two years away and pragmatism tends to win out I'll predict the later. Which is a phyrric victory to Leave in the scheme of things. All at the expense of the UK's diminished influence internationally.

 

[Scotland]

I see the UK looking to go down the line of the US in terms of their relations with the EU.

There's plenty of trade between the US and EU but certainly no freedom of movement. The US don't even allow all EU states to participate in the visa waiver program.

 

[Brad Goodman]

Depends on your values I guess, but I see voting leave to get your decision-making power back as a bit of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

 

[Scotland]

Depends on your values I guess, but I see voting leave to get your decision-making power back as a bit of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

I think it will be the test case for the viability of the EU.

If a country like the UK can break away from the EU and negotiate a good deal then why wouldn't others? The whole kumbaya thing is great but on most levels each nation is looking after their own interests first and foremost.

Let's be honest, the UK wants to trade cars with Germany, wine with France, tourism with Spain etc. while making their own laws in their own parliament and keeping out Poles, Romanians, Merkl's refugees etc. How successful they will be in that regard remains to be seen.

 

[BORK]

It's certainly something the anti-immigration lot never think about. Most of the jobs immigrants "steal" are the ones they wouldn't want to do anyway.

Interesting times ahead.

Isn't it the poor and working class who also do the jobs that others would not want to do?

And the same people who voted to leave?

 

[Bomberboyokay]

22 days until the biggest act of national self-sabotage in my lifetime. Historians will be baffled by this. The UK is doing it with their eyes wide open.

It shouldn't surprise you to know none of the other EU countries have decided to leave in the 3 years since the referendum.

 

[ChappyUK]

22 days until the biggest act of national self-sabotage in my lifetime. Historians will be baffled by this. The UK is doing it with their eyes wide open.

It shouldn't surprise you to know none of the other EU countries have decided to leave in the 3 years since the referendum.

Who really cares what an unelected autocrat thinks.

No other country has tried to leave because they are using the UK as the test case.

Countries like France where the majority of people want out are just waiting to see how the NI border is dealt with as they don't have a border with just one country.

Brexit is just the first domino. Nationalism is becoming a major factor everywhere. Europe is ****ed and need the UK more than the UK needs them.

 

[Bomberboyokay]

Europe is ****** and need the UK more than the UK needs them.

Brexiters are the stupidest campaigners.

 

[ChappyUK]

Brexiters are the stupidest campaigners.

I've just been waiting until your plan. Which is the most eficient wlmm. Pebiskkkkkm

 

[Bomberboyokay]

I've just been waiting until your plan. Which is the most eficient wlmm. Pebiskkkkkm

Good luck avoiding an early grave https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/9/1/e026966

 

[Bomberboyokay]

 

[Bomberboyokay]

I think more countries in the EU are going to go the same way.

 

[Bomberboyokay]

European Council (Art. 50) conclusions, 21 March 2019

1. The European Council takes note of the letter of Prime Minister Theresa May of 20 March 2019.
2. In response, the European Council approves the Instrument relating to the Withdrawal Agreement and the Joint Statement supplementing the Political Declaration agreed between the European Commission and the government of the United Kingdom in Strasbourg on 11 March 2019.
3. The European Council agrees to an extension until 22 May 2019, provided the Withdrawal Agreement is approved by the House of Commons next week. If the Withdrawal Agreement is not approved by the House of Commons next week, the European Council agrees to an extension until 12 April 2019 and expects the United Kingdom to indicate a way forward before this date for consideration by the European Council.
4. The European Council reiterates that there can be no opening of the Withdrawal Agreement that was agreed between the Union and the United Kingdom in November 2018. Any unilateral commitment, statement or other act should be compatible with the letter and the spirit of the Withdrawal Agreement.
5. The European Council calls for work to be continued on preparedness and contingency at all levels for the consequences of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal, taking into account all possible outcomes.
6. The European Council will remain seized of the matter.

