[Discussion] Brexit means Brexit

Discuss the political fallout and other issues around Britain's exit, Brexit for short, from the EU.

For the sake of clarity, I'm including the full text of Article 50.

Article 50 wrote:

1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.

2. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.

3. The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.

4. For the purposes of paragraphs 2 and 3, the member of the European Council or of the Council representing the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it.

A qualified majority shall be defined in accordance with Article 238(3)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

5. If a State which has withdrawn from the Union asks to rejoin, its request shall be subject to the procedure referred to in Article 49.

So getting back to the Brexit agreement.

It looks like the EU is preparing the ground to launch a wedge between the Government and the majority on the ground with associate membership of the EU being offered to UK subjects. It's going to be interesting when more than the 48% apply to personally be members of the EU while living in a country officially leaving. Add all the Irish Unionists and Diaspora collecting their Irish passports and it's going to be hard to argue that the European negotiators are being cruel to the British people when offer May pretty much nothing.

If Article 50 turns out to be revocable (which is a separate legal question), anyone want to give odds that parliament would vote to allow leaving the Single Market and Customs Union if the deal is turns out to be the Hardest Brexit? Right now it looks like the options on the table seem to be only the Norway option and the WTO option.

Associate Citizenship sounds like a sane offer though, whether it is designed to drive a wedge between the British populace and government or not. In the end of the day a non-legally binding poll that passed with a slim majority is being used as the pretext to deprive millions of people of rights they currently enjoy.

In most other cases of citizen rights we usually agree that the tyranny of the majority should not be used to deprive a minority of their rights. Seems weird to deprive people of rights because lots of others don't understand economics nor inter-country trade regulation.

DoveBrown wrote:

Right now it looks like the options on the table seem to be only the Norway option and the WTO option.

I find people are almost too fixated on what kind of trade deal we ought to negotiate and complete overlook the sheer, insane scale of the job that is remaking ever single facet of UK law and governmental department. What kind of trade deal we want is almost incidental when compared to the 2 generations of work it is going to take to remake the British government. British government will basically have to do nothing other than deal with this issue for 20-30 years and hardly anyone seems worried about this aspect of it.

Yep. Sign me up to that Associate Citizenship shizzle as soon as it becomes available.

I love the trolling nature of the associate EU citizenship (annoying the racist / halfwit Brexiters makes me happy), though I have lots of questions about how it would work. What's its legal basis? Would it mean I don't get a state pension? Do I still use a British passport?

As a short term insult I can see it work, but other than that, it is giving the UK part of what they want (the ability for UK citizens to work in the rest of EU), without having to open UK up the other way. How is that not a bad proposal for EU.
Maybe their goal is a UK brain drain, which would of course be in EUs favor. But then I'm not entirely convinced it wouldn't benefit Tories and UKIP too

I am 10000% in favor of UK associated citizenship. And then keep right on going for US associated citizenship.

Shadout wrote:

As a short term insult I can see it work, but other than that, it is giving the UK part of what they want (the ability for UK citizens to work in the rest of EU), without having to open UK up the other way. How is that not a bad proposal for EU.
Maybe their goal is a UK brain drain, which would of course be in EUs favor. But then I'm not entirely convinced it wouldn't benefit Tories and UKIP too :)

I wonder what a British version of Idiocracy would look like - Boris and Farage would probably be a major part of it. Or a series of clones of Churchill being prime minister for ever. With the reanimated corpse of Princess Diana as his consort for all eternity, obviously.

Shadout wrote:

but other than that, it is giving the UK part of what they want (the ability for UK citizens to work in the rest of EU), without having to open UK up the other way. How is that not a bad proposal for EU.

It plays to the farthest right-wing of the Tory party who would be able to demand the hardest of brexits safe in the knowledge that the populace are defanged by having the EU keep their rights intact.

The only workable offer the EU could (should?) make would be to only extend associate citizenship to current EU citizens and that the offer would not be open to British citizen who reach adulthood after article 50 negotiations are complete.

DanB wrote:
DoveBrown wrote:

Right now it looks like the options on the table seem to be only the Norway option and the WTO option.

I find people are almost too fixated on what kind of trade deal we ought to negotiate and complete overlook the sheer, insane scale of the job that is remaking ever single facet of UK law and governmental department. What kind of trade deal we want is almost incidental when compared to the 2 generations of work it is going to take to remake the British government. British government will basically have to do nothing other than deal with this issue for 20-30 years and hardly anyone seems worried about this aspect of it.

