Posted on Friday, Oct 6th 2017:
The major party conferences have come and gone and still we are no wiser as to how Brexit is going to unfold. As we noted in last week’s Briefing, the Labour Party’s policy appears to be that they will deliver Brexit, but a Labour Brexit, not a Tory Brexit, whatever that means. Brexit is Brexit and Brexit means being outside the European Union (EU), the single market and the customs union.
However, Labour is in opposition and, so, for the moment what it says is important but nowhere near as important as what the Conservative government says, as it is charged with negotiating the Brexit arrangements with the EU. Whether it can get whatever deal it negotiates, if any, through Parliament, especially the House of Lords, is another matter.
This week’s Conservative Party conference was dominated by three issues:
- Brexit;
- Who is going to succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader, and when;
- and Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn.
It was a week when reality bit, and bit very hard. Brexiteer illusions about a world of easy free trade deals beyond EU membership took a heavy hit when the US slapped a 219% tariff on Bombardier, the Canadian plane maker, over alleged illegal state aid, putting 4,000 jobs in Northern Ireland at risk.
BEERG Brexit Blog 