This site is still in its early stages, but if I wait for it to be nicely polished it will never be published. More topics will be added over time. Launched 26 March 2019. Last Edited 20 February 2020.
Roadmap approach to resolving the Brexit mess
amended following discussions on https://politicspoliticalforum.com
amended further following actual events
The BBC produced a guide on why Brexit hadn't happened by September 2019. It's still available.
Written in April 2019: (amended to reflect change of PM)
We've got a delay until 31 October 2019 to leave the EU. This should give the UK enough time to sort out how to do it properly. There aren't any simple answers, so here's a complicated one:
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Set the exit date as 31 October, 2019. No matter what happens, we will not leave before or after that date.
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Accept Mrs May's deal, with the following amendments:
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lengthen the negotiation part to 31 December 2021;
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change the backstop so that either the UK or the EU can give two years' notice to quit, the same as any other member of the Union;
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Propose an outline plan for a post-2021 customs arrangement - see below;
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Get agreement from the EU - see below;
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Hold a referendum on the deal - leave with no deal, accept the deal and leave the EU on 31 October 2019, or stay in the EU - see below;
Why the amendments:
The Prime Minister's deal is clearly the most likely way to successfully leave the EU, as it is agreed with the EU and is a kind of middle ground between staying in the EU and crashing out with no deal. The first amendment is necessary because the delay to the leaving date requires a delay to the end of the negotiation phase, and the second amendment is necessary in order to focus minds on achieving a meaningful outcome in the negotiations. You cannot negotiate unless both sides have something the other wants - and having no end to the backstop would mean the EU would already have everything it wanted and consequently there would be nothing for the UK to negotiate with, and the danger of being stuck in a customs union that we cannot break out of would be very real. The earliest breakout date is 31 December 2023 - long enough, you would think, for serious trade negotiations to take place and allow us to move to a new trading arrangement without disruption. It is unlikely that the breakout would ever be acted on, since the negotiations over the future trading arrangements will have progressed far enough to make it unnecessary. What is necessary is having the power to walk away from the customs union if the negotiations do not make progress.
Outline plan for a future trading arrangement:
With a breakout mechanism from the backstop, even if it is a long way off, the EU and Northern Ireland will be very unhappy. Consequently, we need a credible plan that retains the freedom of the Irish border and the openness of the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and mainland UK, while enabling the UK to pursue independent trade deals with the rest of the world. The EU protects its customs borders jealously, not just because of import tariffs, but also because of regulatory standards designed to ensure quality, safety or sustainability. It will not want there to be a route for goods from, say, India to bypass EU tariffs by going through UK as a back door. Any credible plan to resolve this contradiction would rely on the fact that most goods are carried in lorries or trains or vans. As such, it is fair to say that the couriers are reputable (jokes about white-van-man aside) and will declare their goods in advance, without the need of physical checks at the actual border. Another thing that can be relied on, at least initially, is that the UK and the EU are comparable economies and therefore are likely to have import tariffs on most goods that are broadly similar. This further reduces the number of vehicles that need to be checked. It would certainly not be necessary to check every vehicle at the border. Now, suppose that the EU charges a tariff of £100 per tonne of Indian steel, and the UK reduces the tariff to £60 per tonne. If a car is manufactured in the UK, containing one tonne of Indian steel, then its steel will have been undertariffed by £40. The EU can claim £40 on a car made in the UK with Indian steel and exported to the EU. The tariff can be collected when the export paperwork is put together, in a similar way to VAT, and is no need for physical checks at the border. There are a lot of details missed out, such as how to actually track the Indian steel as opposed to British or EU steel, how to do spot checks to ensure that the tariff is being paid correctly, what should happen if UK wants a higher tariff than the EU on a particular commodity, what about regulatory differences, etc. But at this stage, all that is required is a basic plan, so that both sides have confidence that when the long-term customs negotiations begin, there will be an end. Then we can stop fretting over whether or not the backstop has a breakout mechanism.
