Category: Customs Union

Brexit, Conservative Party, Customs Union, Negotiating, Northern Ireland, Single Market, UK Labour Party

Britain and Europe Plus ça change

Posted on by BEERG Brexit Blog
This blogpost was written on July 1, 2019

marr hunt

You know a country is in deep trouble when one of its major political party appears to lose touch with social decency and economic reality. Yesterday, we had Jeremy Hunt telling a Sunday TV show that he would willingly tell people whose companies went bust after a no-deal Brexit that their sacrifice had been necessary, saying:

“At the beginning of October, if there is no prospect of a deal that can get through parliament, then I will leave at the end of October because that is our democratic promise to the British people.”

Asked whether, under such a policy, he would be willing to look owners of family businesses in the eye and say they should be prepared to see their companies go bust to ensure a no-deal Brexit, Hunt said: “I would do so but I’d do it with a heavy heart precisely because of the risks.”

As Nick Cohen, recalled in his Observer column:  “At no time and in no circumstances should a communist place his personal interests first,” said Chairman Mao.” As if anticipating Hunt’s later remarks, Cohen commented: “In the Conservative and Unionist party, as in the Chinese Communist party, personal interests are discarded if they threaten the purity of the Brexit cause.”

Truly, greater love for Brexit hath no politician than this that he would willingly lay down your job for his career (and votes from the 150,000 Tory selectorate who will choose the party’s new leader and potential prime minister).

Continue reading →

1
Brexit, British Government, Conservative Party, Customs Union, Single Market

3 years after the impossible promise of #Brexit: all you get is ‘True Britism’

Posted on by BEERG Brexit Blog
This blogpost was written on Monday May 13th:

Brexit cartoon

Over the past week, as nothing much has been happening in the Brexit process, we have seen several outbreaks of a somewhat virulent disease known as “True Britism”. It is one of those viruses which can lie dormant for a long time, though there can be the occasional flareup. But it really becomes rampant when a Tory leadership election is in the offing. Once this happens, the political and environmental conditions are ideal for the virus to go, well, viral.

Once you are aware of the existence of this disease, it is easy to spot the sufferers. For a start, it is restricted to a particular demographic: Brexiteers, mostly of the “Hard Brexit” variety. The symptoms generally consist of a constant repetition of clichés such as: “we hold all the cards”; “we have all the money”; and the latest “we could have held Ireland hostage”.

For example, just last week the Tory MP, Chris Blunt, tweeted:

UK side had the money, the people, the huge trade deficit, amongst other advantages, including a hostage, the RoI, if EU behaved like this. We capitulated. Olly Robbins reported application for Belgian citizenship when it’s over helps explain the mindset of our negotiators.

“True Britism”, at its core, is a belief that if only a “True Brit” with “True Grit” had been in charge of the negotiations, the EU would have crumbled at first contact.

Continue reading →

0
Article 50, Boris Johnson, Brexit, Customs Union, Michel Barnier, Single Market

Britain in a Brexit “Black Hole”

Posted on by BEERG Brexit Blog
This blogpost was written on Sunday morning March 31st 2019.

D2smLuFWkAEn-pe

Today, Sunday, March 31st, two days after the UK should have the left the European Union, it appears to have fallen into a Brexit “Black Hole”, unable to leave on agreed terms but also not wanting to leave with “no deal”.

This is what happens when you run a referendum on something as open-ended as “Let’s leave the EU” without having any idea what that might mean in practice. Triggering the two year’s Art50 notice was, as we have written before, like selling the house and agreeing a quit date without having decided beforehand as a family where you are going to live in the future.

At best, you might end up renting your old house back from the new owner. At worst, you find yourself out on the street, homeless. No matter what you decide, your end state will be worse than where you are now. No wonder the family can’t agree on anything.

Following Friday’s vote in the House of Commons which saw the Withdrawal Agreement negotiated between the EU and the UK again defeated, this time by 344 votes to 286, the UK is now scheduled to leave the EU on April 12th without an agreement.

A no-deal Brexit looms. Were this to happen then, from April 13th, the UK would be completely outside the scope of EU law, with all that that implies.

Continue reading →

4
Article 50, Backstop, Brexit, British Government, Customs Union, Irish border, Single Market, Theresa May

Now #Brexit shifts from omnishambles to megashambles

Posted on by BEERG Brexit Blog
This blogpost was written on Thurs March 21, 2019

May

How did it come to this? Just eight days before the UK is due to leave the EU and we still do not know whether it will leave on agreed terms or leave with no deal. What a megashambles!

A megashambles is beyond an omnishambles, it is on route to being a blackhole-shambles, into which everything disappears. If that happens there is every chance that the UK, as we have known it, will never be seen again.

That would be a great pity because, leaving aside dark times past and crimes in foreign lands, in recent times the UK has given the world so much. I am of the 1960s generation. When Ireland was still a closed, introspective, Catholic-dominated country, the UK in general, and London in particular, opened windows and showed us that other lives were possible. Clothes that went beyond the drab, rock concerts in Hyde Park, the West End on a Saturday night. Magazines and writers suited to all tastes. Best of all, no church on a Sunday.

Continue reading →

2
Article 50, Backstop, Brexit, Customs Union, Single Market, Theresa May

Two weeks to go (to Brexit) and we still do not know…

Posted on by BEERG Brexit Blog
This blogpost was written on Friday March 15th 

theresd_1547590814

It is hard to know what to say about what happened in the UK House of Commons (HOC) this week. In two weeks, two weeks from today Friday, March 29th at midnight Brussels time, the UK is due to leave the European Union.

As I write this briefing we still do not know on what terms the UK will leave, if there is to be a deal or if the UK leaves with no-deal. Even though the HOC voted on Wednesday night to take a no-deal Brexit off the table that does not actually mean anything, as we explain below.

The week began with UK Prime Minister, Theresa May, flying to Strasburg on Monday evening to finalise “clarifications of clarifications” with EU Commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker. These “clarifications” came down to trying to define in what circumstances, if any, the UK could leave the “Irish backstop”, the provisions of the Withdrawal Agreement designed to ensure that there would be no return of border infrastructure on the island of Ireland.

Continue reading →

3
Article 50, Brexit, Customs Union, Northern Ireland, Single Market

Some #Brexit Thoughts For This Holiday Season

Posted on by BEERG Brexit Blog
This blogpost was written on Dec 19, 2018

May Commons

We head into the holiday season with Brexit appearing to be in some form of holding pattern. Brussels has said that the Withdrawal Agreement on the table is all there is and will not be renegotiated. On the other hand, Theresa May is telling MPs that she will secure additional political and legal guarantees that the backstop will be temporary and that the UK will not be trapped in a customs union with the EU.

They both can’t be right.

If to prove that she knows she isn’t right May’s government has stepped up “no deal” planning, which most businesses think insane but then, where Brexit is concerned, rationality, like Elvis, left the building a long time ago. When it comes to Brexit, as Groucho Marx might have said, there is no “sanity clause”.

So, as we wait for the New Year and the final run-in to Brexit on March 29th next, I offer these random thoughts on where we are and why we are here.

The Withdrawal Agreement is all there is: As I wrote last week, the UK really only has two choices. Leave the EU or remain in the EU. Personally, I would much prefer the UK to remain, but as long as the government and the Labour leadership are committed to Brexit then is seems inevitable that the UK will leave on March 29th, 2019.

Continue reading →

4