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/...ean-council-art-50-conclusions-21-march-2019/

 

[Procrastinator35]

I see that May has fulfilled her role as the City of London financiers patsy, in scuppering BREXIT.....As if that wasn't the crooks plan all long, to deny the will of the people, as anyone familiar with the nefarious plans of the Anglo-U.S Network of criminal Globalists, didn't know already.

Sovereignty destruction of Nation State Democracies is their avowed aim & goal.

 

[Bomberboyokay]

Playtime is over: I can't keep on supporting Brexit if this is how the govt behaves

By Mark from Southend

I have always been a eurosceptic. In fact, I still am. Even now, I feel that many of the reasons for Leave are sound. The concerns around accountability are valid, as are worries about political integration, the creep of direct effect, and the lack of a sense of emotional connection with Europe for many Brits. As powers have been taken from national and local governments and centralised on a pan-EU basis, the quality of those domestic legislative bodies declined while their capacity for aimless bureaucracy rose.

All of that is as true today as it was in 2016. It's why I voted Leave. But not every eurosceptic argument holds up so well. Certain events have knocked away other foundational pillars of Brexit thinking.

Front and centre has been the border with Ireland. From my comfy corner of England, the thought that there was still a potential tinderbox of emotion in a corner of the UK seemed very remote. Clearly this was wrong.

I was vaguely aware there would be some technical problems about the border to resolve post-Brexit, but I presumed that it wasn't beyond the wit of man to do so. Well, it transpires that man has been trying to come up with something for several years on other borders without success. What seemed peripheral three years ago has become fundamental.

Brexit also stirred nationalism in all component parts of the UK - and not in a healthy way. Peter Oborne, who recently recanted his support for Brexit, said that the EU had in fact become part of the glue that holds the UK together. He is undoubtedly correct. EU membership also provides extended diplomatic and economic protection to the interests of the Channel Islands and Gibraltar and also - by extension and to a degree - the Falkland Islands and other UK dependencies. It is incumbent upon the UK to have regard to its historic obligations. Thus far, frankly, we have not.

With all those component parts of the UK stirring, we have to ask a plain and simple question: Is the dissolution of the UK a price worth paying? I value the Union. I'm proud of my British identity. I cannot continue to endorse a process that will tear this apart. But I just don't see any proper thinking about this at all on the British side.

During the campaign, I was happy to accept a Norway-type arrangement, as were many other Leavers. But once it was over, two things quickly became clear. Firstly, that a well-organised and well-funded section of Leave support with strong media connections would treat anything less than full severance from the EU as treachery. And secondly, that the prime minister would place ending free movement and the views of her most hardline backbenchers above all other considerations.

The no-surrender Brexiters have a dream of a free trade wonderland across the world, but it is just that: a dream. It relied on the idea of a stable international trading system based on increasingly global regulatory standards.

But this is precisely the opposite of the world we now occupy. Trump and China are causing a rise in general trading instability and a retreat into safe regional blocks. The world is moving to a state of predator and prey. Alone in it, we will be eaten. There cannot be a worse time to go it alone. The trade argument in favour of Brexit has collapsed.

The only counter the hardline Brexiters have to this is conspiracy theory. Whenever objections are raised, they scream about Project Fear. If there is such a project, it seems to include the UK and Irish Governments, the EU, the CBI, the British Chambers of Commerce, the RHA, FTA, BMA, Corporation of London, Airbus, JLR, as well as businesses in sectors as diverse as horticulture, tech, architecture, and food and drink.

As for the prime minister, her red lines have prevented us from ever being able to secure the frictionless trade with Europe she claimed to want. In an effort to keep her hardliners onside, the Conservative party - a party I've supported all my adult life - has been stretched into some painful and absurd contortions. There can be no more embarrassingly meaningless phrase in the English language than 'Malthouse Compromise'. The constant recurrence of this proposal shows a fundamental lack of seriousness in UK negotiations.

When I voted Leave, I hoped Brexit would make Westminster take its repatriated powers seriously and look to forge robust, evidence-based policy. But the reality has been quite different. The UK body politic is clearly not able to cope with Brexit. The continual failure to even make small steps towards intelligible policy has eroded my confidence in our ever being able to do so at all.