An outline plan might be that the UK and EU have a shared boundary - if goods come from outside the shared boundary into the EU then they are subject to EU tariffs. If they go into the EU via the UK, and the UK charges a lower tariff than the EU would, then those goods are subject to the difference if they go from the UK to the EU.
Get agreement with EU:
We need the EU to agree to the modifications to the plan (including the outline trading agreement), otherwise it's not a plan at all. Ireland won't like the breakout clause, despite the fact that it only exists to give the UK a bargaining tool, because they want to keep an open border with Northern Ireland forever in the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement. But if they veto the plan, there is a risk that, despite the Good Friday Agreement, the border will close immediately at the order of the EU. There has to be compromise on all sides. There is a great deal of unanimity on this: everyone is saying "there must be compromises, except in the area I hold most dear".
Getting agreement from the EU is going to be difficult. This is because the EU is not a single body but a group of 27 countries, each with their own national agenda. Many of them have strong Eurosceptic sections of the their population, and they do not want to encourage these sections by giving the UK a 'good deal' on leaving. Although they say they are being reasonable, they are in fact quite pleased at the difficulties we have got ourselves into, as they can say "this is what happens when you try to leave" and blame it all on us.
Ireland has ambitions all of its own - despite the fact that annexing Northern Ireland was removed from its constitution as part of the Good Friday Agreement, Ireland still has ambitions to reunify with Northern Ireland. Any Irish leader would dearly love to have this achievement as their legacy. So here's how it might come about: note that as the Withdrawal Agreement currently stands, after 31 December 2020 only Northern Ireland will be tied to EU rules - the rest of the UK can do its own thing. But if the UK wants to keep Northern Ireland, then the whole of the UK is tied to EU rules. This puts tremendous pressure on both the UK and Northern Ireland for Northern Ireland to leave the UK and be joined to Ireland. There will be no end to this tie unless the whole of the EU, including Ireland, agree to a new trading agreement. However, if there is no deal when UK leaves the EU, then the land border in Ireland causes problems for both Ireland and Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland will then come under pressure, for different reasons, to unify with Ireland.
What the Irish government does not want is a deal whereby the UK leaves in an orderly fashion, by keeping the customs union while negotiating a future trading agreement, but still has the power to leave the customs union if the negotiations do not turn out well. This gives the UK enough control to keep Northern Ireland happy as part of the UK.
There are lots of reasons, therefore, that when the EU says that it will not renegotiate the withdrawal agreement, it means it and hopes that it will not have to. But these reasons are not about what is best for the EU - they are about what is best for the individual countries. It would take a skilled negotiator indeed to unpick the national interests and get a change in the EU's stance. This is where the referendum comes in.
Referendum:
Then we can take the plan to the people, in a second referendum. However, the second referendum will not be a rerun of the first. This time, it will be a choice between three clearly defined paths - get out with no deal, get out with a deal, or stay in. It will have two questions:
1) Do wish the UK to leave to EU on 31 October 2019 or remain in the EU? (Leave / Remain)
2) If the UK leaves the EU, do you to accept the proposed deal? (Deal / No Deal)
The second referendum is not a rerun of the first, because it will offer a choice between three clearly-defined paths: Remain, Leave with deal, or Leave with no deal. The referendum will be structured to guarantee that exactly one path will be chosen. Holding a second referendum in this way will not be seen as a 'betrayal' of the first referendum. It is more like saying, "you asked me to do something that is very difficult. I now have a plan for how to achieve it. Do you still want to go ahead? Are you happy with my plan?"
A vote to leave will not be a vote for further chaos. However, you could argue that this step is unnecessary because the first referendum has already shown the will of the people. You could also argue that referendums have been rerun in the past, in other countries, when a vote has gone against the EU, and it is time that this cynical practice of rerunning referendums when you don't get the result you want came to an end. You could argue lots of things. The fact is, a lot of people want another referendum, and if the people calling for us to leave are confident that the majority of people still want to leave, then they should agree to it. Without a second referendum, there will always be a sizeable chunk of the population, the remoaners, unhappy that their voice has not been heard.
