The British prime minister is now making a strong play to pull Scotland out of the EU against their wishes, we'll likely see a race between the 'brexit' negotiators on the UK side and the Scottish 'remain' camp who will try to stay in without first exiting.
This is understandable from all points of view, the British government would rather like to negotiate from a slightly stronger position and the for the Scots because they were told they had to renegotiate their access to the single market if they seceded from the UK. Now that the British wish to exit that point has become moot which will most likely swing the referendum towards the Scots exiting the union. They probably feel quite cheated in Scotland.
Really powerful entities want to keep their shareholders happy by avoiding complicated regulations on international activities, and they have a lot of political influence. The people of London for example are mighty pissed.
The UK could be officially outside of the EU but to the banks, universities and import-export companies EU cooperation is as much of a reality as ever.
While London may remain a financial hub it will lose its importance. Multinational banks and insurances are alredy preparing to move entire departments to the continent. Especially France is extremely hard nosed in not providing the UK financial industry with passporting rights.
Frankfurt and Luxembourg are also yapping happily about the prospects of new jobs and businesses. And London is about to lose the privilege to clear deals in Euros.
Import / export has a lot to lose too. managing supply chains, without manufacturing just can't function in times of lean production and just-in-time manufacturing, gets incredibly harder and more expensive.
Universities? If you believe that they will just shrug it off I'm afraid you're in for a huge surprise. English universities will lose EU research grants. But the worst is that they will lose on foreign talent. Real talented scientists will think hard if they want to move to England in the current xenophobic climate and seek out alternatives.
The only bargaining chip that England really has is the defense industry and a pretty strong, experienced army, which helps provide security for Europe. Else then that? Not much.
And BTW: Comparing the situation between the EU and England with that in Korea is, well, grasping for straws? in any case it's a really bad, if not ludicrous argument.
Despite the defiance showed by some English politicians and the tabloid press I think that in reality England is in for a world of self-inflicted hurt. And mostly those people that enthusiastically voted to leave.
And that's under NATO right now, so the EU does not lose much in that respect.
Can't help thinking BMW might need to look at that anyway, regardless of Brexit.
The UK has 2 year to retract as article 50 allows that. 2 years is a long period in UK politics during which a vote of no-confidence could happen, calling for new elections that could retract article 50. Even if the 2 years pass, the EU already said that they would fast track the UK back in if a future government wants to come back. This is not over.
https://www.businessinsider.nl/uk-supreme-court-article-50-n...
Whether there will be enough public support to do that is another matter entirely. Perhaps there will be another general election or referendum which will muddy the waters.
If the last year has taught us anything, it's that the world is a very uncertain place right now, and all predictions are worthless.
Also, the UK has just handed the EU all their strong cards in the negotiations, and if the Scots exit the union that position will get weaker still.
Keep in mind that the exceptional situation the UK has (had?) in the EU was always an annoyance to other member states but was tolerated in order to keep the UK in the EU. If the UK falls apart and Scotland re-joins (or even remains) then the UK negotiation position with respect to those exceptions has evaporated, something that would definitely be appreciated in other EU countries.
Other general elections of referenda will not muddy the waters from an EU perspective, the deed is done, any regret will now take the form of a re-application, which will likely include the UK giving up their own currency, becoming a part of the Schengen area and getting rid of all the exceptions that were made for the UK.
This was a dumb move if there ever was one, such major decisions should require a supermajority, not a simple majority and May did a huge dis-service to the UK just now. But by the time the chickens come home to roost she'll be enjoying her pension sitting under banner reading 'I gave the people of England what they asked for, not what they needed'.
Under Article 50(3), extensions can only be granted by unanimity in the Council. The EP and Council both need to agree to a final agreement, but the EP doesn't seem to be involved in extensions at all.
http://www.lisbon-treaty.org/wcm/the-lisbon-treaty/treaty-on...
A50 is revocable unless a court says it is not and even if questioned, the courts would more than likely rule that it can be revoked. The official position of the European Parliament is that is revocable (1), subject to some conditions that are set out (the UK can't use it as a negotiating tool essentially) and this is also the position of many important EU officials. Piet Eeckhout (EU law professor) recently remarked that it would be unconstitutional to deny the UK a right to revoke A50 should it wish to exercise that option.
It's also a mistake to judge A50 purely in legal terms, political reality is more important in this case. A point made abundantly clear by lawyers reporting on Brexit.
