That's it - No Deal!.

[Suff]

Ah the optimistic view. Schengen, Euro, Rebate? Not a chance these will survive the "rescinding" of A50. The UK will be made to pay for daring to enact A50, there is no longer such a thing as returning to the Status Quo. Witness what was done to Greece. They dared to say NO to the bailouts and were dragged through the mud with a deal far more damaging that the original one on the table.

This is how the EU works. There is no point in trying to wish otherwise because it is a simple fact of life. No more could a member state of the US hold Washington DC to ransom and escape unscathed. It is part and parcel of giving up your independence for the benefits of a union.

We shall have to wait and see on Ireland. The EU says it does not want a hard border in Ireland. A hard border between NI and the rest of the UK is NOT the same as a hard border between Ireland and the EU. It would be the same as dividing up Belgium between the Walloons and the Flams… Absolutely not the same at all.

The fact that Ireland has no land border with the EU, is not in Schengen and that both Ireland and the EU carry out border checks (except for the UK), makes partitioning Ireland from the EU both simple and practical. Far more practical than the mayhem which would occur if the idiots tried to separate NI from the UK.

May is in a minority coalition, only having the majority because Sinn Fein don't take their seats in government. It is hardly surprising that the government is torn with differing opinions. This has always been the way with Brexit and reflects the very real differences of the voters from the constituencies. We are supposed to expect that everything is going to be wonderful and May is going to have a wonderful negotiation with the EU. When Blair and a cast of other has been politicians spend their time advising on the best way to bring the government down and sell the UK to the EU for a pittance. Honestly it is nothing short of treason and I would love that crime to still exist.

The clearest thing that came out of the whole thing is that the UK should have signed 10 big trade deals, post dated to April 1st 2019 and then asked the EU what they were bringing to the table too. It was May who stopped this happening and it is May who will pay the price.

But not until after March 30th 2019!

There will be no election. There won't be a leadership competition. Unless May goes totally off piste and starts trying to do a unilateral deal that nobody agrees with. Then she will be challenged, politically executed and consigned to the back benches of obscurity. And there still won't be an election, nobody is that crazy in the Tories.

The IEA report has come out with some very interesting language. However, whether you believe their maths or not, or even if you believe their approach with the EU or not, there is one thing which is undeniable.

“Brexit has been too narrowly thought of as the role of the UK in the EU, whereas the reality is Brexit is a major global event. A G7 country is embracing independent trade and regulatory policy for the first time in 40 years – an unprecedented situation.

There is no questioning this, it is an absolute fact. Something the remainer MP's would like to hide from the people. What the people should be asking is, no demanding, is WHY!

I have said this from the very first. The fifth largest economy in the world does not emerge from the EU and the rest of the world just says "whatever".

Not long now.

[Workingman]

The view is not optimistic, it is fact.

We are still in the EU.

If the ECJ adjudicates that the UK can revoke A50 (see the other thread) and the UK does so before March 28th 2019 we will remain in the EU. We will not have left. It will sure as hell piss the EU off, but it came up with the treaty and its wording and all 28 signed up.

However, you can bet your house that an amendment will be made clearly stating what can and cannot be done and the procedures that have to be followed.

With Ireland the fact that it has no land border between it and the EU is neither here nor there. Malta and Cyprus do not have one and neither do Sweden and Finland, though there is a bridge, and we have a tunnel - a border is a border. In August the commission opened a new sea route from Cork and Dublin to Zeebrugge, Antwerp and the Rotterdam in order to allow direct trade to continue to flow between Ireland and the EU after Brexit. It has been done to specifically avoid the customs checks which could seize up French ports post Brexit. Of course people would still be checked because Eire is not in Schengen, but they only take part of a minute to do.

As for Belgium, I didn't realise that Flanders or Wallonia were about to leave the EU. If either did then the EU would have to put a hard border in place. Not sure it is relevant.

The IEA eh?

From Wikipedia.

It is not known what the IEA actually is, or on whose behalf it speaks, or how it is funded. It is rated by the accountability group Transparify as "highly opaque".

Since Britain voted to leave the European Union (Brexit) by March 2019, the IEA has lobbied consistently for a hard Brexit without customs and regulatory alignment, etc.; a report it published in July 2018 proposed using Brexit to remove rules protecting agency workers, to deregulate finance, annul the rules on hazardous chemicals and weaken food labelling laws.

The IEA supports privatising the National Health Service (NHS); campaigns against controls on junk food; attacks trades unions; and defends zero-hour contracts, unpaid internships and tax havens. Its staff frequently appear on BBC television promoting these positions.

So now we are going to make Brexit policy on the back of a right wing think tank's press release. What a nice group of boys and girls they all sound. Give me bloody strength!

