Brexit deal

I think the Tories approach to this is that they are accepting no deal but they will try to ask the EU for whatever wish list they want, if they EU are stupid enough to give it to them then great, if not they are happy to go with no deal and then blaming the EU for any problems that come along afterwards. The Tories will keep the Brexit public support, Theresa May will keep her job. They will gamble on Brexit not being as bad as predicted and hope that they can fix any problems before the next general election in 2022. If a hard boarder pops up in Northern Ireland and any troubles occur then that will be good for the Tories too (as it was good for Thatcher) and the DUP will be happy that Irish unification has taken a step back. The tricky part will be getting all this through parliament, a handful of Tories could bring the whole thing crashing down, will they put their party before the country? What will happen with Scotland? will they try for independence again? I guess the Tories think they could just keep denying them an other referendum vote.

Maria D. White and others, for those of us not up-to-date or truly understanding the Brexit ramifications on the rest of us, your news items, intuitions and intuitive predictions are incredibly helpful!

Thank you so much, all of you!

A hard border in Ireland isn't good for the Tories, or anyone in the UK, for that matter. That's because it will bring lots of problems to both sides of Ireland. And Ireland is still a major trade partner with the UK for all sorts of foodstuffs. Nobody wants an argument with their own fridge. When it comes to Ireland, any deal is better than no deal for them, so I gather the plan is to scare them with "no deal" and then they'll be ready to accept anything.

Scotland have already said that they'll do a second referendum some time after Brexit, if they're unhappy with the deal, and they almost certainly will be. Strictly speaking, they don't need permission from London to do it, they can do like Catalonia and organize a referendum without permission. The main thing that stops them at this point is that the nationalists don't think they can win a referendum yet. But five years down the line, that's a definite possibility.

A hard border in Ireland is good for the Tories because it's good for the DUP, any trouble that arises will be blamed on the EU. It also creates a siege mentality which tends to make people more conservative and rally around the flag. Thatcher used the IRA attacks for her own political gain. Labour brought in the good friday agreement in 1998, the Tories are now trying to destroy it. A border will be bad for the UK. The Tories do not care about the people of Northern Ireland and Ireland, only staying in power.

Scotland can hold their own illegal independence referendum but it will never be internationally recognised, almost every country in the world has their own breakaway movements and they won't want to encourage these breakaway movements to hold their own illegal referendums.  Catalonia's illegal referendum was not recognised by anyone other than Catalonia. The EU immediately said it did not recognise Catalonia as being independent. No nation wants to encourage an illegal referendum. Everything has to be done within the rules. Also I can't see everyone turning out to vote if the referendum is illegal so there will always be a debate over the result.

Hello all, I've just been reading the latest predictions and we now have two that suggest Brexit may be stopped. One that explicitly says it will be stopped and one that says a unilateral agreement will be reached.

This seems more positive that what was seen before...does this mean it's looking more hopeful and it may be stopped or at the very least a hard Brexit will be averted?

Watching with great hope and positive thoughts.

I feel the situation is pretty hopeless right now. Country is split right in the middle. Tories are forcing through with this insanity to win right wing votes. I'm hoping and praying for miracle. 

I said earlier in this thread that a global recession would be coming sooner than Brexit day, with the full crisis coming at the beginning of next year but problems starting before that. We just have seen global stock markets going down, which fits the economic timetable I was seeing.

To clarify terminology, Brexit with some sort of trade agreement with the EU can be "soft Brexit" (if the agreement is close to remaining in the EU) or "hard Brexit" (if it's far from  it). If there is no agreement, it's called "no deal Brexit". "No Brexit" would mean staying in the EU.

Brexit would be almost impossible to stop at this late stage. Because the decision was the result of a referendum, there really isn't a way of rolling it back unless something happened that was such a huge game-changer that it justified stopping the process. And I don't see any such game-changer between now and Brexit day.

Most people are still expecting that "no deal Brexit" won't happen, and some sort of agreement will be reached. This is what I see myself, though I see the agreement will be rather incomplete, and a "hard Brexit".

Stu, the news today show that the Tories and DUP aren't agreed on Ireland. Hardly surprising, because the DUP is rather extreme. I agree that the Tories don't care much for the people of Ireland, North or South, but they do care, like the establishment in Great Britain always has, about the food coming from Ireland. The difference today is, nowadays it would be impossible to extract food from Ireland without the express consent of Irish people. Which requires compromising with them.

On the side point of a Scottish referendum, they could do it as a "consultative" one and they'd almost certainly get away with that. But today, it's a moot point because they know they wouldn't win it, so they won't try. In five years time, it's a possibility. The difference with Catalonia is that the British establishment, unlike the Spanish one, know quite well that it's pointless to try to stop a bunch of people from doing something they're totally determined to do, so if they saw the Scots were determined, they'd find some sort of compromise.