I guess I'm kind of using my own short hand when I say the "Norway option" and the "WTO option".

By the Norway option I mean that the UK is required to uphold the principles of the EU, be a member of the single market and customs union, implement EU law and pay into the EU budget. Basically it's a member in all but name. I think this would be acceptable to most of the EU members, it would give May political cover to say that she has implemented the "will of the people" and would keep the UK economy ticking along. Obvious downside is that the UK doesn't get any say in future EU rules (but since they insist in sending refuseniks from UKIP as MEPs I don't know how much that matters).

The WTO option I mean the Hardest of Hard Brexits. The UK goes it alone, no direct access to the markets, no connection to the EU. Also acceptable to the remaining EU members. This is a huge political gamble since the UK economy hasn't operated in a "Free Trade Market" in the modern era. Before the EU, the UK had the Empire as the main customer for British goods. I don't know if you can really talk about capitalism before the Industrial Revolution.

I don't expect that there is really going to be a lot of middle ground between these two states. The EU can't allow them to decouple the four freedoms. The EU can't have someone inside the single market who isn't bound by the EU courts.

DoveBrown wrote:

The WTO option I mean the Hardest of Hard Brexits. The UK goes it alone, no direct access to the markets, no connection to the EU. Also acceptable to the remaining EU members. This is a huge political gamble since the UK economy hasn't operated in a "Free Trade Market" in the modern era. Before the EU, the UK had the Empire as the main customer for British goods. I don't know if you can really talk about capitalism before the Industrial Revolution.

This option is even worse than you suggest. The UK is not a signatory of the WTO. To even access the WTO option we'd have to negotiate this once brexit is complete. Which means no less than 2 years to sign and ratify that (probably longer). So not only would we be negotiating a trade relationship with the EU, plus all these mystery other free trade agreements that are going to materialise we also have to add in the WTO negotiation.

To say nothing of the fact that we're being told that being part of a free trade bloc with the EU is awful for the British economy but in the same breath those self same people whoop and holler about the amazing free trade deals we'll be able to make.

It's almost as if these people have zero idea about the actual costs and benefits for free trade pacts.

DoveBrown wrote:

By the Norway option I mean that the UK is required to uphold the principles of the EU, be a member of the single market and customs union, implement EU law and pay into the EU budget. Basically it's a member in all but name. I think this would be acceptable to most of the EU members, it would give May political cover to say that she has implemented the "will of the people" and would keep the UK economy ticking along. Obvious downside is that the UK doesn't get any say in future EU rules (but since they insist in sending refuseniks from UKIP as MEPs I don't know how much that matters).

I can't see that flying with the Brexit people though, isn't that all of the negatives (from their perspective) of EU membership with none of the pros? They lose all agency and representation in those EU laws they hate so much.

In the Norway option would the UK be free to limit immigration to their hearts content, or is freedom of movement within the EU part of the package as well?

Yonder wrote:
DoveBrown wrote:

By the Norway option I mean that the UK is required to uphold the principles of the EU, be a member of the single market and customs union, implement EU law and pay into the EU budget. Basically it's a member in all but name. I think this would be acceptable to most of the EU members, it would give May political cover to say that she has implemented the "will of the people" and would keep the UK economy ticking along. Obvious downside is that the UK doesn't get any say in future EU rules (but since they insist in sending refuseniks from UKIP as MEPs I don't know how much that matters).

I can't see that flying with the Brexit people though, isn't that all of the negatives (from their perspective) of EU membership with none of the pros? They lose all agency and representation in those EU laws they hate so much.

In the Norway option would the UK be free to limit immigration to their hearts content, or is freedom of movement within the EU part of the package as well?

No one has any real clue what might be negotiated but currently as a EU citizen I don't need a visa to work in Norway with some caveats[1]. After you get a job in Norway you need to register for residence. If you loose your job you have six months to get a new job or to show that you have funds to support yourself, if you want to stay. Your access to the social security and healthcare system is effectively locked until you have been a tax payer for 12 months. The Norwegians have no control over the number of the EU citizens that they grant residency to, though people from Norway are treated as EU citizens in the EU.

