Brexit delayed

[morepork]

This has to be one of the most spectacular painting of oneself into a corner in political history.

[Lizard]

Man. Now that it’s constitutionally acceptable to prorogue parliament for weeks on end for nakedly political reasons, what do you think Corbyn might do if he gets in power and faces a revolt?

The systematic, deliberate undermining of democratic institutions by individuals in pursuit of power is of great concern.

On the bright side, it might help convince others in my country that perhaps our system of Constitutional Monarchy Without a Written Constitution isn’t as great as we though. Then we can get rid of the former and gain the latter. Every cloud, eh?

[Son of Mathonwy]

Per the Sunday Times, if parliament passes a law demanding the govt. ask the EU for an extension then Johnson will use the UK’s veto to kill any extension. If that were to happen we’d surely have reached peak Brexit and I will simultaneously both laugh and cry.

Hopefully the law can specifically outlaw the use of the veto.

Nah, can't be that simple.

[Lizard]

As far as I understand it, up until now, the UK has had parliamentary supremacy, i.e. parliament can legislate to control the powers of the executive and the judiciary (and the monarch). Problem is, I’m not sure that’s ever been written down properly. The executive might just decide that things work the other way around now and that Her Majesty’s ministers can properly advise her not to sign legislation passed by parliament. Who knows what the new rules are?

I seem to recall from my ancient legal training that when parliament made William of Orange King, they said something to the effect that Parliament can do what it wants and the monarch/executive have to obey but I can’t really remember.

EDIT: Bill of Rights 1688! That’s the fucker. Section 1 says "That the pretended power of suspending of laws, or the execution of laws, by regal authority, without consent of Parliament, is illegal"

[Digby]

And Boris with a threat to withdraw the whip and deselect (despite that latter not being his decision) any Tory MP who not only votes against the government but abstains. This really is like Trump with the disdain for democracy and insistence all underlings remake themselves in the image of their leader, and it's a hell of a standard to set with Corbyn/Momentum so close to taking power

[Mellsblue]

Playing devils advocate.....

The prorogation of Parliament is only four more days than would usually seen over conference season. Opponents will, correctly, argue that this supersedes conference and parliament would’ve sat during that period. Everyone else will ask why, yet again, everything is going down to the wire.
Remainers/Bercow have already torn up parliamentary convention this year. Not to the same extent, I’d argue, but certainly on more occasions.
A plague on both their houses.

[Puja]

Playing devils advocate.....

The prorogation of Parliament is only four more days than would usually seen over conference season. Opponents will, correctly, argue that this supersedes conference and parliament would’ve sat during that period. Everyone else will ask why, yet again, everything is going down to the wire.
Remainers/Bercow have already torn up parliamentary convention this year. Not to the same extent, I’d argue, but certainly on more occasions.
A plague on both their houses.

It's six more days, which is a third of the time remaining at a time when Parliamentary business is already heavily squeezed, and that assumes that parliament would have taken the maximum amount of time for conferences. If he'd prorogued for a more standard 7 days, I'd buy it was standard behaviour. 35 days can fuck right off.

Bercow did screw with parliamentary convention, but I've got a lot more time for what he did as it was to allow more Parliamentary debate, rather than allowing the executive to railroad the discussion. This is the opposite.

Puja

[Mellsblue]

Playing devils advocate.....

The prorogation of Parliament is only four more days than would usually seen over conference season. Opponents will, correctly, argue that this supersedes conference and parliament would’ve sat during that period. Everyone else will ask why, yet again, everything is going down to the wire.
Remainers/Bercow have already torn up parliamentary convention this year. Not to the same extent, I’d argue, but certainly on more occasions.
A plague on both their houses.

It's six more days, which is a third of the time remaining at a time when Parliamentary business is already heavily squeezed, and that assumes that parliament would have taken the maximum amount of time for conferences. If he'd prorogued for a more standard 7 days, I'd buy it was standard behaviour. 35 days can fuck right off.

Bercow did screw with parliamentary convention, but I've got a lot more time for what he did as it was to allow more Parliamentary debate, rather than allowing the executive to railroad the discussion. This is the opposite.

Puja

Does 6 include a weekend? I’ll assume yes as you’ve included weekends in your days count. Tbh, even counting Fridays is a bit of a stretch. IIRC, every source I’ve read says four.

