Is Britain about to leave the EU?

[Gigaz]

As it stands right now a majority of the Commons is still against any Brexit at all and they will happily prevent it from happening if they can find an excuse. Theresa May has approximately zero reasons to cave in to the calls for a hard Brexit. They have no leverage. She can either convince the Commons that she has a decent plan for a Brexit that is not obviously worse than the Status Quo (As would be the case for a Norway style solution) or she can as well scrap the whole thing.

 

[EnglishEdward]

As it stands right now a majority of the Commons is still against any Brexit at all and they will happily prevent it from happening if they can find an excuse. Theresa May has approximately zero reasons to cave in to the calls for a hard Brexit. They have no leverage. She can either convince the Commons that she has a decent plan for a Brexit that is not obviously worse than the Status Quo (As would be the case for a Norway style solution) or she can as well scrap the whole thing.

Prolonging uncertainty may result in her losing a vote of confidence. She has a small
majority and may go for a general election hoping to bounce Jeremy Corbyn.

If not, the 2020 election, may be a blunt fight between Leave and Remain candidates.

 

[Silurian]

Prolonging uncertainty may result in her losing a vote of confidence. She has a small
majority and may go for a general election hoping to bounce Jeremy Corbyn.

If not, the 2020 election, may be a blunt fight between Leave and Remain candidates.

There has to be a vote of no confidence to call a snap general election, I beleive. Was that part of the fixed parliment act.

The Conservatives have to trigger Brexit in 2017 or it will take place too close to the election in May 2020. If Brexit takes place in early 2020 it will still be very fresh in peoples minds and the conduct of the negotiations and the results will be the election issue. It would be far better for the govenment to leave in 2019 so that they can say they have responded to the people and its now time to move on, but the results may not have time to show up before the election.

I can not see Brexit being triggered to take place after May 2020 as the progress, or lack of, would be the election issue. The details of the negotiations will not be made public, apart from leaks, as the government will not want to negotiate by the front page of the Sun. So the government will be limited in what it can show in the way of acheivements but UKIP, Lib Dems and Labour will be able to play up the leaks. If Brexit is not triggered by May 2020 the Conservatives will lose.


Regarding splitting the negotiations into completely seperate parts I can not see that working as it would take too long for the 27 countries to agree what would be negotiated with what, as they have different priorities. There will be groups set up as you suggest to establish positions and flesh out problems.

* migration and movement of people.
* agricultural goods.
* manufactured goods.
* financial services.
* foreign ownership.
* health services
* etc

But then the 27 remaining countries will have to negotiate between themselves too reconcile their priorities, if they can. If there is not to be a hard Brexit the UK and the remaining 27 will have to make comprimises to satisfy everyone.

 

[EnglishEdward]

There has to be a vote of no confidence to call a snap general election, I beleive. Was that part of the fixed parliment act.

The Conservatives have to trigger Brexit in 2017 or it will take place too close to the election in May 2020. If Brexit takes place in early 2020 it will still be very fresh in peoples minds and the conduct of the negotiations and the results will be the election issue. It would be far better for the govenment to leave in 2019 so that they can say they have responded to the people and its now time to move on, but the results may not have time to show up before the election.

I can not see Brexit being triggered to take place after May 2020 as the progress, or lack of, would be the election issue. The details of the negotiations will not be made public, apart from leaks, as the government will not want to negotiate by the front page of the Sun. So the government will be limited in what it can show in the way of acheivements but UKIP, Lib Dems and Labour will be able to play up the leaks. If Brexit is not triggered by May 2020 the Conservatives will lose.


Regarding splitting the negotiations into completely seperate parts I can not see that working as it would take too long for the 27 countries to agree what would be negotiated with what, as they have different priorities. There will be groups set up as you suggest to establish positions and flesh out problems.



But then the 27 remaining countries will have to negotiate between themselves too reconcile their priorities, if they can. If there is not to be a hard Brexit the UK and the remaining 27 will have to make comprimises to satisfy everyone.

I believe that there will be leaks anyway and trying to keep the negotiations
all confidential will rebound on all, so it would be best to be fairly transparent.

Yes, there is a problem that it would take "too long for the 27 countries to
agree what would be negotiated with what, as they have different priorities"
but that is made an order of magnitude worse by multi-streaming.
That is why I believe there should be separate discussion streams.
One stream may fail, and there would be a hard exit on that stream, but if
all the eggs are in the same multi-stream basket, they may break together.

 

[Silurian]

The EU will not be transparent.
If the UK decides to be transparent we will be showing our hand but will not see theirs.

You are correct that the confidentiality will rebound on the UK negotiators as some people will think there has been a stitch up. That is why Mrs May has put the three Brexiteers in charge of negotiations. They have been given a poison chalice.

from Intellectual Property Watch

The Court said the Commission was justified in withholding for example documents on member states’ positioning on criminal law enforcement provisions in ACTA, or on daily email between the negotiators, which are withheld by the ruling from the public eye, based on provisions in article 4 of EU Regulation 1049/2001.