The draft Brexit deal has come out today.

As I said at the beginning of this thread, it's very incomplete. The way it's escaped causing massive disruptions in trade is by effectively agreeing to a transition period, and during that time the UK will stay in the customs union. What most people would call the real deal negotiations will happen during the transition period. And the EU has only accepted this solution recently - probably once they realized it was the only option they could realistically get in the available time frame.

Also, what I was saying all along about the Irish border has been proved correct. Tories never had any interest in a hard Irish border, and the draft deal pretty much proves this point.

It seems to me like the EU was trying to use the "Irish backstop" as their general gambit for a deal. The argument would go something like: If you Brits are willing to accept this deal with Ireland, that is a EU country, why not with everybody else? Except that Britain wants to be a lot closer to Ireland than to the rest of the EU. This looks pretty much impossible, because Ireland is in a customs union with the rest of the EU. But the UK has been unmoved.

The way I see this, the British government will treat Ireland differently from the rest of the EU, and they're willing to wait for as long as it takes, and stay with things as they are for as long as needed, till there is agreement on something acceptable to them, or the EU ends, whichever comes first. I have a strong feeling they're expecting the EU to end first, actually.

A big part of the draft deal is about the finer points of the divorce bill. The most significant part of this isn't who is going to pay how much, but that it states clearly that financially, UK and the EU are going their separate ways. So on the next euro crisis, the UK will have nothing to do with it.

Another big part of the draft deal is about the status of EU citizens in Britain and British citizens in the EU. As I see it, the idea is give generous terms to current EU citizens in Britain so they can easily get permanent residency, in exchange for making it expensive and complicated to get citizenship (so once those EU citizens go home for long enough, they lose their residency rights), and getting pretty much free rein in restricting immigration from now on. Which was always clearly one of the main aims of Brexit.

If anybody has questions that aren't covered in the news, feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer.

Theresa May is getting many non-confidence letters right now.  The Government (and this Brexit Deal) may crumble if there is a non-confidence vote in the Parliamentary System of the UK.

To be honest i  think they will vote this disarray of a deal through. Yes I voted leave, and will never ever vote for anything ever  again, after the way they have handled this. 

The powers that be, bankers, elites etc will not allow brexit to happen. It was pretty obvious from the  start.

The worse thing is this deal is even worse then what we had before, even if there never was a referendum.

How can being in a club be a good thing, when you are a rule taker and have no say. Just pure insanity.

What worries me is this poor deal could well break up the UK. 

UKisland, this deal may have all the disadvantages of being in the EU plus all the problems of being out of the EU during the transition period, but after the transition period Britain is going to be definitely out of the EU. So don't worry, you'll get what you want eventually.

The dominant future I'm getting right now is that this deal goes through and May stays in power. But I'm getting another strong option, that has been pretty strong for a long time and has never gone away, and it's that May is ousted out of power before the end of this year. After that, the UK will get a national unity government with the Tories and Labour united, because the Tories can't go on alone after that. The current deal with only minor tweaks will then be approved in Parliament. But the important thing is that the current deal still leaves a lot of things undecided, and the rest will be decided by both Tories and Labour during the transition period.

Thankyou for your input and informative post.  I just feel drained regardless of people's wanted outcome we need to stick on this. A second referendum would really add fuel to the fire. But I can agree may has to resign I would sooner see the UK stay together more then anything, yes I want brexit as well. 

Maria D White, thank you for your predictions, I read them with great interest. These are very difficult times of uncertainty for literally everyone. Small businesses don't know if they will be able to survive after the transition period, manufacturers(especially small manufacturers, and there are many of us) wont have free access to valuable EU market, pound value is falling by day. This is very sad as people have put years of hard work to build a business... Unfortunately we see what right wing mentality does to the country when we look at US. People have short memory. If we look at the history we never had it this good in Europe. Peace for such a long time which is most important and of course financially people are having so much more opportunities. I pray that this terrible thing never happens. 

Been having computer issues, that's why I haven't been posting on this forum lately. Now I'm back online.

As an update to the Brexit situation, the option of May being forced out and heading towards a national unity government is now the dominant one.

A second referendum is still rather unlikely. The main obstacle is: what would the question be? If MPs cannot agree on a deal, they won't agree on a question, either.

