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 If a State which has withdrawn from the Union asks to rejoin, its request shall be subject to the procedure referred to in Article 49.

Axon wrote:

Thing is, you can win a majority in the House of Commons with 33%. That’s what worries me.

What worries me is that the leader of every major mainstream party AND 'government' in general is extremely unpopular, and the major opposition leader most of all. This leaves the door wide open for less savory types in the political realm.

Yeah.

And Theresa May completes her journey to ‘worst Prime Minister in living History’ as her party once again Turns on her

This is getting beyond a joke now.

So John Oliver covered Brexit again on LWT, and I must admit, in all the wrangling about a hard/soft border between Ireland/Northern Ireland, I'd completely forgotten about the "sectarian violence" angle of it.

In the meantime, this appears to be, from this American's view, a bad idea executed terribly.

Labour has also apparently decided not be left out in the UK's first Clusterf*ck Sweepstakes.

dejanzie wrote:
Axon wrote:

Thing is, you can win a majority in the House of Commons with 33%. That’s what worries me.

What worries me is that the leader of every major mainstream party AND 'government' in general is extremely unpopular, and the major opposition leader most of all. This leaves the door wide open for less savory types in the political realm.

Oh, I can think of several wonderful, terrifying ideas for the next PM.

This sounds like the beginnings of something interesting:

Disgusted by Brexit hard-liners, three lawmakers abandon Theresa May’s Conservative Party

The three Conservative members of Parliament who resigned will now join a new “Independent Group” of lawmakers formed earlier this week by eight legislators who resigned from the Labour Party.

The creation of a small but potentially powerful independent bloc of 11 — now composed of moderates from both parties — suggests that seismic forces are at work in British politics.

Jolly Bill wrote:

This sounds like the beginnings of something interesting:

Disgusted by Brexit hard-liners, three lawmakers abandon Theresa May’s Conservative Party

The three Conservative members of Parliament who resigned will now join a new “Independent Group” of lawmakers formed earlier this week by eight legislators who resigned from the Labour Party.

The creation of a small but potentially powerful independent bloc of 11 — now composed of moderates from both parties — suggests that seismic forces are at work in British politics.

We could use some of that over on this side of the Atlantic.

They might be able to influence things now, but with your election system (US too) won’t they get eliminated as soon as the next election is over?

Jolly Bill wrote:

This sounds like the beginnings of something interesting:

Disgusted by Brexit hard-liners, three lawmakers abandon Theresa May’s Conservative Party

The three Conservative members of Parliament who resigned will now join a new “Independent Group” of lawmakers formed earlier this week by eight legislators who resigned from the Labour Party.

The creation of a small but potentially powerful independent bloc of 11 — now composed of moderates from both parties — suggests that seismic forces are at work in British politics.

Just to clarify what's going on here a little - 7 Members of Parliament (MPs) from Labour, and now 3 from the Conservatives have left their parties and are now classed as independent MPs not affiliated to any political party. This is important to note because at this moment, "The Independence Group" IS NOT a political party. You can't sign up to it and you can't vote for it. It's just a name. It seems to have been planned for a while, but right now they are actually registered as a private company, which allows them to neatly side-step some parliamentary requirements, like naming who's funding them. It's a little cloak and dagger and all a little below board.

Essentially, all of them are unhappy with the pro-brexit stances of the respective leaderships of their old parties. There are clearly some personal issues as well (Anti-Sematism for at least one or two) but for the others they have been repeatedly targeted by the more extreme elements working at the grassroots level of both Labour and the Tories to unseat or deselect anyone who doesn't support Brexit. I also think for at least one (Chucka Ummuna) there is some personal power trip going on here. His path to senior party official/member was being actively blocked by various elements within Labour, and I think he'd probably had enough and gambled this is a better way to achieve it.

At the moment, it's mostly all posturing. What will be interesting is seeing what happens next. All of them have serious credibility issues, because none of them are offering to stand for re-election within their constituencies. That's understandable and probably entirely sensible at the moment, because they'd probably all get voted out of Parliament if this were to happen at the moment. All of their constituents can say with a serious level of justification, "I didn't vote for you not to represent Labour/Conservatives in Parliament" which they are now no longer doing.

In the end, if they can form a political Party, with a manifesto that appeals to pro-remain moderate centrists in the electorate, they may get serious traction and a whole load of other MPs from both sides might well join them (and possibly form a merger with the Lib Dems). But now they are trying to merge Labour and Conservative ideologies on a single platform - brexit - and I can only see it ending in lots of tears when they have to start coming up with Education/Health/Economic policies.