“The unilateral disclosure of those documents by the European Union, in the context of international negotiations based on mutual trust between negotiating parties, would have undermined the protection of the public interest as regards international relations,” it said.

http://www.ip-watch.org/2013/03/20/...onfidentiality-in-international-treaty-talks/

 

[Takhisis]

Maybe the UK would do better with someone who's up to the job. As of right now, it seems as though the Tories were still playing internal games and trying to discredit each other.

 

[Silurian]

There was only a referendom to try to placate the Tory Brexit campainers and stop them becoming bastards.

from The Independent

JOHN MAJOR's leadership was plunged into a new crisis last night after claims that he described three Eurosceptic Cabinet colleagues as 'bastards' in comments accidentally recorded after a television interview.

The remarks, which were not broadcast but have gained circulation among broadcast journalists, are likely to enrage the right of the Conservative Party when Mr Major had promised a truce with Maastricht rebels.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/major-says-three-in-cabinet-are-bastards-1486997.html

But some of the Brexiteers were gaming too.

from BBC

Boris Johnson only campaigned to leave the EU to set himself up as the next Conservative leader, Sir Alan Duncan said the day before June's referendum.

Sir Alan said he believed the now foreign secretary, who is his current boss, wanted to lose narrowly and be the "heir apparent" to David Cameron.

The foreign minister's comments were made in a BBC Two documentary.

Meanwhile Mr Johnson has told the BBC the formal process of leaving the EU would "probably" begin early in 2017.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37439890

 

[innonimatu]

As it stands right now a majority of the Commons is still against any Brexit at all and they will happily prevent it from happening if they can find an excuse. Theresa May has approximately zero reasons to cave in to the calls for a hard Brexit. They have no leverage. She can either convince the Commons that she has a decent plan for a Brexit that is not obviously worse than the Status Quo (As would be the case for a Norway style solution) or she can as well scrap the whole thing.

The problem for the MPs in that scenario, and for Theresa May, is that they can scrap brexit for now but they can't scrap the voters...

 

[Takhisis]

Nah, they can scrap the voters alright. They got an absolute majority of seats in Parliament with about a third of the vote and an entire country voting against them. That's how crooked the system is.

 

[innonimatu]

They also have their voters deeply split on this one issue. May cannot ignore it. That can be the end of the conservative party - literally.

And keep in mind that recent big geopolitical changes (the most striking of which was the dissolution of the USSR) have been brought about not from massive actions from the people but by decisions taken by political leaders interesting in acquiring or consolidating power (Yeltsin ignored referendum results and dissolved the USSR to get rid of the checks on his power by Gorbachev; the other presidents agreed, to become dictators on their republics).

The EU too expanded more because of political interests of rulers than from some popular enthusiasm for european treaties. Merely looking at its most recent history, Spain, Greece and Portugal joined to prevent the possibility of future military coups against the ruling political class. Most of the eastern european countries likewise joined in order to "consolidate" the new post-cold war political regimes. So all these joined mostly because of internal political reasons (having to do with the distribution of power inside the country). Recently only the scandinavians joined solely for economic reasons.

 

[Takhisis]

Do you need volunteers?

 

[Arakhor]

It would be in keeping with Labour's troubles right now.

Meanwhile, UKIP's new leader is busy puffing herself up claiming to be positioning to become the next Opposition. I think she may have forgotten that even the Lib Dems have more MPs than she does and that the SNP aren't going anywhere for the foreseeable future.

 

[EnglishEdward]

The EU will not be transparent. If the UK decides to be transparent we will be showing our hand but will not see theirs.

You are correct that the confidentiality will rebound on the UK negotiators as some people will think there has been a stitch up. That is why Mrs May has put the three Brexiteers in charge of negotiations. They have been given a poison chalice.

I agree, although I do not go as far as interpreting transparency
to mean that each and every email must be disclosed.

Maybe the UK would do better with someone who's up to the job. As of right now, it seems as though the Tories were still playing internal games and trying to discredit each other.

Quite so.

There was only a referendom to try to placate
the Tory Brexit campainers and stop them becoming bastards.

That is true, but the conservatives also believed that they would lose seats to
Labour because of a loss of votes to UKIP. I do not believe that David Cameron
would have secured a majority without his promise of holding a referendum.

The UK should have had the referendum before upgrading from EEC to EU.

Much of the turmoil is due to the governing elite (e.g. Tony Blair) deciding to take
the UK into the EU without consulting voters because they knew very well that
the majority of UK voters were against it. If the UK had had a referendum at
the same time as Ireland or France, UK people would have voted against it.