Like I said, Boris’s manoeuvre is the worst of all, so far, but I’ve no time for anybody breaking convention/undermining the constitution to suit their own aims. There’s also an argument of Bercow reaping the weeds he has sown. Why should Brexiteers play fair if Remainers don’t.

[Digby]

Playing devils advocate.....

The prorogation of Parliament is only four more days than would usually seen over conference season. Opponents will, correctly, argue that this supersedes conference and parliament would’ve sat during that period. Everyone else will ask why, yet again, everything is going down to the wire.
Remainers/Bercow have already torn up parliamentary convention this year. Not to the same extent, I’d argue, but certainly on more occasions.
A plague on both their houses.

It's six more days, which is a third of the time remaining at a time when Parliamentary business is already heavily squeezed, and that assumes that parliament would have taken the maximum amount of time for conferences. If he'd prorogued for a more standard 7 days, I'd buy it was standard behaviour. 35 days can fuck right off.

Bercow did screw with parliamentary convention, but I've got a lot more time for what he did as it was to allow more Parliamentary debate, rather than allowing the executive to railroad the discussion. This is the opposite.

Puja

Does 6 include a weekend? I’ll assume yes as you’ve included weekends in your days count. Tbh, even counting Fridays is a bit of a stretch. IIRC, every source I’ve read says four.

Like I said, Boris’s manoeuvre is the worst of all, so far, but I’ve no time for anybody breaking convention/undermining the constitution to suit their own aims. There’s also an argument of Bercow reaping the weeds he has sown. Why should Brexiteers play fair if Remainers don’t.

Do they normally prorogue parliament during conference season? I thought they specifically had the MPs vote for a recess which doesn't have the additional impact of closing all committees, of ending the process of any bill open before the houses, of removing the possibility of asking questions of the government in parliament. So this whole process is, I thought, really very different

[Stones of granite]

It's six more days, which is a third of the time remaining at a time when Parliamentary business is already heavily squeezed, and that assumes that parliament would have taken the maximum amount of time for conferences. If he'd prorogued for a more standard 7 days, I'd buy it was standard behaviour. 35 days can fuck right off.

Bercow did screw with parliamentary convention, but I've got a lot more time for what he did as it was to allow more Parliamentary debate, rather than allowing the executive to railroad the discussion. This is the opposite.

Puja

Does 6 include a weekend? I’ll assume yes as you’ve included weekends in your days count. Tbh, even counting Fridays is a bit of a stretch. IIRC, every source I’ve read says four.

Like I said, Boris’s manoeuvre is the worst of all, so far, but I’ve no time for anybody breaking convention/undermining the constitution to suit their own aims. There’s also an argument of Bercow reaping the weeds he has sown. Why should Brexiteers play fair if Remainers don’t.

Do they normally prorogue parliament during conference season? I thought they specifically had the MPs vote for a recess which doesn't have the additional impact of closing all committees, of ending the process of any bill open before the houses, of removing the possibility of asking questions of the government in parliament. So this whole process is, I thought, really very different

In my understanding (which may be incomplete), they are very different. I understood Prorogation to be the formal end of a Parliamentary Session, so as you say, all business is terminated. A Recess is a pause in business.
Normally, there wouldn't be a Prorogation at this time, but as Johnson has taken over as PM it is understandable that there is one. What is not acceptable is that he is setting a precedent of using it as a political tactical weapon to undermine the sovereignty of Parliament.

[Mellsblue]

It's six more days, which is a third of the time remaining at a time when Parliamentary business is already heavily squeezed, and that assumes that parliament would have taken the maximum amount of time for conferences. If he'd prorogued for a more standard 7 days, I'd buy it was standard behaviour. 35 days can fuck right off.

Bercow did screw with parliamentary convention, but I've got a lot more time for what he did as it was to allow more Parliamentary debate, rather than allowing the executive to railroad the discussion. This is the opposite.

Puja

Does 6 include a weekend? I’ll assume yes as you’ve included weekends in your days count. Tbh, even counting Fridays is a bit of a stretch. IIRC, every source I’ve read says four.

Like I said, Boris’s manoeuvre is the worst of all, so far, but I’ve no time for anybody breaking convention/undermining the constitution to suit their own aims. There’s also an argument of Bercow reaping the weeds he has sown. Why should Brexiteers play fair if Remainers don’t.