If there's a will on both sides to abandon Brexit, it will be done. For that to happen the political landscape and mood will have to reshape itself. Such a thing is not impossible given that confidence in the economy is trending down and people are becoming more pessimistic (2) and because the many complications that lie ahead will be coming to the foreground. If the choice before Parliament is between a disorderly exit without a deal in 2019 with very clear negative repercussions, it would be unthinkable if they do not intervene.
1) https://www.scribd.com/document/343381933/Draft-Resolution 2) https://www.markiteconomics.com/Survey/PressRelease.mvc/c36c...
The UK is a very divided place, as much as I don't like brexit (I think it is an exceptionally stupid move) I don't see the UK healing itself in time for this to be averted and the unanimous condition attached to any kind of revocation of Article 50 leaves very little room for hope.
May is on the record as saying that if there is no 'good deal' then there will be 'no deal', which is absolutely terrible for the UK, it's a game of continental chicken which will have only losers.
If the UK attempts to withdraw before negotations start then I give that some chance but if they first try to go through two years of negotiations and then attempt to withdraw as the deadline looms chances are very slim that they would be allowed to remain without serious concessions.
> against what the rest of EU media and politicians are saying
I've been paying a very close eye to this so I'm confused, what sources are authoritatively stating that A50 can't be revoked? Your Supreme Court piece does not cover it. In the UK, the only reason why some politicians say A50 can't be revoked is out of a concern for how it could play into negotiations. It's not a commentary on whether A50 is revokable or not. If the EU say it's not, it isn't. And the European Parliament's official stated position is that it is revokable. And even if it wasn't the stated position, the UK would still be able to argue it on legal grounds.
> I don't see the UK healing itself in time for this to be averted
I don't think healing would be the needed element, rather it would be the overriding desire to avoid further division and pain. More division and pain are on the menu. Given how far positions have changed in a year, it would be terribly unwise to underestimate the degree to which the landscape can change in the next 2 years.
Pre-referendum leave voters were optimistic about the economic future. That's trending down.
Pre-referendum nobody was factoring in a Trump presidency and how it might affect the UK's place in the world.
Pre-referendum the vast majority of MPs in Parliament were pro-remain, something which was not reflected in post-referendum votes in Parliament (which is to say attitudes shifted and can shift again).
To me the most significant repercussion of A50 having now been initiated is the fact that all those MPs that felt bound to submit to a plebiscite vote now may feel free again to act with the national interest in mind, given that they can say that they have dutifully observed the will of the electorate. In other words, the power of the referendum vote diminishes by the day.
Imagine if one or two major factories close down in leave areas, or if investment is shrunk down in light of Brexit with major job losses as a result. This could easily swing public opinion. With the cost of living going up, this next 2 years is going to be a true pressure cooker for the Government.
So have I. The only thing that has changed as far as I can see is that in the last couple of hours (and that's something I wasn't aware of when this thread came up) a number of politicians have said that they will propose a way for article 50 to be formally withdrawable. Up to now the status is that once article 50 has been triggered after 2 years, deal or no deal the separation is a fact and that there is no way back from that.
Any kind of suggestion that things are different ignores the actual text of article 50. The waters have been muddied a bit by the original author saying (but the bill not stating) that he meant for it to be withdrawable but I find that claim dubious, the only reason article 50 was drawn up in the first place was to allow for a way to exit the EU that nobody ever figured would be triggered at all.
Brexit took a lot of people (including the 'leave' camp) by surprise.
> And the European Parliament's official stated position is that it is revokable. And even if it wasn't the stated position, the UK would still be able to argue it on legal grounds.
Yes, they say that now. But that wasn't their position so far and these things have been made fairly clear. Again, my suspicion is that the impression so far was that the UK would not go so far as to actually trigger article 50, now that that has been done there is a substantial moving of the goalposts in order to allow the UK a way out. How they use that will be a big factor in whether or not the unanimous vote required to allow the UK to do so will be cast.
> I don't think healing would be the needed element, rather it would be the overriding desire to avoid further division and pain.
Judging by the comment sections of the various UK publications that desire is a long way off.
> Given how far positions have changed in a year, it would be terribly unwise to underestimate the degree to which the landscape can change in the next 2 years.
But they've gotten worse, not better, if this trend continues there is no way things will work out in favor of remain.
> Pre-referendum leave voters were optimistic about the economic future. That's trending down.
This is not my impression. My impression is that leave voters tend to downplay the economical impact of this and somehow believe that the UK as an independent entity will do a lot better because of 'all the money that goes to the EU'. Check out the comment threads under some of the articles linked here.
I suspect that thinking that people will come to their senses is one of the reasons the brexit vote happened the way it did in the first place.
