Is UK Heading for a ‘No-Deal’ Brexit?
With PM May facing impasse in Parliament, the UK and EU prepare ‘no deal’ contingency plans
With British Prime Minister Theresa May failing to get parliamentary support for her plan to leave the European Union and only 100 days until the deadline, Britain is veering towards a “no deal” Brexit.
In case of a no deal Brexit, the UK will leave the EU without any formal agreement on the future relationship with the 27-member European bloc. This would mean the UK would be “treated as a ‘third country’ by the EU with commerce governed by World Trade Organisation rules,” British tabloid The Sun reported.
Currently the UK’s trade, customs, and immigration policies are subject to EU laws and regulatory bodies. Under the blueprint agreement presented by May’s government and Brussels, the EU courts will continue to have jurisdiction over many aspects of British life.
If the no deal scenario comes to pass, Britain will not be obliged to pay the $47 billion punitive “divorce bill” slapped by Brussels negotiators, a House of Commons report said.
In June 2016, Britons voted 52 to 48 percent in favor of Brexit, which set off 18 month negotiations between UK and EU officials under the Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.
The European Commission, EU’s executive arm, proposed 14 “contingency measures” to prepare for a possible no deal Brexit. “The proposals concern several areas the European Union’s executive believes would be impacted in the case of a so-called ‘no-deal Brexit,’ including financial services, air transport, customs, and climate policy,” the German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported Wednesday. According to The Sun, the authorities in Britain are also working on similar measures.
The Deutsche Welle published the details of the proposed EU contingency plan:
The European Commission on Wednesday proposed 14 contingency measures to prepare for the possibility that the United Kingdom leaves the European Union on March 29 without a withdrawal agreement in place.
The proposals concern several areas the European Union’s executive believes would be impacted in the case of a so-called “no-deal Brexit,” including financial services, air transport, customs, and climate policy.
The European Commission started implementing its “no deal” Contingency Action Plan on Wednesday. The measures include:
– Inviting “Member States to take a generous approach to the rights of UK citizens in the EU, provided that this approach is reciprocated by the UK.” This would ensure that UK citizens legally residing in the EU on the date of withdrawal would continue to be considered “legal residents,” with a “pragmatic approach to granting temporary residence status.”
– For financial services, measures to prevent disruption in the clearing of derivatives, central depositaries services and for some over-the-counter derivatives contracts.
– For transport, temporary measures to ensure air services and aviation safety licenses and road haulage into the EU.
– For customs and goods exports, EU legislation is to apply with declarations lodged in the EU.
– The EC also proposes to continue the PEACE programme in Northern Ireland until 2020.
On Wednesday, the British government issued a guidance on pensions and benefits to UK nationals in the EU in a no deal scenario. The notification assured that “[in] the event the UK leaves the EU without a deal, the UK will call on the EU and its member countries to continue their commitments to EU citizens and protect the rights of UK nationals living in EU countries.”
Both side are making arrangements to facilitate trade in case of a no deal. The British conservative blog Guido Fawkes reported Monday:
The UK has negotiated an agreement to stay in the Common Transit Convention (CTC) even if there is no Brexit deal between the two sides. This means that goods can continue to be transported freely between the UK and the EEA with customs declarations and import duties only being paid when the goods arrive at their final destination.
For many in the Brexit camp, the deal handed down by Brussels to May isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. The current proposal is devised to punish the British people and send a tough message to detractors within the EU, they argue.
Ahead of the June 2016 referendum, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker warned the British voters of severe consequences if they opted to leave the union. “If the British leave Europe, people will have to face the consequences,” he told French newspaper Le Monde. “I’m sure the deserters will not be welcomed with open arms.”
The EU negotiators are not interested in reaching an accommodation with the May’s government, but seek to make an example of Britain for daring to break away from the bloc, the former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis claims.
“They want to punish Britain, even if it means a mutually disadvantageous deal for the peoples of Europe,” Varoufakis said. A mutually acceptable deal would the “greatest nightmare for Mrs Merkel and Mr Juncker,” he added.
“If Brexit proves less painful than expected, this might make Frexit, Nexit, or Czexit look more appealing,” Goldman Sachs predicted after the 2016 Brexit vote, concluding that if “the UK economy holds up better than we expect, the political risks to the integrity of remainder of the European Union have grown significantly.”
May’s critics within her party accuse her of not daring to call the EU’s bluff and reject the deal. “Leaving without a deal is not the end of the world,” Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg wrote on Twitter.
The UKIP leader Nigel Farage has long urged May to walk away from the EU’s offer rather than accept a bad deal. “We have nothing to fear and that is the reason why we should only accept a clean and clear Brexit, not some fudge,” he said in September.
Brussels has every reason to maintain mutually beneficial trading ties with the UK. Any disruption in UK-EU trade will hurt European exporters as well, especially the German manufacturing and automobile sectors. In 2017, Britain imported £341 billion worth of good from the EU. The trading partners within the bloc run a huge deficit with the UK, crossing £80 billion in 2016.