Right now I think it achieves 2 things:

1. A second referendum is now dead
2. I think May might take a look at calling another GE and seeing if she can't get a majority. Right now, I think she might. Ditching the DUP would give her a tremendous advantage.

From what I understand, Shadout, these people are in seats with overwhelming majorities and the view is that they would remain the favourite in a three way vote as neither the Tories or Labour would be in a position to mount a serious challenge.

They would have to gather some serious momentum before others would feel safer defecting. And it appears there are more who would if they could. With that in mind, the Tories defections seemed to be planned to keep the group in the headlines. Or maybe I'm being cynical but we'll see.

Sorbicol wrote:

All of them have serious credibility issues, because none of them are offering to stand for re-election within their constituencies.

Just to be clear, they are not offering to stand down now as MPs and fight a bi-election. As far as I know most of them have not ruled out fighting their seat in the next GE.

If hard, no-plan Brexit turns out to be the expected clusterf*ck, or worse, is there any possibility of the UK or its subsidiary nations reapplying for full EU membership? Would they have to surrender the Pound to make it happen?

Sorbicol wrote:

Right now I think it achieves 2 things:
1. A second referendum is now dead
2. I think May might take a look at calling another GE and seeing if she can't get a majority. Right now, I think she might. Ditching the DUP would give her a tremendous advantage.

Why does this make a second referendum dead?

Jolly Bill wrote:
Sorbicol wrote:

Right now I think it achieves 2 things:
1. A second referendum is now dead
2. I think May might take a look at calling another GE and seeing if she can't get a majority. Right now, I think she might. Ditching the DUP would give her a tremendous advantage.

Why does this make a second referendum dead?

I think the suggestion is that for senior leadership of either party to now back a 2nd ref would be to be seen to be giving in to the splitters.

Although considering The Independent Group doesn't have a manifesto and their mission statements don't mention a 2nd ref it isn't clear that is what they are after. I guess so but... I suspect if they are to become a new party their manifesto will just cynically be "whatever we think will get us votes"

Tanglebones wrote:

If hard, no-plan Brexit turns out to be the expected clusterf*ck, or worse, is there any possibility of the UK or its subsidiary nations reapplying for full EU membership? Would they have to surrender the Pound to make it happen?

In theory NI, Scotland or Wales could hold an independence referendum, leave the UK and then apply to join the EU. Applications to join the EU from new members currently require new member states to join the Euro currency, so yes any former UK country would eventually have to give up its own currency.

From all the posturing around the last Scottish referendum the EU has strictly ruled out UK nations applying to the EU before they have achieved independence from the UK. This is largely because Spain doesn't want the Basques or Catalonians trying to get some kind of statehood by petitioning the EU and bypassing the Spainish gov't.

In practical terms a new nation state joining the Euro would take a while. There are various fiscal, economic and currency strength requirements states have to match before they're allowed to join so it would likely take a little while for a country like Scotland to adopt the Euro even after joining the EU. The most probable path would be something along the lines of

1. Country leaves UK
2. Country floats own new currency pegged to sterling
3. Country applies to join EU and is accepted and joins
4. As economy stabilises currency is unpegged from sterling
5. Country matches fiscal targets and joins The Euro

Out of all the subsidiary UK states that would probably be most painless for Scotland. Odds are that Scotland's economy is self-sufficient (lots of partisan arguments about that mind) and Scotland has currency issuing powers with 3 scottish banks printing their own currency.

DanB wrote:

In theory NI, Scotland or Wales could hold an independence referendum, leave the UK and then apply to join the EU. Applications to join the EU from new members currently require new member states to join the Euro currency, so yes any former UK country would eventually have to give up its own currency.

As I recall, Northern Ireland also has the right to vote to join the Republic of Ireland, in which case they'd be de facto part of the EU as the Republic of Ireland is and will remain an EU member.

Movement.

Jeremy Corbyn is going to submit an amendment that any deal from May must be put to a Second Referendum.

It’s not quite ‘referendum regardless’ - there are a bunch of unreachable conditions they’ve added that, if May could reach them they’d back out of hand. However as there is no way the ERG and half her party would vote for them there’s no chance. Not to mention the EU wouldn’t agree to half of them as well.

If passed, it would put any deal reached by May to a public vote. No information on what it would be a vote for (you’d think May’s deal or Remain) but at least there is a shift. I guess that there are a lot more labour MPs willing to jump ship than Corbyn is comfortable with.