> Pre-referendum nobody was factoring in a Trump presidency and how it might affect the UK's place in the world.
This seems to have emboldened the leave camp rather than weakened it.
In fact, there is something to say for Trump thanking his presidency to a similar emboldening of the pro Trump camp on the other side of the Atlantic. If brexit can happen anything can happen.
> Pre-referendum the vast majority of MPs in Parliament were pro-remain, something which was not reflected in post-referendum votes in Parliament (which is to say attitudes shifted and can shift again).
That's why there was a referendum in the first place. If it had been up to the MPs this would have never happened, they could see the economic impact a lot clearer than what you might be able to write on the side of a bus.
> To me the most significant repercussion of A50 having now been initiated is the fact that all those MPs that felt bound to submit to a plebiscite vote now may feel free again to act with the national interest in mind, given that they can say that they have dutifully observed the will of the electorate. In other words, the power of the referendum vote diminishes by the day.
That's wishful thinking. The referendum should never have been kept in the first place, now that it has been kept and a prime minister has made steps to withdraw the UK out of the EU they should start planning on how to run the country as an entity independently from the EU, anything less would be (another instance of) dereliction of duty. They were free to observe and to ignore the will of electorate in the past. That they did not do so has nothing to do with what's good for the UK or for their electorate, it only has to do with their own re-election.
The question then becomes: how fast will the economic situation deteriorate prior to an actual withdrawal, the more the better to illustrate what is to come after and maybe that will get people to realize this isn't all fun and games. But for now the 'wait-and-see' approach to this probably means that even though everybody will have a play-book on how to deal with the post brexit situation the majority of the parties will wait until very late in the process to move their assets and operations out of the UK, which will go a long way towards masking any of the real effects.
Of course the 'brexit' camp will paint that as fearmongering.
> Imagine if one or two major factories close down in leave areas, or if investment is shrunk down in light of Brexit with major job losses as a result.
Yes, it will. But until things are looking un-avoidable this will not happen. And by the time it is un-avoidable it is by definition too late. And when they do move it won't be just two major factories, it will be a whole slew of them in the space of a few months at the end of 2018 or thereabouts, for those that can move in two years. For others it may be later but at significantly higher costs (Nissan and BMW for instance).
> This could easily swing public opinion.
Public opinion is a dangerous thing to count on, that much should be clear from this whole exercise.
> With the cost of living going up, this next 2 years is going to be a true pressure cooker for the Government.
Yes. The problem I have with all this is that this triggering of article 50 should not have happened. That's a dangerous line to cross which puts the direction of the play in the hands of others. It is the beginning of the slide down and where that slide will end is anybody's guess. It's a bit like the Trump administration (forgive me, the UK has a much better functioning government than the United States at the moment but I think there are some parallels): making bold moves looks impressive because there is a lot of action, but longer term effects are far more important than the short term impression. Triggering article 50 to pander to the 'brexit' camp ('the will of the electorate') puts the UK in a very awkward position, if not followed through it allows the other side of the negotiation table to strengthen their position by simply waiting.
It also raises the expectations in the leave camp that brexit will actually happen.
Taking that away again could get ugly very quickly.
In order of preference: don't do that referendum, don't trigger article 50, don't exit the EU.
So we're one step closer to an actual exit, not one step closer to having this mess resolved in a way where all parties involved understand which side their bread is buttered on.
Added afterwards: In my opinion the whole brexit thing is powered by a yearning for things past, the time when the UK was an independent world power. So now a bunch of politicians (Johnson, Farage and others) have decided that they would rather be a big fish in a small pond than a medium sized fish in a much bigger pond. What they don't seem to realize is that on the world stage the UK really doesn't move the needle any more and that the strength of the EU lies in its unity and that the UK already had one of the best deals possible. These politicians will end up getting what they want and the 'leave' voters won't know how bad things really are until it is too late, but until then will be stuck in their convictions.
One thing you can be 100% sure of: any effects of brexit felt prior to the actual thing will in that camp be determined to be the fault of the EU, never the fault of the brexit voters.
- the draft resolution confirming that the EU endorses the possibility of revocation is consistent with noises made by EU politicians well in advance of the A50 notification. Tusk said it very clearly back in October (1). At the same time there are no EU sources that I know of that have suggested otherwise.
- The 'deal or no deal' rhetoric underlines the disadvantage of the UK in coming to a deal in a fixed time frame. It is not underlining the impossibility of aborting the withdrawal. This is more about how the UK will not be able to draw out exit negotiations in its favour while holding the EU hostage. Revocation is an advantage to the EU because at the end of the day, keeping the UK in the EU is still going to be a better than any other scenario on the table - money talks and without the UK EU members have a lot of unwanted budgeting pressures to sort out.