What a contrast this has been to the EU. I always considered it a technocratic monolith, but let's be clear: it has been transparent, professional and coherent throughout.

My only real issue with the EU's approach is that they did not allow any scoping talks or any substantive discussions to take place prior to the Article 50 notice being served. But that should have put the onus on the UK to carry out our own such exercise and present our position in detail with that notice. It should have comprised lever-arch files of analysis on multiple sectors, putting our position on both withdrawal and future relationship in full detail. Instead it comprised a couple of sides of A4 paper. This was reflective of a country that is not to be taken seriously.

The withdrawal agreement itself is similarly dispiriting. It will keep us in a sub-Norway position for years while our economy and influence simply erodes away. This is far worse than the EEA option I backed. All other Brexit avenues are closed, unless a suicidal no-deal is your preference. It certainly isn't mine.

Even if a Norway-style approach was now settled upon, I do not think it could be said to have a sufficient democratic mandate. In fact, no form of Brexit does. No-deal pushes the original referendum result far beyond what a marginal win dictates.

After the experience of the last three years, my position has fundamentally shifted. If the cross-party talks produce some form of agreed approach for the future, it should go for a public vote. If no such agreement is forthcoming, we should revoke our Article 50 notice.

The balance of risk has changed. Westminster simply cannot get to grips with what it is being asked to do. Brexit cannot be a success on the basis of where we are now. It is time to bring this sad chapter to a close.

https://politics.co.uk/comment-anal...r-i-can-t-keep-on-supporting-brexit-if-this-i

 

[Bomberboyokay]

 

[Bomberboyokay]

May ends her premiership as she started it: With the greatest lie of all

By Ian Dunt
Friday, 24 May 2019 10:33 AM
Follow iandunt

Theresa May announced her resignation as prime minister in the same way she began her term: with the expression of political values she did precisely nothing to promote.

It was a bookend speech, almost identical in its vision to the one she made when she first entered Downing Street. She spoke about the need to find "compromise" on Brexit. She said the referendum was a call for "profound change in our country". She outlined her supposed accomplishments in national finance, helping first-time buyers and the environment. She emphasised a "decent, moderate and patriotic Conservative government, on the common ground of British politics". And she called for a country that could "stand together".

Not a single word of it was true. The two bookend speeches bore no resemblance at all to the content of her premiership.

The list of accomplishments was particularly desperate. In reality, as everyone knows - as she knows best of all - Brexit has wiped everything else off the domestic agenda. There is no time or capacity to do anything about inequality, or industry, or the environment, because it eats up all of the attention of the government and civil service.

The Conservative government did not stand in the "common ground" of British politics. From the moment of her 2016 conference speech, when it was clear that ending free movement overrode all other political considerations, she made it a formal policy to sabotage Britain's trading status and economic and legal structure in order to reduce immigration.

It was as simple as that. Ending free movement meant leaving the single market. Leaving the single market meant an end to Britain's position as beachhead for global companies entering Europe, for our ability to sell services across the continent, and for frictionless trade. But all those considerations were considered secondary to immigration.

This moment has now been absorbed into British political group-think as somehow necessary. It was nothing of the kind. There was never a democratic mandate for it on the basis of the referendum result. Somewhere between 20% to 40% of Leave voters were either relaxed about immigration or did not prioritise it above the economy. Even Boris Johnson, who won the campaign for Leave, wrote a piece immediately afterwards holding open the possibility of keeping free movement.

It was a political choice. It took the fundamental demand of Ukip and absorbed it into No.10. It was the Faragisation of Great Britain. And she was too short-sighted to see that this would not neutralise his appeal. He would always find an imaginary betrayal to hound her with, as he is now, even when the disasters we are experiencing are a result of his own arguments.