This would have meant that the federalists would have been forced to pause and
perhaps rethink their vision e.g. to take into account a proper separation of roles
and democratic accountability or have the UK (and perhaps even Eire) be granted
some form of outer zone status e.g a continuation of the EEA with some voting rights.

There is a tendency to blame the Leavers for the uncertainty, but we were merely
exercising a much delayed right. It is a bit like the father of the bride complaining he
has spent zillions on the wedding when the supposed bridegroom never proposed.

But some of the Brexiteers were gaming too.

Boris Johnson is, amongst other things a clown. He was only ever elected Mayor
of London twice because the Labour party put up the clown Ken Livingstone twice;
having failed to realise that after eight years the comedy show was exhausted.

I.e. the London voters preferred a fresh new faced clown to yesterday's clown.

 

[EnglishEdward]

It would be in keeping with Labour's troubles right now.

Meanwhile, UKIP's new leader is busy puffing herself up claiming to be positioning to become the next Opposition. I think she may have forgotten that even the Lib Dems have more MPs than she does and that the SNP aren't going anywhere for the foreseeable future.

She does not understand that she is merely
a place holder, while Nigel is having a rest.

If Theresa May reneges or just fails to deliver
on the UK leaving the EU, Nigel Farage will be
back faster than a Concorde on steroids.

 

[really]

The UK should have had the referendum before upgrading from EEC to EU.

Much of the turmoil is due to the governing elite (e.g. Tony Blair) deciding to take
the UK into the EU without consulting voters because they knew very well that
the majority of UK voters were against it. If the UK had had a referendum at
the same time as Ireland or France, UK people would have voted against it.

This would have meant that the federalists would have been forced to pause and
perhaps rethink their vision e.g. to take into account a proper separation of roles
and democratic accountability or have the UK (and perhaps even Eire) be granted
some form of outer zone status e.g a continuation of the EEA with some voting rights.

John Major was PM when the Maastricht treaty was negotiated, Blair was years later.

Ireland rejected outer zone status in 1918, you're not going to force it on us now to suit yourselves.

 

[EnglishEdward]

John Major was PM when the Maastricht treaty was negotiated, Blair was years later.

The transition from the EEC to the EU was a two stage affair,
Tony Blair was about for the latter.

Ireland rejected outer zone status in 1918, you're not going to force it on us now to suit yourselves.

I did not suggest forcing anything on the Republic of Ireland.

If I recall correctly Eire first voted against the EU in a referendum,
and was then coerced by financial threats to vote again for the EU.

If the UK had voted against the EU then, well then the financial
threats from the EU might have been less effective and the EU
federalists might have had to be more enticing i.e. actually listening.

 

[FriendlyFire]

So Brexit will have passporting, free trade with EU, and UK will control its own immigration. At the same time increased immigration from "commonwealth countries" (India?) that do free trade.

So UK is leaving the EU, because it dosnt want immigration
But at the same time the UK will do Free trade to get More immigration

I dont know what to make of this

In comments that will delight Conservative Eurosceptics, he said that the discussions could be wrapped up before the two-year deadline and that Britain will be able to control its borders and do a “jumbo free trade deal”.

And he said that it is “absolute baloney” to suggest that Britain will be unable to retain access to the European single market unless it keeps free movement rules allowing all EU citizens to live and work in the UK.

In his first major interview since joining Theresa May’s Cabinet, Mr Johnson said: “What we’re doing is talking to our European friends and partners now in the expectation that by the early part of next year you will see an Article 50 letter.

“We will invoke that and in that letter I’m sure we will be setting out some parameters for how we propose to take this forward.”

He added: “You invoke Article 50 in the early part of next year. You have two years to pull it off. I don't actually think we will necessarily need to spend a full two years but let's see how we go."

Mr Johnson said that it is in the “overwhelming interest” of the EU to do a deal with the UK that allows it to control its borders while still having a free trade deal with the continent.

“We are going to benefit from the fantastic opportunities for greater free trade with our friends in the EU. It’s overwhelmingly in their interest to do that.

“Not only do we buy more German cars than anybody else, we drink more Italian wine than any other country in Europe, 300 million litres of Prosecco every year. They’re not going to put that at risk.

“Of course, we need a proper deal for our financial services industries. We need to sort out the question of free movement but it is all doable.”

Mr Johnson suggested that the citizens of Commonwealth countries doing free trade deals with the EU could get easier immigration access to the UK.

“When you do free trade deals with other countries around the world you may want to look at ways in which we would make it easier than it currently is for Australians who have a job they want to come to come and do that,” he said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...e-over-brexit-talks-no-10-says-after-boris-b/

 

[Lillefix]

I dont know what to make of this

Perhaps they think they still have an empire? Or this will somehow get it back?

 

[AdrienIer]

Make the British empire great again

 

[HAND]

It'll all work out fine in the end.. nothing wrong with optimism.