Do they normally prorogue parliament during conference season? I thought they specifically had the MPs vote for a recess which doesn't have the additional impact of closing all committees, of ending the process of any bill open before the houses, of removing the possibility of asking questions of the government in parliament. So this whole process is, I thought, really very different

Nope. Normally recess, as you probably well know. For all intents and purposes its 90% the same. I’m again getting into territory of defending something I disagree with, I’m just pissed off with the hysteria, hyperbole and ridiculous stances like ‘stop the coup’.
It’s a terrible move, for many reasons, but parliament started us down this road, both by making no deal the default and twisting parliamentary procedure to suit their own ends.
As I said, I plague on both their houses.
It’s no surprise that Gen Z, sorry if that phrase offends anyone, are losing faith in democracy.

[Mellsblue]

Does 6 include a weekend? I’ll assume yes as you’ve included weekends in your days count. Tbh, even counting Fridays is a bit of a stretch. IIRC, every source I’ve read says four.

Like I said, Boris’s manoeuvre is the worst of all, so far, but I’ve no time for anybody breaking convention/undermining the constitution to suit their own aims. There’s also an argument of Bercow reaping the weeds he has sown. Why should Brexiteers play fair if Remainers don’t.

Do they normally prorogue parliament during conference season? I thought they specifically had the MPs vote for a recess which doesn't have the additional impact of closing all committees, of ending the process of any bill open before the houses, of removing the possibility of asking questions of the government in parliament. So this whole process is, I thought, really very different

In my understanding (which may be incomplete), they are very different. I understood Prorogation to be the formal end of a Parliamentary Session, so as you say, all business is terminated. A Recess is a pause in business.
Normally, there wouldn't be a Prorogation at this time, but as Johnson has taken over as PM it is understandable that there is one. What is not acceptable is that he is setting a precedent of using it as a political tactical weapon to undermine the sovereignty of Parliament.

Agreed, other than them being very different. To bring a queens speech, which is normal for a new govt, you need to prorogue. It’s the length that, rightly, the issue.
Interestingly, I didn’t read you, and others, being upset about Bercow setting dangerous precedent by ignoring the advice of parliamentary clerks. (Apologies if you did).

[Digby]

Does 6 include a weekend? I’ll assume yes as you’ve included weekends in your days count. Tbh, even counting Fridays is a bit of a stretch. IIRC, every source I’ve read says four.

Like I said, Boris’s manoeuvre is the worst of all, so far, but I’ve no time for anybody breaking convention/undermining the constitution to suit their own aims. There’s also an argument of Bercow reaping the weeds he has sown. Why should Brexiteers play fair if Remainers don’t.

Do they normally prorogue parliament during conference season? I thought they specifically had the MPs vote for a recess which doesn't have the additional impact of closing all committees, of ending the process of any bill open before the houses, of removing the possibility of asking questions of the government in parliament. So this whole process is, I thought, really very different

Nope. Normally recess, as you probably well know. For all intents and purposes its 90% the same. I’m again getting into territory of defending something I disagree with, I’m just pissed off with the hysteria, hyperbole and ridiculous stances like ‘stop the coup’.
It’s a terrible move, for many reasons, but parliament started us down this road, both by making no deal the default and twisting parliamentary procedure to suit their own ends.
As I said, I plague on both their houses.
It’s no surprise that Gen Z, sorry if that phrase offends anyone, are losing faith in democracy.

it's not the same as a recess, every question before government pending an answer is closed, all the committees are closed, there's no demand the executive appear to answer questions, not even emergency questions. so where on earth are you plucking the figure of 90% the same from, and what's it based on? Also there's a world of difference between Bercow modifying procedure to take account of parliament, his job being at heart to allow the house to express its view, and modifying procedure to ignore parliament as with Boris

[Mellsblue]

Do they normally prorogue parliament during conference season? I thought they specifically had the MPs vote for a recess which doesn't have the additional impact of closing all committees, of ending the process of any bill open before the houses, of removing the possibility of asking questions of the government in parliament. So this whole process is, I thought, really very different

