So, customs union was defeated 276 to 273 and confirmatory referendum 292 to 280? They’ve been getting closer and closer. As those options keep coming up as the closest ones, more MPs will become at peace with them.
May might submit it again, hoping that 1 option comes up with more yeas than nays and then Parliament can vote on it and (hopefully) not choke when the vote is for real.
Is there any indication that the EU would support the Customs Union proposal? And, again, the confirmatory referendum seems a silly gesture when Parliament cannot agree on anything to give the public to “confirm.”
Also, I thought that the EU said that if a deal wasn’t reached last week, then April 12 is the day, no extensions, no nothing.
It seems like the only realistic choice that an MP has is to either back May’s deal or have no-deal.
Is there a good site within the EU that conveys the reactions to today’s non-decision? I don’t mind if it’s not in English*, but I’d like to get a sense of how the EU is taking all of this.
There have been favourable noises from various influential EU figures, but the EU won’t adopt a formal position unless the UK makes a formal proposal.
The Labour Party position is, I think, in favour of a customs union in which the UK has some kind of say in the framing of the EU’s trade deals with the rest of the world. That, um, will require a lot of elaboration and negotiation before it can be said to be a runner. It’s not going to happen by 12 April.
There’s two possibilities here:
Parliament approves the deal, subject to conformation in a referendum. (Parliament would also need to say what would happen if the referendum does not confirm the deal.) This would give the British electorate a binary choice, which apparently they like or are assumed by their political masters to like.
Parliament simply delegates the decision to the people. If parliament wants to give the people a binary choice, it will have to do its job to the extent of eliminating all but two options, and then putting those options to the people in a binary referendum without parliament having approved either of them, except in so far as it hasn’t eliminated them. Or, if parliament thinks that British voters are after all capable of making the kind of choices that voters in other countries have no problem in making, it could put a range of options to the voters, and delegate to them the responsibility of picking one through ranked-choice voting.
Obviously, if you’re delegating to the people the responsibility of choosing a course of action, you should only offer deliverable courses of action - courses which the UK can effect unilaterally (crash out with no deal; remain in the EU) or courses which require EU agreement but to which the EU has already agreed (the Withdrawal Agreement).
The withdrawal agreement option could be subdivided into two or more “withdrawal agreement plus” options, the “plus” being the objectives tha the UK would target in negotiating the future relationship agreement. But it would have to be made very clear to voters that these various pluses were all aspirational, and might not be delivered.
Nope. The UK is free to seek a further extension before 12 April. At a minimum that comes with a requirement to participate in the EU Parliament elections in May, arrangements for which would have to be set in train before 12 April. The request for a longer extension would be evaluated by the EU asking themselves questions like: How long an extension do they want? How much of a pain would that be for us?
What do they propose to do with the extra time? How likely is it that what they propose to do would result in a better outcome for us than crash-out Brexit? And then they’ll weigh up the pros and cons (for the EU) of granting an extension and make a decision. A decision to grant an extension has to be unanimous among the EU-27.
Or revoke.
After a 7 hour long cabinet meeting, May makes a statement:
She will ask for a short extension in order to talk at Jeremy Corbyn until he agrees to her withdrawal agreement. If he doesn’t, then parliament will have to hold a series of votes on other options.
“Okay, campers, rise and shine and don’t forget your booties 'cause it’s cold out there today!”
According to the BBC, she actually said that the only way that the UK can leave the EU quickly is with no deal or if the Labour Party can agree to support the proposed withdrawal agreement based on some minor beefing up of the declaration of intent around the future relationship.
Which I think is completely correct.
Other options are for the Labour Party to argue for the Article 50 notice to be unilaterally revoked or for the Labour Party to agree to a detailed process which would persuade the EU to accept a long extension to the Article 50 process.
I don’t think there is a fifth option?
Either way, the ball really is in Jezza’s court, and the time for him to studiously avoid taking a position while loudly criticising the Tories has come to an end. He has a total of seven days to reach agreement with Treeza and get a vote through Parliament.
(Why yes, I have finally ditched my long-standing habit of referring to politicians formally and courteously. Ask me why that is.)
According to The Economist, the two leading contenders to replace May are Boris Johnson and Michael Gove. I’m not as familiar with them as other thread contributors but Johnson gives me the impression of pathologically needing attention and Gove of being more of a salesman than bright.
I rather doubt that Johnson will be on the shortlist offered to the party members. I suspect most of his MP colleagues have had more than enough of his naked opportunism, and his latest volte-face must have put the mockers on his chances.
Johnson is a lazy chancer, but Gove does have a bit of a reputation as being a diligent Minister - getting across his brief in detail, listening to expert opinion etc.
Both of them were mentioned as Cameron’s successor in 2016, if I’m remembering correctly?
Until Gove stabbed Boris in the back?
Good times, good times…
Gove is quite bright, and certainly brighter than most of the other likely contenders. But he’s not expecially liked or trusted.
Maybe this time she should promise to commit seppuku instead of merely resigning if something, anything, passes the House.
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Why is it that on one initiative, they have 549 people voting, and on another they have 572? Don’t they take their own responsibilities seriously?*
*obviously not, or Brexit would never have been a thing, but still…
She really does have to up the ante …
The point of not voting on a particular measure may be to indicate that, while you don’t support it, you also don’t oppose it and so, if it secures a majority, you will go along with it.
Or, it could be that you would support it in some circumstances and oppose it in others. For instance your attitude to the proposal to submit any Brexit deal to a second referendum might vary depending on what the deal is.
Visa-free travel in Europe for British after Brexit has just been approved.
At least a couple hundred Mediterranean resorts just let a sigh of relief.
She should just FRO.
This was always planned to be the case. It’s provided for in the Withdrawal Agreement. The problem was, if the UK fails to ratify or give effect to the Withdrawal Agreement, what then?
This represents a decisiont that, even in the case of a no-deal Brexit, the EU will still not require short-stay visas from UK citizens, so long as the UK doesn’t require them from any EU citizens (and, currently, the UK doesn’t plan to require them).
However for this deicsion to be come into force, it has to be formally adopted by the European Council and approved by the Parliament. A crash-out Brexit on 12 April is still possible, and it may be that the necessary formalities won’t have been completed by then - Council doesn’t next meet until 10 April (and will have more pressing items on its agenda for that meeting), and after that there isn’t a plenary meeting of Parliament until 15 April (and that, too, may have other agenda items). So it could still be that the UK faces a period when visas are required before this measure comes into force.
Would an imposition of a visa requirement by the UK against citizens of an EU country automatically trigger reciprocation, or would it be like the perennial dispute with the USA where the negatively-affected states gripe about the discrimination but are unable to persuade enough other countries to support an action that could cut off the supply of visitors?