[Suff]

If the ECJ adjudicates that the UK can revoke A50 (see the other thread) and the UK does so before March 28th 2019 we will remain in the EU. We will not have left. It will sure as hell piss the EU off, but it came up with the treaty and its wording and all 28 signed up.

So now we're going to make UK policy based upon a "hope" that the ECJ will do something For the UK and Against the EU. Even though over 40 years of experience tells us the opposite.

So now we are going to make Brexit policy on the back of a right wing think tank's press release. What a nice group of boys and girls they all sound. Give me bloody strength!

I was very careful to say that their ideology and maths may be at fault, but that one particular statement is a solid kernel of truth in the middle of the rhetoric. Refusing to accept that truth is at the core of all our Brexit woes today and May bears the vast proportion of the responsibility for that.

[Workingman]

So now we're going to make UK policy based upon a "hope" that the ECJ will do something For the UK and Against the EU. /quote]
Not at all. The ECJ is not being asked to do anything for anyone. It is being asked to clarify a point of law. Nobody knows what its adjudication will be as it has not deliberated yet. If the court says "No" then we all go home knowing that A50 cannot be revoked. If it says "Yes" then the deliberation of the Court of Session is clear:

"The matter is uncertain in that it is the subject of a dispute; as this litigation perhaps demonstrates.

"The answer will have the effect of clarifying the options open to MPs in the lead up to what is now an inevitable vote."

The judge also said the European court would not be advising parliament on "what it must or ought to do".

Instead he said it would be "merely declaring the law as part of its central function", adding that "how parliament chooses to react to that declarator is entirely a matter for that institution".

The ECJ is not deciding 'for' or 'against' the UK nor is it directing UK action or policy. It is simply clarifying the law. There is 'hope' from both sides that the decision goes their way.

What the UK decides to do has nothing whatsoever to do with the ECJ.

[Suff]

Actually it is not clarifying the law, it is going to be asked to interpret a statement in a treaty.

Interestingly the last time someone from the UK asked the ECJ to "interpret" EU law in the case of what the UK "might" do, it came back and said that until the UK actually DID something there was no case to answer. It did also state that internal UK law was nothing to do with it.

That being said, A50 is an EU competence and an EU treaty. The ECJ is perfectly capable of ruling on any article in they TEU. However, as I understood it from their last response to people in the UK, who wanted to use the ECJ for political purposes, they won't rule until there is a point of law to answer.

Given that May and the Tories are saying that there is no way they're going to petition the EU to withdraw from A50, I can't see the ECJ having any question to rule on. The ECJ clarifies EU law by making judgements. Without a petition to withdraw from A50, what is there to judge on?

That is how I understood their position. There is the petition for a preliminary ruling, but I don't believe this fits the bill. A preliminary ruling is a mechanism to allow the ECJ to determine the position of the EU on a National court decision. It is always the National court which will apply the decision, taking the advice of the ECJ.

In the case of A50, no National court can rule so there is no basis for a preliminary ruling as only the ECJ can rule on the TEU. Essentially to get a ruling on A50 from the ECJ, then either the UK or the EU would have to petition the court to have the A50 implementation voided. Neither party to that position is even hinting that this is a possibility. Just those who cannot petition and want to stay in the EU.

[Workingman]

Hmmm, 'law'. A bit of semantics at play.

However, I thin k that I will go with the interpretation of three senior judges at the Court of Session in Edinburgh, as presented above. They seem to know what they are talking about regarding the petition presented.

As follows:

"Where a member state has notified the European Council of its intention to withdraw from the European Union, does EU law permit that notice to be revoked unilaterally by the notifying member state?

"And, if so, subject to what conditions and with what effect relative to the Member State remaining within the EU?".

[Workingman]

This has now all become very dangerous.

The EU says it must have the deal by the time of its special summit in mid November in order for it to be ratified by all 27.

The PM insists on pushing her deal, the Chequers deal, even though it has been thrown out by just about everyone. She also now says a Canada+ deal is a bad deal.

The Labour conference has now forced some clarity from Corbyn. In two interviews he said that if a deal fails to pass in parliament May will be sent back to the EU with strict parameters for more negotiations - but there is no time for any of that.

When it comes to no-deal the government has published some 75 papers about a no-deal Brexit. I have waded through some and most of them are not a long read.

What I notice is that there is very little positivity with no-deal, but quite a lot of coulds, ifs, buts and maybes on the negative side, and this should worry all of us. Remember these papers are not from some think tank or the CBI or industry CEOs or the media, they are from our very own government.

Yes, that government, the one currently (allegedly) negotiating Brexit with the EU. If the papers were from those mentioned above they could be passed off as more Project Fear, but they are not.