What is fun here is that the UK government, if they want, could implement the same rules for EU citizens arriving in the UK without leaving the European Union. Germany won a case to the European Court of Justice that means EU states are very definitely allowed to use residency and taxpaying status to control access to social welfare programs. The rule is freedom of movement for workers.

[1] This might be out of date since I was looking for a job there in around 2011.

DoveBrown wrote:

What is fun here is that the UK government, if they want, could implement the same rules for EU citizens arriving in the UK without leaving the European Union.

Exactly! The bogeyman of "they're coming over here to steal our social security" is total garbage, the government could legislate/control welfare access however they want.

DanB wrote:

This option is even worse than you suggest. The UK is not a signatory of the WTO. To even access the WTO option we'd have to negotiate this once brexit is complete. Which means no less than 2 years to sign and ratify that (probably longer). So not only would we be negotiating a trade relationship with the EU, plus all these mystery other free trade agreements that are going to materialise we also have to add in the WTO negotiation.

I completely agree. What is worse that joining the WTO could be as tricky as leaving the EU. Almost any current party of the WTO can throw a spanner in the works if they feel it would be to their advantage. I can't see the EU wanting to reduce their own quotas so effectively the UK will need start from scratch. China took a pretty harsh agreement to join and most things I've read suggested that pretty much everyone wanted them to join. Russia had a nightmare where it took them 19 years to join. I guess we're going to find out how much being a "Soft Superpower" counts for in the diplomatic game.

DoveBrown wrote:
Yonder wrote:

I can't see that flying with the Brexit people though, isn't that all of the negatives (from their perspective) of EU membership with none of the pros? They lose all agency and representation in those EU laws they hate so much.

In the Norway option would the UK be free to limit immigration to their hearts content, or is freedom of movement within the EU part of the package as well?

No one has any real clue what might be negotiated but currently as a EU citizen I don't need a visa to work in Norway with some caveats[1].

Well, Switzerland, who have a similar deal with the EU, had a referendum that wanted to curtail movement. Hasn't worked out well.

As an Irish citizen, I prefer to see a similar Norway/Switzerland deal for the UK. Not ideal but will prevent a hard border in relation to NI and our agricultural sector won't be too badly put. However, I don't see that happening and given the rise of populist movementsacross Europe I see that option becoming more distant. Politically, the EU member states have to make the UK suffer or they face giving ammunition to their political extremes and weakening the EU itself.

I hope I'm wrong. Unfortunately if there a more attacks like the one recently in Berlin, centrist politicians room for maneuver will close. French and German elections will tell us a lot. Expect a lot of shadow boxing until then.

There will be more attacks before the situation calms down. The campaign against ISIS means that they are moving back into covert mode, and that means moving teams into Europe to make high profile attacks.

Axon wrote:

Politically, the EU member states have to make the UK suffer or they face giving ammunition to their political extremes and weakening the EU itself.

I get why there is political motivation to make a ceding nation suffer but it is hardly in the spirit of the EU being a voluntary union if states have to be bullied and coerced in to staying.

If anything such a punishment just lends further ammunition for those who believe the EU is anti-democratic and anihilates the sovereignty of the member states.

Article 50 is there in large part to avoid the political turmoil the US saw when states tried to cede and their constitution provides no provision for the union being voluntary

The EU only has to make the UK suffer if the normal, actual process is smooth and painful. If leaving it's naturally painful because it's better for the UK to be in the EU than out of it (which is what I suspect is the case) then the EU doesn't have to go out of their way to punish them at all. And note that "not giving them special treatment and privileges" doesn't mean they are being punished.

If a Norway style deal does't let the UK do quotas or other similar effects, would a Norway deal have any tangible perks whatsoever for the Brexit supporter? If the new deal contains everything they hate, and loses some perks and representation... I'm just not sure that the UK would be able to accept it.

Membership of the EU is voluntary, Dan, but it's not it's job to serve the interests of non members over member states. To clarify, the normal process should involve leaving the EU entirely or staying. The remaining member states cannot present an a la carte EU for obvious reasons.

Forget the Norway or Switzerland deal. These are not on the table. They were made at a different time to a different background and have been regretted since. People citing them as examples of non-EU member states being one. Both would have been full members without the deals long ago is the other.

Axon wrote:

Membership of the EU is voluntary, Dan, but it's not it's job to serve the interests of non members over member states.