Dina, I completely understand your concern about small manufacturers, since I work for a small manufacturer myself. But you have to understand that small manufacturers aren't all in the same position when in comes to Brexit. It depends on where your suppliers are and whether you export or not to the EU. Many small manufacturers sell only to Britain, and would welcome barriers to EU competitors (though it's unlikely that there will be huge barriers). It also depends on how specialized your products are, in other words, whether your customers are willing to accept higher prices if you have to sell at higher prices because they have few or no other options. So it's a rather mixed bag: some small manufacturers will be harmed by Brexit, some will benefit, and some will see little difference in the end.

I know that it's been said the EU has guaranteed peace, but trade links didn't guarantee peace before the First or Second World Wars. And trade between different parts of Spain didn't prevent the Civil War. There are many valid reasons to be in favor of economic integration, but the idea that it guarantees peace is simply wrong.

The good news is that at least some of the uncertainty about Brexit will go away pretty soon. The bad news is that some of that uncertainty will remain. There is still plenty up in the air.

It's nice to read you again !

If May is forced out, will there be elections or someone nominated from the tories ? 

I agree about trade and peace. Unfortunately. We have been told a tale.

I wouldn't have supported pro-leave if I were British but now I start to think it might not be so bad regarding the situation on Europe.

Breaking news on Brexit deal:

"Theresa May pulls plug on Brexit vote amid 'widespread concern' over Northern Ireland backstop."

https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/10/uk/brexit-vote-delay-theresa-may-gbr-intl/index.html

You may have seen in the news that May has just won a vote of no confidence. This doesn't mean that she gets to stay, though. In the US it's terribly difficult to get the president out of office, but in Europe it's generally relatively easy to get rid of a country leader that isn't doing their job properly, and there are usually several mechanisms for this, that vary from country to country.

In the case of the UK, there are two different mechanisms: the prime minister can be booted out by people of her own party, which is the vote that has just happened. Or she can be booted out by the opposition. This is very likely to happen next, and this is the vote that she's likely to lose.

After that vote of no confidence, because it would be triggered by Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, once May gets ousted it would be for him to either cobble together an alternative government, or if he can't, snap elections would happen. Brexit is pending and Europe is unwilling to delay Brexit day for very long, because EU elections will be happening in June and they are unwilling for the UK to participate in them if the UK is leaving. That means the most likely scenario is that a national unity government will be cobbled together, with a buch of Labour and Tory MPs that can agree on enough about Brexit to get some kind of deal on Brexit day (possibly delayed a little). And after the deadline they can call for snap elections.

It may sound strange that a national unity government can work, but when it comes to Brexit, the divisions go right across party lines. There are Remainers and Brexiteers on both parties. There are more Remainers in Labour and more Brexiteers in the Tory Party, but still enough of the others that trying to pass a deal while sticking to party lines is not really doable. Still, there are big differences among the parties, so there is no guarantee that a national unity government will work and manage a deal, no matter how limited and fuzzy. But it's the only option with realistic chances of working.

It's hard to tell who will be the prime minister of that government because the situation is still very fluid and timelines are moving all the time. I think the prime minister will be a Tory on account that it's the party with the most seats, and clearly it can't be May after the vote of no confidence. I'm getting Boris Johnson as the most likely one, but definitely others have a good chance as well. The deputy prime minister would be Jeremy Corbyn and in practice both of them would ask to be treated as equals to stress the intention of keeping things united until elections are called.

On the possibility of a second referendum, I don't see it happening. There have been some questions about the legality of some of the Brexit campaign financing, but nobody has argued that they are serious enough to justify repeating the referendum, and if it hasn't happened by now it means it isn't going to happen. People who talk about a second referendum always stay vague on specifics, because when you come down to the specifics, it becomes clear how difficult it is. There is little justification for just repeating the same question. If the second referendum is going to ask a different question, what is it going to be? You would need to get a majority of MPs to agree on that question. If there weren't deadlines coming fast, the government could agree on some sort of deal and have a referendum between that deal and staying in the EU, but there isn't enough time for that. Having a second referendum goes through persuading the EU to give the extra time for that, and the EU would say that if the UK is serious about that, please cancel article 50 first. And there aren't the MPs to cancel article 50 right now. Many Remainers make the mistake of thinking that Labour is solidly Remainer. It's definitely not.

Thanks, Maria! What a fascinating look in the way your government works. It will be interesting to see what happens! 

An excellent read on Brexit. 

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/12/the-nine-lessons-of-brexit/

Or if you can't get that one it is transcribed here.

https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2018/12/13/full-speech-sir-ivan-rogers-on-brexit/

Just heard about Parliament voting against May's Brexit deal so I thought I'd bump this thread back to the top. 

This is shocking news.  Maria, and others in the UK or Europe, what do you see happening next?  In particular, do you think there is a greater chance of another referendum now?  Or does the UK just cash out of the EU with no deal in place?