But there is another reason to have a second referendum. The hardest part of this plan is to get agreement from the EU to changes in the Withdrawal Agreement. The EU won't renegotiate because they believe the UK parliament doesn't have the courage to leave without a deal (which was recently confirmed by an Act passed in September). They can't be so sure about the British people - 39% voted for Brexit Party in the MEP elections, which supports leaving without a deal. The second referendum makes leaving without a deal a distinct political possibility - no just a default outcome when everything else goes wrong, but an actual decision. This threat alone should be enough to make the EU negotiators stop and think about what is really in the best interests of the people of Europe. What's the alternative? The deal, whether it is improved or not, would go to the people as one of the options. If it is not improved, it stands no chance of being chosen as the way forward - which is plainly silly, because an orderly withdrawal is obviously the most sensible option.
You can't negotiate a deal unless the other side believe that if the deal isn't good enough, then you will walk away. Of course we want to leave the EU with a deal. But not at "any price".
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This is a complicated plan that contains checks and balances, and offers something for (nearly) everyone. The Good Friday Agreement cannot be ignored, but it is a treaty for seven million people that was drawn up twenty years ago to solve a problem that existed then, and as such it cannot be allowed to dictate what happens to 300 million people now. Nobody is tearing up the agreement; we are simply saying that if you are carrying goods across the Irish border, and those goods will need some paperwork that says why you're moving the goods - paperwork that you've probably got already.
But there is another important principle at stake. The Good Friday Agreement is the culmination of the Northern Ireland Peace Process, which itself was the response to a terrorist threat from the IRA. The IRA wanted to force Northern Ireland to unite with Ireland by means of violence and intimidation. Consequently, the Good Friday Agreement is the direct result of terrorist threats. The agreement, as worded, says nothing that a reasonable person would not agree with - namely that the destiny of Northern Ireland (in the UK or in Ireland) is a matter for the people of Northern Ireland alone to decide, and that there should be a free-flowing border between Northern Ireland and Ireland to aid trade and harmonious relations. However, the Good Friday Agreement must not, in itself, become a lever by which Northern Ireland is wrenched from the United Kingdom into the hands of Ireland. That would be a victory for terrorists. That must not be allowed to happen.
It could be argued that one of the principles of the Good Friday Agreement, namely non-interference by Dublin or Westminster in Northern Ireland's destiny, has already been breached by the Brexit process. But to deliberately use it to create problems in Northern Ireland that can only be solved by Northern Ireland leaving the United Kingdom is definitely against the spirit of the Agreement. Ironically, insisting on a strict interpretation of the Agreement violates the Agreement itself.
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September 17
Boris Johnson
What are we to make of Boris Johnson's approach with Brexit negotiations? He has the right idea about 'no deal' - you can't negotiate without the ability to walk away from a bad deal - but rather than make the EU sit up, he has frightened the UK parliament. The UK Parliament doesn't seem to grasp the distinction between a threat and an intention. The relationship between the PM and Parliament hasn't been helped by proroguing Parliament for most of the time between now an October 31. It has got to the point where he can't even call an election because he is so badly distrusted by Parliament.
Whatever his plans, his effectiveness is being diminished by his secrecy, and perceived lack of trustworthiness. We know he is trying to get a deal - he has said so many times - but the country is going to be a bit underwhelmed if, after much stress and additional preparation work has been inflicted on the people and businesses of the UK, he comes back with a deal similar to the one proposed here.
He offered election which was rejected (twice) so it is clear that no-one else wants the job. So all we can do is wish him the best of luck.
Post-Brexit
Now that Boris Johnson has achieved Brexit, it turns out that what he did is similar to what is set out above. He achieved a get0out from the Irish backstop by giving the veto to the Northern Ireland assembly, effectively making Northern Ireland decide whether it follows UK or EU rules. And he managed to get an election, which he turnedinto a referendum by insisting that all Tory candidates agreed to support the exit deal if elected. This meant that, having achieved a majority of Tory MPs in parliament, he also achieved a majority of pro-Brexit MPs in parliament.