> But they've gotten worse, not better, if this trend continues there is no way things will work out in favor of remain.
I think evaluating the comment sections of publications is a very poor way to assess public opinion for a variety of reasons. This is why we have properly conducted surveys and surveys show that pre-referendum attitudes have shifted.
In the aggregate people are more pessimistic about the economic future, even leave voters. In my prior link you will find that its trending very steadily in one direction. Remember that leave voters pre-referendum by and large were working under the premise that Brexit would not have any personal cost attached to it. Surveys taken before the referendum have illustrated this. Another attitude highlighted in surveys that show that when leave voters are prompted how much money they would be willing to surrender in order to accomplish Brexit's stated goals, most leave voters balk (2). True public support for hard brexit (under no deal or under no customs union + no single market membership) is not strong at all and projected to get weaker as pressure builds around the economy and continued cuts and public service failures.
> Public opinion is a dangerous thing to count on, that much should be clear from this whole exercise.
Which is exactly the point. A government is helped having public opinion on its side, I'm saying shifts in attitude are already undermining future support for the way the UK pursues Brexit. None of the stated benefits of Brexit are due to unfold in the next 5 years and that realisation is not going unnoticed. We know there's no additional 350 million for the NHS being budgeted. We know there will be no trade deal in 2 years. We know that immigration is not going to be artificially cut. Deals with India and the US are a very long way of and if they transpire, they likely won't be good deals.
And I would argue that public support for the Brexit pursued by the UK currently never was very strong, even at its peak. The 'leave' vote got a majority because it was able to group public support for incompatible goals. Now the public finds out that most of those goals, if any at all, will come to pass or turn out to be an illusion (such as the supposed increase in sovereignty) public opinion only has one way to go.
I'm more bullish on the odds of Brexit being aborted now than at any point before. I still think the odds are low, but they are much better than they were before. I know the British press is going to interpret A50 as being the nail in the coffin for EU membership, but it's not a difficult analysis to come to the contrary position:
The only thing that has been predictable so far is the government doing a poor job at preparation, execution and thinking steps ahead. Every step of the way it's making strategic, tactical mistakes and fumbling on policy. It's the one thing we can count on. The odds of a deal being done in 24 months are slim in part because of this. And if there is no deal in time, 650 MPs will have to think hard a simple choice: it can green light a national disaster brought onto it by itself, or it can intervene.
It was politically tough to oppose the A50 notification because it will be regarded as subverting a democratic result. Inside of 2 years time, it will be at least as politically damaging to not intervene in a national disaster. And MPs that have blessed the notification now can credibly oppose government performance on Brexit while being inoculated against the charge that they are subverting the will of an electorate.
What are the odds that the government negotiates a good deal or any deal at all? They are not that good at all, just given all the things that are outside the control of the UK. The momentous act of revoking the withdrawal - while unthinkable now - will look like the better option down the line. EU's history is full of members changing their minds. All it takes is for the UK government to be consistent with past performance and do a poor job at what is the toughest project it has ever undertaken since WW2. There are other plausible outcomes, but Brexit is nowhere near as avoidable as most think.
But let there be no mistake, this whole is a gigantic mess no matter how it unfolds.
1) http://blogs.ft.com/david-allen-green/2016/10/18/can-an-arti... 2) http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/hard-brexit-only-if...
If the CJEU says that A50 cannot be revoked, then the Houses of Parliament can do whatever they want, they're leaving.
They would be free to rejoin. Euro, schengen, and metricification are mandatory now though.
Well, in principle they could get unanimous consent on concessions again, they just don't come pre-baked.
Imagine you have a job, with a few perks other employees don't have, and you want more perks. And you don't get it, so you quit, complaining about how crap your employer is. A while later you ask for your old job back. What are the odds of you getting exactly the old perks back? ;)
Basically, they've left the door open for us to vote in a pro-EU party in the next general election and abandon the whole thing. That's why they won't agree a trade deal in the next 2 years.
They're hoping, like me, that things will get sufficiently bad in the next 2 years the public gives a mandate to a pro-EU party, and the whole sorry mess can be averted, and then we can try Johnson, Farage and the other scumbag liars for treason.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/29/first-eu-re...
I think this is basically correct. I also think that if, before the 2 years are up, the UK changes its mind about Brexit, the EU would be very likely to allow its membership to continue.