Nope. Normally recess, as you probably well know. For all intents and purposes its 90% the same. I’m again getting into territory of defending something I disagree with, I’m just pissed off with the hysteria, hyperbole and ridiculous stances like ‘stop the coup’.
It’s a terrible move, for many reasons, but parliament started us down this road, both by making no deal the default and twisting parliamentary procedure to suit their own ends.
As I said, I plague on both their houses.
It’s no surprise that Gen Z, sorry if that phrase offends anyone, are losing faith in democracy.

it's not the same as a recess, every question before government pending an answer is closed, all the committees are closed, there's no demand the executive appear to answer questions, not even emergency questions. so where on earth are you plucking the figure of 90% the same from, and what's it based on? Also there's a world of difference between Bercow modifying procedure to take account of parliament, his job being at heart to allow the house to express its view, and modifying procedure to ignore parliament as with Boris

In reality it’s 90% the same. With MPs all over the country for conference very little is done. There is a large difference between what is in the rule book and the reality on the ground.
We’ll have to agree to disagree about the relative severity of Bercow’s and Boris’s (Cumming’s) moves.

[Digby]

Nope. Normally recess, as you probably well know. For all intents and purposes its 90% the same. I’m again getting into territory of defending something I disagree with, I’m just pissed off with the hysteria, hyperbole and ridiculous stances like ‘stop the coup’.
It’s a terrible move, for many reasons, but parliament started us down this road, both by making no deal the default and twisting parliamentary procedure to suit their own ends.
As I said, I plague on both their houses.
It’s no surprise that Gen Z, sorry if that phrase offends anyone, are losing faith in democracy.

it's not the same as a recess, every question before government pending an answer is closed, all the committees are closed, there's no demand the executive appear to answer questions, not even emergency questions. so where on earth are you plucking the figure of 90% the same from, and what's it based on? Also there's a world of difference between Bercow modifying procedure to take account of parliament, his job being at heart to allow the house to express its view, and modifying procedure to ignore parliament as with Boris

In reality it’s 90% the same. With MPs all over the country for conference very little is done. There is a large difference between what is in the rule book and the reality on the ground.
We’ll have to agree to disagree about the relative severity of Bercow’s and Boris’s (Cumming’s) moves.

I think we're basically disagreeing on the use of the word reality at this point

[Mellsblue]

it's not the same as a recess, every question before government pending an answer is closed, all the committees are closed, there's no demand the executive appear to answer questions, not even emergency questions. so where on earth are you plucking the figure of 90% the same from, and what's it based on? Also there's a world of difference between Bercow modifying procedure to take account of parliament, his job being at heart to allow the house to express its view, and modifying procedure to ignore parliament as with Boris

In reality it’s 90% the same. With MPs all over the country for conference very little is done. There is a large difference between what is in the rule book and the reality on the ground.
We’ll have to agree to disagree about the relative severity of Bercow’s and Boris’s (Cumming’s) moves.

I think we're basically disagreeing on the use of the word reality at this point

Fine. I’m happy with this. Those taking positions at either edge of the Brexit debate lost their grip on reality a good while ago.

[Digby]

In reality it’s 90% the same. With MPs all over the country for conference very little is done. There is a large difference between what is in the rule book and the reality on the ground.
We’ll have to agree to disagree about the relative severity of Bercow’s and Boris’s (Cumming’s) moves.

I think we're basically disagreeing on the use of the word reality at this point

Fine. I’m happy with this. Those taking positions at either edge of the Brexit debate lost their grip on reality a good while ago.

Which is fine as an observation save I'd think you've already fallen off the edge if you're equating prorugation with MPs voting for a recess and equating the actions of Bercow with Boris. Brexit continues to divide in opinion, even between those who're financially conservative and socially liberal(ish), and fail to conquer, and I can only see it getting worse

[twitchy]

[BBD]

I wish Id thought of Proroguing Rugby Rebels years ago

[Mellsblue]

I think we're basically disagreeing on the use of the word reality at this point

Fine. I’m happy with this. Those taking positions at either edge of the Brexit debate lost their grip on reality a good while ago.