It is alll looking as though a bad deal is a bad deal, and a no-deal is a bad deal.

[Suff]

Hmmm, 'law'. A bit of semantics at play.

However, I thin k that I will go with the interpretation of three senior judges at the Court of Session in Edinburgh, as presented above. They seem to know what they are talking about regarding the petition presented.

[/quote]

You know that the ECJ rules are based on Napoleonic Law and not on British law, as are the vast majority of EU states. It is Britain and Ireland who are radically out of step with EU law and always have been. Any judgement made by a UK court is unlikely to represent the position of an ECJ decision because it is, fundamentally, decided by different law.

Hence you have to listen to what the ECJ says and not what a bunch of British judges say.

[Suff]

The EU says it must have the deal by the time of its special summit in mid November in order for it to be ratified by all 27.

<snip>

It is alll looking as though a bad deal is a bad deal, and a no-deal is a bad deal.

The EU can do anything it wants. It can meet every day until the deal is done and can complete the whole process in two months. The EU can tell the national parliaments to derail all national business in order to vote and get the deal through.

Witness what happened when France and the Netherlands voted down the constitution and the EU pushed the Lisbon Treaty through. If you listen to the EU it takes a decade to get a treaty change done...

A bad deal is one that damages the UK, long term, by taking away our choices. No Deal is not a bad deal, it is a starting position. A bad deal is one that gives the EU everything they want and the UK nothing it wants.

So far the EU has only put out bad deals. Checkers may not be the shining example everyone expects to get (i.e. the EU wants a shining example for the 27 and the UK wants a shining example in the opposite direction), but it is a measured compromise. Is it any wonder that Everyone is throwing rocks at the compromise instead of getting the deal done?

Nobody is going to get what they WANT out of this. What they need to do is recognise what they CAN get out of this and aim for it.

That being said, I fully believe the EU will push itself into a situation where they can't back down, expecting the UK to fold. The UK is not going to fold, it is going to carry on making preparations for No Deal. One thing Checkers does is to put people like our dear chancellor on the spot. The UK has put forward a reasonable compromise and made it a landmark position. Beyond that position is no deal. As the EU has not accepted it or even agreed to negotiate on it, then the chancellor has no real excuse for delaying No Deal preparations any more.

I think the real reason people don't want to go for No Deal preparations is that once they do it the position will be clear and it will not be anything like as scary as first presented. Most people will look at no deal and say (what was all the fuss about). That is how FUD works. You put something up for people to be scared of then make them more and more scared of it. Once the fantasy of the fear is torn down by real preparations, the fear itself goes away.

The only "out of control" factor here is the hype to make people scared.

May has given the EU an ultimatum and is now working on no deal preparations. As she should be. The ball is firmly in the EU's court and they are not going to run with it.

This is all that has happened. Listening to the Labour lot is not worthwhile right now.

[Workingman]

I am listening, are you? The ECJ has not deliberated yet, when it does we will know.

Yesterday it wasn't law, today it is. You seem to have made your mind up that your view is the right one and everyone else is wrong. Well I am sorry, Suff, but you can slam the table as hard as you like in the hope that you are right; others think differently and you are no legal eagle.

When it comes to "no-deal is a bad deal" look what was actually said:

"It is all looking as though a bad deal is a bad deal, and a no-deal is a bad deal."

then put it into context of what I said in post three:

"If we had said "No Deal" at the very start we would have had two years to get things in place. It would still be worse than the deal we already have, but we could have trained up border guards, customs inspectors, infrastructure and so on.

As things stand we do not, officially, have a no deal, but we now only have six months to prepare for it."

The first refers to the second.

You are now talking about our no-deal preparations - with six months to go - as though they are well advanced. They are not. Where are the border guards, custom and excise inspectors, welfare vets, infrastructure.....? They are needed but do not exist. The best we have so far is x thousand portaloos and a contra-flow and car park on the M20. If there is FUD about then that is because of reality.

Go read the position papers. There are plenty of potential problems identified, but very few workable solutions - if any.

These are some of the reasons that I say that for now no-deal looks like a bad deal.

Being supremely confident that everything will be alright on the night does not cut it I'm afraid. Nor does constantly blaming the EU for all our ills when they are self-inflicted wounds.

Listening to the Labour lot is not worthwhile right now.

I will say that it is a worthwhile thing to do. It is impossible to stop others listening, as they are doing in their droves, and they a likng what they hear. Listening informs and allows for challenges and counter proposals.

Not listening leads to rants about the 1970s, Comrade Corbynski, strikes, three day weeks and a whole host of other irrelevances in 2018. That has been happening for quite some time and it has spectacularly backfired.