Sure but the rhetoric and received wisdom around article 50 negotiations is that Germany (and France) should "punish" ceding nations to discourage others from also leaving. Obviously leaving nations can't pick and choose which parts of membership they get to keep but there are ways of making leaving a smooth and easy transition for the leaving nation and ways it could be managed to inflict as much economic pain as possible.

Punishment might be necessary to keep others from leaving.
Even if leaving is its own punishment, the natural effects of leaving EU might take years and decades to manifest.
At which point the rest of EU might be long gone.

Shadout wrote:

Punishment might be necessary to keep others from leaving.
Even if leaving is its own punishment, the natural effects of leaving EU might take years and decades to manifest.
At which point the rest of EU might be long gone.

This also assumes that people will actually blame the exit for any occurring decline, which is absolutely not a given.

Safe to say that many things will be blamed on brexit, the majority of which will actually be as a result of brexit and none of which anyone who voted for brexit will accept responsibility for.

The UK's permanent representative for the EU resigned yesterday. It's worth reading his letter to his staff outlining his reasons and the challenges to be faced.

Dear All,

Happy New Year! I hope that you have all had/are still having, a great break, and that you will come back refreshed and ready for an exciting year ahead.

I am writing to you all on the first day back to tell you that I am today resigning as Permanent Representative.
As most of you will know, I started here in November 2013. My four-year tour is therefore due to end in October - although in practice if we had been doing the Presidency my time here would have been extended by a few months.

As we look ahead to the likely timetable for the next few years, and with the invocation of Article 50 coming up shortly, it is obvious that it will be best if the top team in situ at the time that Article 50 is invoked remains there till the end of the process and can also see through the negotiations for any new deal between the UK and the EU27.

It would obviously make no sense for my role to change hands later this year.

I have therefore decided to step down now, having done everything that I could in the last six months to contribute my experience, expertise and address book to get the new team at political and official level under way.

This will permit a new appointee to be in place by the time Article 50 is invoked.

Importantly, it will also enable that person to play a role in the appointment of Shan's replacement as DPR. [Shan Morgan his deputy]

I know from experience - both my own hugely positive experience of working in partnership with Shan, and from seeing past, less happy, examples - how imperative it is that the PR and DPR operate as a team, if UKREP is to function as well as I believe it has done over the last few years.

I want to put on record how grateful I am to Shan for the great working relationship we have had.
She will be hugely missed in UKREP, and by many others here in Brussels, but she will be a tremendous asset to the Welsh government.

From my soundings before Christmas, I am optimistic that there will be a very good field of candidates for the DPR role.

But it is right that these two roles now get considered and filled alongside each other, and for my successor to play the leading role in making the DPR appointment.

I shall therefore stand aside from the process at this point.

I know that this news will add, temporarily, to the uncertainty that I know, from our many discussions in the autumn, you are all feeling about the role of UKREP in the coming months and years of negotiations over "Brexit".

I am sorry about that, but I hope that it will help produce earlier and greater clarity on the role that UKREP should play.

My own view remains as it has always been. We do not yet know what the government will set as negotiating objectives for the UK's relationship with the EU after exit.

There is much we will not know until later this year about the political shape of the EU itself, and who the political protagonists in any negotiation with the UK will be.

But in any negotiation which addresses the new relationship, the technical expertise, the detailed knowledge of positions on the other side of the table - and the reasons for them, and the divisions amongst them - and the negotiating experience and savvy that the people in this building bring, make it essential for all parts of UKREP to be centrally involved in the negotiations if the UK is to achieve the best possible outcomes.

Serious multilateral negotiating experience is in short supply in Whitehall, and that is not the case in the Commission or in the Council.

The government will only achieve the best for the country if it harnesses the best experience we have - a large proportion of which is concentrated in UKREP - and negotiates resolutely.

Senior ministers, who will decide on our positions, issue by issue, also need from you detailed, unvarnished - even where this is uncomfortable - and nuanced understanding of the views, interests and incentives of the other 27.

The structure of the UK's negotiating team and the allocation of roles and responsibilities to support that team, needs rapid resolution.

The working methods which enable the team in London and Brussels to function seamlessly need also to be strengthened.

The great strength of the UK system - at least as it has been perceived by all others in the EU - has always been its unique combination of policy depth, expertise and coherence, message co-ordination and discipline, and the ability to negotiate with skill and determination.

UKREP has always been key to all of that. We shall need it more than ever in the years ahead.