Which is fine as an observation save I'd think you've already fallen off the edge if you're equating prorugation with MPs voting for a recess and equating the actions of Bercow with Boris. Brexit continues to divide in opinion, even between those who're financially conservative and socially liberal(ish), and fail to conquer, and I can only see it getting worse

I’m not equating them. I’ve said all along they’re both terrible but with Boris's being worse. You’re the one defending Bercow for breaking convention/the constitution and ignoring the parliamentary clerks. Which is mad before you even get the fact he’s not even pretending to be neutral and is being kept in office despite serious HR allegations against him. All solely because he is a Remainer. I’ve also said that in reality the timing of the prorogation is not radically different to having a recess at this time. I’ve not mentioned the avenues towards bring either in to being. You’ve made that leap.
If I have have fallen off the edge, with a bit of luck, you’ll cushion my landing.

[Mellsblue]

I wish Id thought of Proroguing Rugby Rebels years ago

Ha. A coup d’etat everyone would agree with.

[Digby]

Fine. I’m happy with this. Those taking positions at either edge of the Brexit debate lost their grip on reality a good while ago.

Which is fine as an observation save I'd think you've already fallen off the edge if you're equating prorugation with MPs voting for a recess and equating the actions of Bercow with Boris. Brexit continues to divide in opinion, even between those who're financially conservative and socially liberal(ish), and fail to conquer, and I can only see it getting worse

I’m not equating them. I’ve said all along they’re both terrible but with Boris's being worse. You’re the one defending Bercow for breaking convention/the constitution and ignoring the parliamentary clerks. Which is mad before you even get the fact he’s not even pretending to be neutral and is being kept in office despite serious HR allegations against him. All solely because he is a Remainer. I’ve also said that in reality the timing of the prorogation is not radically different to having a recess at this time. I’ve not mentioned the avenues towards bring either in to being. You’ve made that leap.
If I have have fallen off the edge, with a bit of luck, you’ll cushion my landing.

saying something is 90% the same has the ring of equating something

I'd take the point I went of the edge a while ago

And yes I do take a very different view on Bercow, who btw when he broke with tradition did include in the options being brought forward to the house some strong hard Brexit options alongside the pro deal, and anti no deal options. wanting to empower and listen to the house isn't the same as closing it down in the hope you can ignore them

[Digby]

Ivan Rogers writing on a no deal Brexit in the Spectator


As so often in the last three years, much of our political debate is ducking the central strategic questions and is obsessing, in increasingly hysterical fashion on all sides, about tactical ones.

We face the most explosive political week for years, perhaps decades. But remarkably little of the debate is about our real options. We should be thinking 10 to 20 years ahead, not 10 weeks.

The primary issue with a ‘no deal’ Brexit is not, and never has been, how far our domestic contingency planning enables us to mitigate the short-term shock. That is hugely important. If ‘no deal’ happens, the day to day consequences – malign or benign – will inevitably drown out all else in the news for months. No developed country will have done anything analogous in several generations, let alone by choice.

But this ought, nevertheless, to be secondary. The primary issue is our medium-long term destination. The central problem with ‘no deal’ is that it is being heavily (mis)sold as providing certainty, finality – a ‘clean break’ – when it would manifestly do nothing of the sort.

It encourages a public (many of whom are understandably fed up with the process and the game playing – on all sides – of the political class) to believe that ‘closure’ might be just weeks away. But this is completely spurious. The reality of ‘no deal’ is that it would leave all the most intractable issues about our future relationship with the EU unresolved, and leave it unclear whether there would even be a subsequent process to resolve them. It would, in other words, be just the start, not the end.

The idea, peddled by ministers, that businesses would have the ‘clarity’ and ‘certainty’ they need about the UK’s ultimate destination after a ‘no deal’ exit in eight weeks time, is laughable. They would not even know whether there would be ANY sort of preferential trading arrangement (in other words, one going substantially beyond WTO commitments, but going substantially less deep than Single Market and Customs Union membership, and hence delivering lower volumes of trade with the Continent than we have now) with our largest trading partner, let alone what sort and when.

In those circumstances well-run businesses will, inevitably and correctly, (and rapidly, because the expected transition period would have disintegrated) conclude that they have no option but to plan on the assumption that there might be no preferential deal for the foreseeable future.

Companies have fiduciary duties to their shareholders. ‘No deal’ would force and expedite radical decisions on business models and locations. By the time, several years later, any preferential trade deal might be struck, it would be far too late to reverse the bulk of those decisions.