This was not the common ground. It was the hard right. Its fundamental proposition was that reducing the number of foreigners in Britain was worth national sabotage. She embraced it eagerly, right to the end. Even in the bitter final days of her premiership, it was all she really seemed to care about. When she published her deal, ending free movement was her top line. Even when she outlined her updated ten-point plan this week, it was highlighted.

And then there is the utter hypocrisy of her appeal for compromise. Of course, it is easy to see why she says this. Labour won't back her and many Leave MPs won't either, so it is natural to conclude that she is offering a pragmatic position in the centre which ideologues are unable to accept. That is an intuitive thought, but it is entirely false.

There was never a compromise. The two obvious compromise positions - single market and customs union - were dismissed early on as a betrayal of Brexit. May spent years encouraging this language without seeing that it would eventually be turned on her.

These two options would have allowed a prime minister to deliver Brexit while maintaining British quality of life and frictionless trade, specifically in Ireland. She did not take them.

People now say it would have been impossible. That is tragically false. At the start of her premiership, she had sky-high public support and strong backing in the party. That was the moment to make the brave case. It would have offered her a clear and deliverable Brexit policy. Instead, she ruled them out, and made it impossible to deliver the project without threatening the economy and the Union. In reality, it was this course of action which was impossible. And it was this which broke her in the end.

Some believe that her commitment to keeping the border open in Ireland was a sign of compromise. It is a statement that tells you a great deal about how badly our standards have dissolved. It is simply a commitment to the Union. If that border closes up, if state infrastructure appears there - either in the form of physical surveillance equipment and buildings, or border agents - it goes against the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement and threatens a return to the Troubles. It is, as May belatedly recognised, the beginning of the end of the UK.

To call a commitment to the Union compromise, especially when it comes from the leader of a party with the word Unionist literally in its name, is quite astonishingly insane, but that is the level of understanding we now live in.

This was not to do with compromise. It was to do with reality.

These are the trade-offs Brexit entails. If you want full control of your trading status, you will not be in a customs union. If you are not in a customs union, you will not be able to have frictionless trade with your neighbours. If you want full regulatory control of your country, and an end to free movement, you will not be in the single market. If you are not in the single market, you will hurt British industry and quality of life.

Brexit was based on the idea that downsides do not exist, that trade-offs are a conspiracy, and that simple answers can be given to complex problems. Every single one of these propositions is false. The moment it turned from poetry to prose, from rhetoric to reality, from campaign slogans to legal documents, the lie was revealed.

That is what the Irish issue was. It was not a compromise at all. It was the translation of Leave campaign gibberish into legal and practical fact. And the moment it was written down, it destroyed her.

In truth, she never showed any interest in compromise. The 48% of the country who voted Remain were systematically ignored, belittled and slandered throughout her time in office. They were branded elitists, despite the fact the Leave result hinged on wealthy voters. They were branded 'the establishment', despite being completely frozen out of decision-making. They were branded 'citizens of nowhere', despite being motivated by outrage at what was being done to their country. They were branded 'Brexit-deniers', despite highlighting the very problems which would make the project undeliverable.

This came from Leave politicians and journalists in general, but at the top, giving it form and validation, was the prime minister. She never reached out. She spoke of crazed conspiracy theories to undermine Brexit by the opposition, or judges, or the House of Lords, or EU leaders. She threw in her lot with the most crazed and hysterical Brexiters in her party. And in the end they devoured her anyway, because it was easier to do that than face the inadequacy of their own position.

She was a deceptive prime minister throughout. She lied incessantly, about every stage and aspect of the project. But the biggest lies came at the beginning and the end of her premiership, when she claimed to fight for a better country, to seek the centre ground and look for compromise. She did none of these things. And it is intolerable that she should pretend she did.

On the face of it, she is the worst prime minister of our lifetime. She has no achievements, she conducted herself without grace or principle, and she governed the country as it was humiliated on the world stage.

In actual fact, that's not quite right. David Cameron, her predecessor, takes the top spot. He made his errors for entirely self-serving reasons, in a benign political environment. He created Brexit by calling a referendum, in order to minimise losses in a local election no-one even remembers anymore. The demands upon him were miniscule and his failure enormous.