England probably would have to be prepared to lose a number of privileges should that happen.
It would certainly be the best outcome of a very bad situation.
And/or a serious rethink about the value of a free press that is allowed to act as News Corp. (The Sun, The Times) and Daily Mail and General Trust (Daily Mail, Metro, and previously the Evening Standard) have.
I hope you're kidding here. Trying people who won the previous election for treason is the mark of the worst dictatorships. Please don't.
It seems that EU lawmaking bodies disagree with you: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-stop-ar...
https://www.businessinsider.nl/uk-supreme-court-article-50-n...
And I note that it requires unanimous agreement between all the other member states, which is a very rare thing. So a very thin maybe.
The UK has had 9 months to mend its divided population. Get the facts back as first class citizen in debates, firmly drive out the hate-fueled arguments out and draw a picture of how they wanted the UK to be, realistic picture, not the Leave campaign fantasy. Finally with that done, let the houses discuss where the EU helped or hindered and then vote to proceed or not.
That's not how it happens, dialog didn't happen, the UK is at the same stage of division today (or worse) as it was 9 months ago.
> the UK will be able to revoke its notification of article 50 but this must be “subject to conditions set by all EU27 so they cannot be used as a procedural device or abused in an attempt to improve the actual terms of the United Kingdom’s membership”. [1]
So in short, remaining is less likely than ever but still possible.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/29/first-eu-re...
The UK has to somehow bluff its way into a negotiation position and I fail to see how all these statements and laws are compatible with each other.
Join the club. I did not believe that May would be silly enough to push this through as far as she has, it's like watching someone aim a gun at their feet and pulling the trigger in slow motion.
She won't be remembered kindly.
The UK spent decades pulling itself out of the slump it was in in the mid 80's of the last century, now it is rushing as fast as it can to repeat the experience.
The only silver lining I can see here is that if once brexit is a fact the rejoining could happen rapidly after the Scots break away from the union and England and Wales (and possibly Northern Ireland) realize that it's not working out. But say goodbye to the pound and any exceptions the UK has right now in that case.
It's an own goal if there ever was one.
And no worries about being snarky, it's totally understandable, fortunately I'm on this side of the channel where the impact will be spread out. If I had my eggs in the UK basket I would be a lot less agreeable than merely snarky.
Personally I find the article does read a bit like scaremongering propaganda.
I guess the nationwide (near) monopoly on healthcare, the National Health Service (NHS) will have to start paying market prices for nurses as well as start more training programs instead of relying on importing cheaper labor.
To say that there aren't enough Brits to do the nursing in a population of 60 million is ridiculous.
The elites in Britain (and perhaps the entire wealthier countries of the EU) basically didn't seem to care (and perhaps encouraged) the importation of labor to drive down market prices of labor both for untrained as well as trained labor. In the case of healthcare, it is simply a means for the government to pay less for healthcare than they would if there were a competitive market instead of their monopoly.
It wasn't absolutely necessary to have the free flow of labor as part of the EU trade agreement. For example, NAFTA between US, Canada, and Mexico does not allow for the free flow of labor, only the free flow of good. I can't think of any trade agreements that the US has with other countries that allows for the free flow of labor. The free flow of labor benefits elites (think professional hiring nannies, government running health services, companies running factories, firms running high tech needing software developers) to help depress wages. Now the elites of Britain will have to start paying market rates for their labor.
And you have hit on a basic truth there. A fair part of the vote to leave was because of economic hardship. A fair part of that is because of the perception of "people coming over here and working for less". But every employee has an employer. Government and business can do a lot to set industrial policy, starting with funding for education (for doctors, nurses etc), and minimum wage levels (for field & factory workers).
Emphasis on "can". They didn't.
> Only 96 nurses joined the NHS from other European nations in December 2016 – a drop from 1,304 in July, the month after the referendum.
Comparing December to July? Maybe it's semi-annual data? What's the normal level of variance?
> 2,700 EU nurses left the health service in 2016, compared to 1,600 EU nurses in 2014 – a 68% increase.
Comparing 2016 to 2014? What happened to 2015, or 2013?
The article notes that this is from "freedom of information responses compiled by the Liberal Democrats from 80 of the 136 NHS acute trusts in England", but I can't seem to find a direct source; some things talk about the "Centre for Workforce Intelligence", but I can't get anything specific from there, and other things reference the "Nursing and Midwifery Council", which appears to be a voluntary registration system, but as far as I can tell does not generally publish statistics.
That said, I imagine a lot of skilled workers are going to reason differently than you and leave.