This would be the worst possible outcome for the UK economy and for the public finances. The tax take implications would dwarf the sums politicians obsess about on the UK’s EU budget contribution. Fantasies of a Brexit dividend would perish rather fast in the public accounts.

It would also mark both a UK government failure and an EU failure.

It takes two for a negotiation to fail.

The blame game on both sides, as both recognise – belatedly – that the potential landing zone for an agreement has all but disappeared, is therefore already well under way. There is certainly plenty of blame to go around.

But if that is where we end up in a few weeks time, there is no politically credible path afterwards to where the Prime Minister says he wants to get. And the eventual outcome would be much worse for the UK, the EU and the entire West than it needed to be. Future political generations would excoriate this one for having let it happen – indeed in many cases for having worked assiduously to deliver, and celebrated delivering, this failure.

This era perhaps now bears more similarities with the gold standard era – with its free capital mobility, its open trade, and its staggering complacency – than any other. That era came to an abrupt and violent end with world war one and its key features could not be resuscitated for decades. Many sage figures bearing considerable similarity to our current political leadership confidently pronounced in the early 20th century that conflict was now completely impossible between developed democratic states, given their economic interconnectedness. We know how that turned out.

Dani Rodrik, writing both of the gold standard era and our own, coined the term ‘impossibility theorem’: that democracy, national sovereignty and global economic integration are mutually incompatible; and that we can combine any two of the three, but never have all three, simultaneously and in full. That is, in my view, profoundly right. And it is the trilemma at the core – or rather, it should be at the core – of our Brexit debate.

The essential Brexiteer view is that deep regional economic integration, including the Single Market and Customs Union, is undermining national politics, by aiming to align the scope of democratic politics with a supranational market.

Deep integration inevitably requires that we eliminate the transaction costs that traders and investors face in cross-border transactions, and end regulatory discontinuities at borders. To enforce, police and adjudicate this, by definition, requires supranational legislation and a supranational Court. And those necessarily undermine national autonomy in decision-making.

We used, across party lines, to be in favour of all that because we thought – and a massive extension of qualified majority voted to deliver it, supported by Margaret Thatcher – it a price worth paying for building a much larger and more open ‘home market’. The British were notorious, from Thatcher on, as the biggest enthusiasts for the Single Market.

But countries can, and must be able to, change their minds. It is a perfectly legitimate view to suggest that globalisation and Europeanisation have run ahead of democratic governance and that people are rightly uneasy about the hyper-globalisation of recent decades. This position reasonably asserts that Brexit is not ‘just the economy, stupid’, but also a governance, indeed a constitutional, issue.

I agree. And patently, so do lots of people who voted primarily on non-economic grounds. And perfectly reasonably so.

It may be hard for some to credit, but one can have been a technocrat and still believe that, on the whole, too much power has been vested in technocrats – both national and supranational. Just look at the UK today.

But…

This is our sovereign choice, not other countries’. It is the UK saying that national sovereignty and democracy should trump deep economic integration, which we are saying has unpalatable implications for both.

If we downgrade our ambitions about how much deep economic integration we want – or can stomach, given the implications for national sovereignty – we must also accept that there will be substantial barriers and transactions costs from trade ‘de-integration’ with partners who have made a different choice. We may deplore others’ national choices, but, if we are to be consistent, that is surely no more our business than our domestic choice is theirs.

No developed country has taken itself out of a trade bloc since the war because the costs of deliberately making trade substantially more difficult with your closest neighbours are obviously large. No trade deal has ever been struck between partners actively seeking to get further apart. Trade deals have always been between those aspiring to converge and to increase trade flows, not diverge and decrease them.

No amount of repetition of ‘this will all be terribly easy’ ever makes it true. It is not unpatriotic or ‘declinist’ to point out that a process of ‘differential disentanglement’ – which is actually what Brexit is – will be hard, complex and lengthy. How, seriously, after more than three years can so much of our political elite still be in denial on this?

If you leave a club whose other members are prepared to integrate more deeply politically and juridically than you, because they see economic and political benefits from doing so, you cannot tell the public that any adverse consequences of leaving are all the club’s fault, for wilfully not carrying on giving you club benefits when you leave.

Nor can you just wish away issues at borders, whether on land or cross-Channel, when the entire purpose of leaving the Single Market and Customs Union must be to run deliberately different regulatory regimes – chosen by your own Parliament – where you believe it suits you.