May has the advantage of much greater demands. Anyone would have struggled. They were punishing circumstances and she handled it particularly badly. So she is not the worst prime minister. She is the second worst. That's the best thing you can say about her.

https://politics.co.uk/blogs/2019/05/24/may-ends-her-premiership-as-she-started-it-with-the-greatest

 

[Procrastinator35]

Good riddance to bad rubbish.....C u later Multi-Nat stooge May....The enemy of the people.

 

[Bomberboyokay]

Boris Johnson to face court over Brexit campaign accusations

Boris Johnson, the frontrunner to become the next leader of the Conservative party, faces a trial over accusations of misconduct in a public office for comments made in the run-up to the UK’s referendum on EU membership.

Mr Johnson must attend court for a preliminary hearing, District Judge Margot Coleman ruled.

“The allegations which have been made are unproven accusations and I do not make any findings of fact,” she said in a written statement. “Having considered all the relevant factors I am satisfied that this is a proper case to issue the summons as requested for the three offences as drafted.”

Her statement added: “The charges are indictable only. This means the proposed defendant will be required to attend this court for a preliminary hearing, and the case will then be sent to the Crown Court for trial.”

Mr Johnson behaved in an “irresponsible and dishonest” way when he claimed during the 2016 Brexit referendum that the UK sent £350m a week to the EU, a London court was told last week by lawyers representing a campaigner who wants to pursue a private criminal prosecution against the former foreign secretary.

Marcus Ball, 29, is launching a criminal charge of misconduct in a public office against the Conservative MP over the £350m figure emblazoned on a red bus used by the Vote Leave campaign.

He has raised almost £200,000 by crowdfunding the legal action and last Thursday his lawyers asked Westminster magistrates’ court to issue a summons that Mr Johnson should appear in court to answer the allegation.

The favourite to succeed Theresa May as prime minister, who was a backbench MP during the referendum campaign, was not at last week’s public hearing.

Lewis Power QC, acting for Mr Ball, told the court that the proposed prosecution was not a “political stunt” or about Brexit but was about the behaviour of those in public office.

https://www.ft.com/content/d11dd7ee-81ec-11e9-9935-ad75bb96c849

 

[Bomberboyokay]

Boris Johnson is heading for Downing Street, but he'll hate the experience as much as we will

Thursday, 13 June 2019 7:36 PM
By Jonathan Lis

We know life is unfair and countries, like people, don't always get happy endings. Today our party of government more or less confirmed that Boris Johnson would be the steward of our definitive national decline, and couldn't give a damn if the 65.9 million non-members of the Conservative party like it or not. After all, people without private jets don't get to choose their pilots, so there's no reason why people without Tory voting slips should get to choose their prime minister.

114 Tory MPs opted for Johnson in the first round of votes for the new leader. If there was a crumb of comfort, it was that 199 (almost two-thirds) did not. You thought for an optimistic moment that maybe they saw through him after all. And then you remembered that 47 had voted for the combined personality-free Brexit death cult of Dominic Raab, Andrea Leadsom and Esther McVey.

Why did Johnson win? Easy. It's because the Tories think he can help them to win. Like a father who attempts to play Barry Manilow at his teenager's rave, the Conservatives do not fundamentally understand popularity and are several years out of date when they try. It's true, Johnson may have been popular – and that word is doing heavy lifting – in the late 2000s. 'BoJo' was the Conservative for people who loved to mock Conservatives, liberal enough for Highgate dinner parties but still neo-colonial enough for the Spectator magazine. He could simultaneously inhabit the born-to-rule Etonian for those who wanted to tug forelocks, and parody it for those who wanted to enjoy a joke.

But those days ended on the morning of 24th June 2016. Johnson had led the country through the most cynical and dishonest election campaign it had ever seen. People jeered as he drove out of his house. Young people, liberals and Remainers in general didn't find the ex-mayor as funny now he had destroyed their futures. Play-time was over, and so was the electoral magic.