The question now worth asking is will the EU risk losing billions in bilateral trade, and hundreds and thousands of jobs just to teach a lesson to the British people for voting the ‘wrong way’? Isn’t it time for the EU to come to terms with the outcome of the 2016 referendum and let the British go in peace?
Video: No deal, no problem, Farage tells EU ‘gangsters’
[Cover image via YouTube]
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Comments
I want to celebrate, but a hundred days is still enough time for the EU and the Remainers to find a way to stab our limey friends in the back.
Panem does not like it when the Districts talk back.
The EU is ran by un-elected CRAZY people!
Sometimes it IS worth more to chew your leg off to free yourself, as opposed to staying in the deadly trap!
I think the proper term would be Czechout.
Czechout, Italeave, Fruckoff and Outstria all need to happen. And quickly. Leave Germany holding their own steaming bag of doggy do-do.
No ausfahrt for Der Muther Land?
Good one!
The UK should tell Brussels negotiators where to shove the $47 billion punitive “divorce bill”.
Maybe America should put our fingers on the scale to the benefit of the UK?
How about a sweater trade deal between them and us?
Indeed most of the point of Brexit was to allow the UK to negotiate its own deal with the USA.
Legally the Brits have to wait for the exit in order to negotiate a deal with the US, but the President has offered several times to make Britain a better deal in trade than the EU has offered.
Brexiteers have to watch the Remainers and Whitehall like a hawk. When the Elites don’t get their way, they will do anything necessary to undermine the deplorable Normals.
Yes, especially since May has turned out to be just another
Guy Fawkes.
Hoping and praying it’s No-Deal!! No strings attached!
I want the UK to go no deal, get their fishing territories back, get their act together so that trade deals can be in place day one. EU subjects must be shown that we can break away and be free from Brussels.
From the article: “Currently the UK’s trade, customs, and immigration policies are subject to EU laws and regulatory bodies.”
Uh, ok. So, after Brexit, not so much? That sounds like a good no-deal deal.
So, what about international commerce and the WTO?
From WTO website: “The World Trade Organization (WTO) deals with the global rules of trade between nations. Its main function is to ensure that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible.”
Uh, ok. So, after Brexit, there’s still trade? That sounds like a good no-deal deal.
The fact remains that virtually all nations conduct their own trade agreements, in one form or another. And Europe needs the U.K. far more than vice versa. A thousand years of continental strife is the proof.
Trump just renamed NAFTA to USMC and never asked the WTO or the EU for permission. But I wonder which lying crapweasel snuck this into the USMC?
From the Federalist: “Big Tech lobbyists orchestrated the quiet insertion of a seemingly innocuous provision into the deal that will allow them to silence conservative voices.”
http://thefederalist.com/2018/12/13/the-new-nafta-trade-deal-lets-big-tech-squelch-conservative-speech/
Because it’s all a scam designed to favor which ever hobby horse can put the most grease into the hands of the ruling elite. But I digress.
But as V.U. points out ” If the no deal scenario comes to pass, Britain will not be obliged to pay the $47 billion punitive “divorce bill” slapped by Brussels negotiators, a House of Commons report said.”
That sounds like a good no-deal deal for the U.K.
It is not true that section 230 was ever premised on diversity. The status of online interactive forums is necessary, or else such forms including this comment section we are on could not survive. Prof J could not afford to let us comment here, if he could be held liable for anything one of us wrote. It is section 230 that allows this space to exist, and without it he would have to close it down.
And yet nobody supposes that he must therefore allow comments here that he doesn’t like; nobody disputes that he is entitled to edit, censor, suppress viewpoints, as much as he cares to. Section 230 doesn’t and shouldn’t deprive him of that right as the price of its protection.
I’m no expert on Europolitik, but if this was an option all along, why the hell didn’t they just do it?
Because the Prime Minister and much of the Parliment are Remainers who don’t actually want to leave the EU, despite the electorate’s wishes.
Kumquat May get “stewed!”
No deal, no problem, Farage tells EU ‘gangsters’
https://youtu.be/-NpRoH7-_qw
‘Leave’ voters are willing to give up access to the EU market to stop immigration
https://youtu.be/jofDZjruhD4
Oops! Sorry. Too much multi-tasking!
Because trade with the EU is very important to the UK, and the disruption of a break with no deal will be very painful. Worth it, in my opinion, but definitely a last resort. Every “leaver” agrees with that, and has done from the beginning. What they were expecting was for May to stand firm and insist on a decent deal; she honestly did try, but when it wasn’t forthcoming she settled for something that in my opinion and that of most leavers is worse than no deal at all.
PM May most certainly did not honestly try to work out a decent deal with the EU on BRexit.
I always recommend the great production “Brexit: The Movie” which is a great statement on trade and liberty.
Among many other great points it makes is the the EU needs the British market as badly as the Brits need the EU (maybe more). I forget the numbers, the a very large fraction of cars bought in Britain are German products.
Does seem to illustrate why EU type thingings tend to break up by civil war, though.
Never have a Remaineer write a Brexit contract.