As I have argued consistently at every level since June, many opportunities for the UK in the future will derive from the mere fact of having left and being free to take a different path.

But others will depend entirely on the precise shape of deals we can negotiate in the years ahead.

Contrary to the beliefs of some, free trade does not just happen when it is not thwarted by authorities: increasing market access to other markets and consumer choice in our own, depends on the deals, multilateral, plurilateral and bilateral that we strike, and the terms that we agree.

I shall advise my successor to continue to make these points.

Meanwhile, I would urge you all to stick with it, to keep on working at intensifying your links with opposite numbers in DEXEU [Department for Exiting the EU] and line ministries and to keep on contributing your expertise to the policy-making process as negotiating objectives get drawn up.
The famed UKREP combination of immense creativity with realism ground in negotiating experience, is needed more than ever right now.

On a personal level, leaving UKREP will be a tremendous wrench. I have had the great good fortune, and the immense privilege, in my civil service career, to have held some really interesting and challenging roles: to have served four successive UK prime ministers very closely; to have been EU, G20 and G8 Sherpa; to have chaired a G8 Presidency and to have taken part in some of the most fraught, and fascinating, EU negotiations of the last 25 years - in areas from tax, to the MFF to the renegotiation.

Of all of these posts, I have enjoyed being the Permanent Representative more than any other I have ever held.

That is, overwhelmingly, because of all of you and what you all make UKREP: a supremely professional place, with a fantastic co-operative culture, which brings together talented people whether locally employed or UK-based and uniquely brings together people from the home civil service with those from the Foreign Office.
UKREP sets itself demanding standards, but people also take the time to support each other which also helps make it an amazingly fun and stimulating place to work.

I am grateful for everything you have all done over the last few years to make this such a fantastic operation.
For my part, I hope that in my day-to-day dealings with you I have demonstrated the values which I have always espoused as a public servant.

I hope you will continue to challenge ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking and that you will never be afraid to speak the truth to those in power.

I hope that you will support each other in those difficult moments where you have to deliver messages that are disagreeable to those who need to hear them.

I hope that you will continue to be interested in the views of others, even where you disagree with them, and in understanding why others act and think in the way that they do.

I hope that you will always provide the best advice and counsel you can to the politicians that our people have elected, and be proud of the essential role we play in the service of a great democracy.

Ivan

I don't blame him - who the hell would want to spend their last few months on the job negotiating this..mess.

That said, it's probably another nail in the coffin of a "soft brexit" with him gone.

http://www.politico.eu/article/why-w...

Interesting article from one of Cameron's insiders on the UK's negotiations with the EU. Especially interesting on how the internal mechanisms of the EU and personal diplomacy make it harder to get the deal Cameron had suggested was possible when he originally was doing his "Once we re-negotiate our relationship with Brussels and after we'll have an in-out referendum".

My favorite bit is:

Our European counterparts pointed out that the number of immigrants moving to the U.K. was relatively limited, compared to, for example, Germany.

Finally, as we tried to argue that the U.K. faced a unique set of circumstances, which required a fundamental redraft of the relevant European rules, we struggled to provide evidence to support our case.

We tried using absolute numbers: three million migrants likely to come over the next 10 years, 6 percent of Lithuania’s population living in the U.K. already. We highlighted the pressure on public services like schools and hospitals. And we appealed to European leaders to consider the impact of migratory flows on their own economies.

These arguments were quickly shot down. Our European counterparts pointed out that the number of immigrants moving to the U.K. was relatively limited, compared to, for example, Germany. Or they called attention to the fact that European migrants paid more tax and used fewer public services than British citizens, which was true.

They noted that our economy was growing, that we were almost at full employment, and thus that migration was more or less inevitable. They showed us how our rate of financial distribution to the areas under pressure was much lower than, say, Germany’s, and concluded that we should just spend a lot more money addressing the challenges there.

They noted that our economy was growing, that we were almost at full employment, and thus that migration was more or less inevitable. They showed us how our rate of financial distribution to the areas under pressure was much lower than, say, Germany’s, and concluded that we should just spend a lot more money addressing the challenges there.

And this right here is the rub. Successive governments have slashed public spending to the point that our social services are suffering and then the nationalist right has blamed our struggling public sector on immigration rather than the deliberately underfunded truth (and the left has done little to counter this narrative).