But Johnson does have something going for him: his loyal followers. This phenomenon he shares with the President of the United States. Johnson is every bit as dishonest, solipsistic and malevolent as Donald Trump, and as emphatically lazy, erratic and ineffective. Neither deserves the power or adulation they have mysteriously accrued. And yet, to echo Trump's famous line about shooting someone on Fifth Avenue and still topping the polls, literally nothing Johnson does seems able to hurt him. The cavern of lies, misdeeds and personality flaws which would incapacitate most other politicians are, we are told, "priced in'', despite the fact he has nothing of value to sell. Even today's revelations that, as foreign secretary, he allegedly told EU ambassadors he was personally in favour of free movement of people, thus privately torpedoing both his government and his own Brexit campaign (full disclosure: I revealed it), will do nothing to dent his popularity with the party faithful. Remainer? Leaver? Hypocrite? Chancer? Just call him Boris and enjoy the thrill.

The key consolation – let's face it, the only consolation - is that Johnson's honeymoon will last all of a few weeks. If Downing Street looked brutal for Theresa May, you haven't seen what's waiting for her successor. Johnson craves power, but will be unable to do anything with it.

There is literally no way that he emerges from his first few months as prime minister with credibility or appeal. If he opts for a rapid election, as some suspect – no doubt on a platform of no-deal – then he will face a comprehensive mauling. A genuine coalition stretching from the Tory centre to the Corbyn left will unite against him. If parliament forces his government out by a vote of no-confidence, he will encounter the same fate. The European elections demonstrate that a large majority of voters reject no-deal, and they will certainly not waive their disgust just to appease Johnson.

If, on the other hand, Johnson goes for no-deal without an election, parliament will do all it can to stop him and the Speaker, John Bercow, will do everything he can to assist. If MPs want a vote either to revoke Article 50 or to force a request to extend it, Bercow will find a way for them. That leaves Johnson either extending Article 50 and forfeiting all his early goodwill, or returning to the earlier scenario of a ruinous general election. And in the remotest possibility that we do end up crashing out of the EU with no deal, the prime minister will find himself blamed, despised and forced back to Brussels. Put simply, no sooner will he enter Downing Street than he'll sign a short time-delayed warrant for his removal.

So we'll be honest about this. Today was dispiriting. You may wail, lament and mourn, longing for the old rational country whose prime ministers displayed basic fitness to lead. But even if we have struck disaster with Johnson, he won't in all likelihood be steering us for long and we will almost certainly avoid the worst of the rocks. He can't change the current parliament, and if he tries, he can't change the electorate. Whatever he attempts will fail, the country will turn on him, and eventually he'll want to leave. Perhaps Johnson will achieve his life-long ambition, realise he never even wanted it, and it will be the happiest ending for both him and us.

https://politics.co.uk/comment-anal...s-heading-for-downing-street-but-he-ll-hate-t

 

[Bomberboyokay]

Saturday is the most important day in the entire Brexit saga

By Ian Dunt
Thursday, 17 October 2019 1:53 PM

Here it comes. After years of constant battling, constitutional crises, divided families, political implosions, and crunching, endless negotiations, events will finally reach their crescendo on Saturday. As hundreds of thousands of Remainers congregate outside parliament to demand a People's Vote, MPs inside the building will decide on Britain's fate.

We now, for the first time in a long time, have a pretty clear picture of what's about to happen.

The government will put down a motion on the deal Boris Johnson has just negotiated with the EU. MPs will try to attach an amendment accepting the deal on the condition of a referendum. If it passes, that will probably happen. If it fails, and MPs back Johnson's deal, Brexit is happening by the October 31st deadline.

If MPs reject the deal, the Benn Act will trigger. There will be an extension of Article 50 and, in all likelihood, an election. Don't listen to the attempts to dispel this notion from the British or EU side. They both want the deal, so they need to pretend otherwise, but the basic reality hasn't changed. British law says a request must be made. The EU will not allow itself to be responsible for no-deal, so it will grant it.