Such choices by definition entail a hard border. Borders across the whole world demarcate different regulatory regimes.

Even the border between Sweden and Norway, one in the EU, the other out of it but wanting to remain much closer ‘in’ to EU institutional and legal frameworks (Single Market, Schengen) than our government, is a hard border. If alternative arrangements currently existed which obviated the need for any such border, they would already be operating right there. They are not.

The new Prime Minister’s primary objection to his predecessor’s painfully negotiated agreement with the 27 EU members is, after all, that he thinks it keeps us too closely bound to elements of the EU’s regulatory order, from which he wishes to diverge more. He also wants a fully autonomous trade policy, which must entail not being in a Customs Union with the EU.

Fair enough. As I personally do not believe that the UK could, long term, remain in a Customs Union with the EU and become a ‘taker’ of a trade policy it has had no formal, voting role in setting, I agree with that. Labour’s current policy on this makes no sense.

For what it is worth, senior members of that dreaded EU nomenklatura whom I know well, never expected the UK to want a Customs Union with the EU post exit, as it contradicts the logic of wanting to exit. Central expectations in the months after the referendum were that the UK wanted to go much further out of the EU orbit than Norway, Switzerland or even Turkey.

Our friends may have regretted that. They did not set out to prevent it. They merely repeatedly registered that if you are not prepared to accept any of the obligations of Single Market and Customs Union membership, you cannot expect to continue trading on similar terms to those enjoyed by members.

They were puzzled by plenty in Theresa May’s approach. As was I.

And they now find themselves abused heavily by London for having imagined that giving her the backstop deal she repeatedly said she wanted (and they did not) and would deliver a Parliamentary majority for, turns out, according to the new government’s orthodoxy, to have been a near criminal act on their part.

But in signalling that he wishes to be free to diverge far more, and go for a much ‘thinner’ less potentially constraining, Canadian style Free Trade Agreement, the Prime Minister must understand that absolutely nothing could do more to convince the EU that the backstop is essential.

If an alternative proposal to the backstop is ever to be accepted, it is therefore not unreasonable for the EU to insist that the UK needs to produce something with identical effect which would demonstrably be legally operational the day after any transition period ended. Not waffly professions of good faith saying that they need to trust us that something will turn up.

After years of evasions, the trivialisation of real problems and the refusal to acknowledge trade-offs, it is time to be serious.

There is still no sign of seriousness to date. The ministerial assertions that more progress has been made in recent weeks than for years are met with either bafflement or derision in key capitals. They are assumed to be about preventing key votes going wrong for the government before prorogation.

If we prove simply to be on the umpteenth iteration of the non solution that used to be called ‘maximum facilitation’, the EU will conclude that there is no serious intent to reach a ‘new deal’. There is merely an appetite to try and blame the EU for a breakdown as the cornerstone of of the Prime Minister’s election campaign by peddling something as viable which the government knows perfectly well isn’t.

In those circumstances the 27 will, I fear, be considerably more relaxed about ending with ‘no deal’ than this government imagines.

The government’s own unilateral tariff schedule decisions in the event of a ‘no deal’ Brexit have also made the EU’s life much more comfortable in the absence of an FTA. They need one appreciably less than us.

If, as many suspect, the real plan proves to be that we have an election campaign devoted to blaming an intransigent EU for a ‘no deal’ outcome, then please let us not harbour illusions that afterwards, were this government to be returned, normality could rapidly return. And that both sides would just amicably sit down and hammer out the Canada-EU style Free Trade Deal to which the Prime Minister aspires. Or that a plethora of legal sectoral mini deals would quietly be struck to lead, seamlessly, to the same result.

Not a chance in hell.

After exit, even the opening of any trade negotiation requires unanimity amongst the 27. The preconditions the 27 would set are already obvious and we would during the election campaign have heard repeatedly from the Prime Minister – indeed, we already have – that he would not accede to any of them. In which case, no trade negotiation will even commence.

This would not be a short-term phenomenon. Businesses would react accordingly. As I say, they have no choice.

On ‘mini deals’, the reality is, as UK officials have already long experienced, that the legislation the 27 put in place to govern economic relations with the UK after a disorderly exit has not even been up for consultation with us, let alone negotiated.