It suddenly makes a second referendum look highly likely.

Corbyn drives me nuts. For everything he gets hopelessly wrong, occasionally he does something right.

How does that work with the current time table, though? I wasn't under the impression that the EU was all that willing to extend the Article 50 deadline, nor that it was possible to spin up another referendum before the end of March.

I was on holiday in Menorca a couple of years back. We were doing a glass bottomed boat tour out of the harbour in Mahon.

In the middle of the Bay was this sodding enormous ship (not a boat or a yacht) basically hogging all the room. It was the size of a military Frigate. Had loads of crew lined up down the side, some sort of inspection going on.

I assumed it was some sort of Spanish Government vessel. Nope, it was one of his Private boats.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

How does that work with the current time table, though? I wasn't under the impression that the EU was all that willing to extend the Article 50 deadline, nor that it was possible to spin up another referendum before the end of March.

It would have to be extended. I think the EU would go along with that if one of the outcomes was ‘no brexit’.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

How does that work with the current time table, though? I wasn't under the impression that the EU was all that willing to extend the Article 50 deadline, nor that it was possible to spin up another referendum before the end of March.

The EU are indeed broadly against A50 extensions. But it seems to be somewhat accepted wisdom that an extension would be granted for any good faith attempt to resolve or change domestic political issues around brexit in the UK. And that has been interpreted to mean that if the UK was going to hold another referendum or a General Election then the EU would probably grant an extension. That isn't a foregone conclusion but both of those seem like things that the EU has a vested interest in having a positive outcome. What seems fairly agreed is that there would be no extensions just for the sake of the Tory party kicking the can down the road.

This tweet from the Torygraph, https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/..., seems to suggest that May wants parliament to vote on both No Deal and an A50 extension. It seems fairly plausible that a motion to extend A50 would pass. But it's completely pointless without the EU saying yes and that would require May is seriously offering one of a 2nd ref, general election or withdrawal of A50 and she seems dead set against those 3.

It is quite staggering how terrible May is. One of the actual Brexiters would likely have been less bad. At least they never had a spine.

Shadout wrote:

It is quite staggering how terrible May is. One of the actual Brexiters would likely have been less bad. At least they never had a spine.

She wants her deal. And nothing else. It’s remarkably just how much she’s willing to equivocate on pretty much every other opinion or option that’s been offered to make sure that the final choice, whatever it might be makes her deal look like the most attractive option.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/LY8ppLA.gif)

Explosive packages found at Heathrow, Waterloo and London City Airport. Irish security experts pretty much confirm that this was the Real IRA. The goal by the seniors levels here is to create confusion as cover for the criminal operations but don't doubt that in the event of a hard border that they will find their pool of recruits increasing.

So, that's depressing.

The Northern Ireland Minister (Part of the UK Cabinet) put her foot right in it. What makes this even worse is the Prosecution Services is due to announce in the coming days if it's pressing charges against the soldiers involved in Bloody Sunday.

This is another in a long line of cackhanded statements coming from British politicians that are driving very dim view of the British government in the wider Irish populace. At the very same time they are hoping the Irish government will relent on the backtop and trust them with peace on our island. The incompetent of this whole affair is staggering.

This is all just so....

They're seriously going to just do the No-Deal and be legends, aren't they?

I just can't believe they will. I just can't imagine the majority of the Commons will let it happen. But I couldn't imagine a lot of things until recently.

If the UK Government want to blame the EU27 for their failures, I don't care. Whatever they need to climb down just give it to them.

Prederick wrote:

This is all just so....

They're seriously going to just do the No-Deal and be legends, aren't they?

It’s the default legal position, which for those wanting a no deal Brexit seems to be their strategy now: we get to March 29th without an agreement, and we get a no deal.

However, as parliament has repeatedly made clear there is no majority for that amongst MPs so there will be efforts to make sure that doesn’t happen. The problem is of course that nobody can really agree on what they want instead of a no deal (just that they don’t want it) so there is unified solution for what to do instead.

I still think there will be a second referendum for my previously stated reasons - it’s a political get out jail free card. If politicians can’t make the decision then the electorate can. It neatly absolves them of any blame and whatever the outcome they can blame the bad stuff on the EU not listening ‘to the will of the British People’. Getting to it will be hideously messy (and need an extension to article 50) but I think they’ll figure it out.

That said considering her deal is all May has left for her personal political legacy, she’ll be pushing for it right up until the end. History is not going to kind on her any other way.