In that election, Johnson will run on the back of his deal. If he won, he'll push it through. If he lost, Labour would renegotiate and then hold a referendum on its deal.

This is not the same as the three meaningful votes held under Theresa May. It is much tighter. Johnson can carry more Brexiters with him.

But for the time being, the odds are - just about - against him. The DUP has held firm and will vote against. The ERG are mostly going with it, but some of them will probably waver. Most purged Tories will probably back the deal, but some may not. Some pro-deal Labour MPs will vote for the deal, but most will not.

That's unlikely to be enough. Without the DUP, Johnson needs every group to support him. But the DUP rejection makes that a hard sell. It offers an out to those who are wavering.

On the basis of objective reality, which is not at all a good guide to how MPs will vote, this deal should fail on the basis of the principles parliamentarians have said they hold.

It creates a customs and regulatory border in the Irish Sea. Johnson once suggested this was a kind of annexation. May said no British prime minister could ever agree to it. Jacob Rees-Mogg said he couldn't support a withdrawal agreement without the backing of the DUP. And yet here we are.

Technically Northern Ireland would stay in the UK customs territory, but this is a legal nicety. The truth is this: there will be large scale checks between Britain and Ireland. Those will be on regulations and on customs.

The UK's trading territory is being carved up. Those who said that it had to stay united whatever happened with Brexit should, by force of logic, vote against the deal.

That goes for purged Tories too. Many of them have said they would vote for any deal. That's perfectly consistent. But for some of them, the repercussions of this deal may be too much to tolerate.

The implications for the UK go well beyond what happens to Northern Ireland. Think about Scotland. It, like Northern Ireland, voted against Brexit. It is now being forced into the harshest interpretation of the vote against its will, but without the protections offered to Northern Ireland. There is no moral consistency to that position. It is as if Westminster were trying to write the SNP's independence campaign for it.

The group of pro-deal Labour MPs must also take a realistic look at what is being proposed. This is not single market membership. It is not even customs union membership. It will hurt the British economy and workers worst of all.

This group recently made level playing field provisions a red line. These are guarantees that the UK will stick to the EU rules on things like workers' rights and environmental protections. Johnson shifted on this overnight and put them in the deal. That could tempt Labour MPs to vote for it.

But look closer. The level playing field provisions were moved from the withdrawal agreement document, which is a legal text, and into the political declaration document, which is not. All it really constitutes is a recognition that the EU will insist on this if the UK wants a free trade agreement. It is not a legal guarantee. It is a recognition of the EU's future negotiating position being recognised in law.

So what does this really mean? It kicks the battle over what the UK does into the future. If it was passed, Britain would enter into the real debate: does it want to enter the embrace of America or the EU? It's going to have to pick one. Every law of logic and trading reality means it should pick its large, closer neighbour, but that is not necessarily how politics works anymore. That battle will take place. There is no guarantee of level playing fields. The Labour pro-dealers red line has not been satisfied.

That's the state of play. On paper, this deal should fail. But things are moving fast. Everything is happening very quickly. The EU and UK have hammered something together in days that they'll have to live with for decades. Parliament is being given just one day to debate it. It is a quite insane state of affairs, but that is how it is happening. And in that frenzied atmosphere, people can slip either way.

And yet in the back of their heads, they might well be thinking: how will this look in a few years time? How will this deal be considered in the future? And it is surely the case that it will be despised. It is a painful compromise which will make the UK poorer and weaker, made by an unelected prime minister with no majority, in which both sides - Leaver or Remainer - will be able to claim that it could have been much better if things had been done their way.

Either way, we're entering the crunch point now. Saturday will be the most momentous and nerve-shredding day since the Brexit vote itself. It all comes down to this.

Saturday is the most important day in the entire Brexit saga

After years of constant battling, constitutional crises, divided families, political implosions and crunching, endless negotiations, events are finally about to reach their crescendo.

politics.co.uk

 

[Bomberboyokay]