These are not ‘deals’. ‘Deals’ by definition require negotiation and compromises. These are faits accomplis, set solely in the interests of the 27 by the 27, in both their content and longevity. This is not the UK in any sense ‘taking back control’ but forfeiting it entirely. Campaign slogans are fine. But they are not a policy.

This EU legislation would not, to be clear, deliver economic armageddon to the UK. It is not in the EU’s interests to bring all trade to a halt, or make arrangements punitive. We do not, mercifully, live in the era of Napoleonic War blockades. But the arrangements, sector by sector, would fall very far short of what could be achieved even in a modestly ambitious FTA.

And for UK businesses, they will be uncertain, provisional, and open to adverse revision – solely by the other side, where the UK is not present. Faced with a more belligerent UK which has chosen to walk, the EU has every interest in keeping the pressure on by making these arrangements asymmetrical and highly suboptimal for UK interests.

And, let’s be clear: EU regulators across many sectors will press firms after a ‘no deal’ to comply with their requirements about location and ownership. The UK will – immediately – face tough choices about whether to counter that with reciprocation, which moves us away from a tradition of openness I hope we would maintain, or whether to remain open and risk losing substantially by sticking to our principles.

The EU will assuredly not hold back in a ‘no deal’ scenario, in forcing those issues.

But in doing so, it would of course further exacerbate the increasing tensions in EU-UK relations, and make it more likely that the current breach becomes a permanent rift within the West. Both sides of the Channel are in my view really far too blasé about that prospect.

The EU is wholly within its rights to defend its interests and the integrity of its legal order. As I say, it cannot be expected to change its principles and club rules for an exiting state. If we actively want to be a fairly distant ‘third country’ on sovereignty grounds we can scarcely complain that the EU applies to us what it applies to others in the same category.

But the EU’s relationship with the UK has geostrategic implications. This is no ordinary trade nerd process. And the almost wholly technocratic Article 50 process has led to persistent strategic myopia from the EU, not just confusion and incompetence from the UK.

If the Prime Minister is serious about a post-Brexit vision in which the UK concludes a multiplicity of bilateral free trade deals, both with all major trade blocs and with emerging markets, he knows as well as anyone that:

All these deals will take some years to negotiate. If they are to have any serious economic value for the UK, they will entail difficult compromises. Trade negotiations are not sentimental seminars full of economic liberals: and that applies just as much, if not more, to negotiations with the US, let alone China and India. No trade deal will ever be agreed by any of those partners, without delivering major economic dividends for them. I favour negotiating such deals post Brexit, but it is already long past time to be honest with the public about the dividends other superpowers will demand are put on the negotiating table.
Much more of our trade is, and will be for the foreseeable future, with our neighbouring bloc – notably in services, in which the UK is highly competitive and all cross-border trade liberalisation is immensely difficult, precisely because it inevitably impinges heavily on domestic regulatory sovereignty. We export more services to the EU than to our next eight markets put together, because, for all its many deficiencies, the EU has made more progress in liberalising services trade than any other bloc in the world. Those patterns can, should and will change over time. But not hugely more abruptly than they have while we were in the EU. My experience tells me that the Prime Minister will very soon discover, should he ever manage to start a trade negotiation with the EU, that in practice he wants vastly better market access in the EU on services than Canada (which does a small fraction of our volume of trade with the EU). As with his predecessor, red lines will fade inexorably to pale pink as reality bites. The sooner the public hears some honesty about the trade-offs, the less furious it will be when they emerge.
It consequently makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to have a lattice work of preferential deals which excludes the EU. If we do not want to live with WTO-only commitments with the US, Japan, Canada, Korea and others, that must apply also to the EU.
Any abrupt ‘no deal’ exit would constitute a genuinely major supply shock to the UK, and would oblige us to negotiate post exit from a position in which the negotiating baseline – which will be in operation in the real world of commerce – will be no preferential deal. The pressure of the ticking clock will therefore be on the UK: precisely the same trap into which Theresa May fell so spectacularly on Article 50. Any government minister who believes the EU would not exploit that leverage to force better terms has clearly not been paying attention for the last three years. Any minister who believes that ‘no deal’ improves the UK’s negotiating leverage for the next, crucial, phase, does not understand trade negotiations.
The EU knows all of this too. Which is why the briefings that the EU is rattled because it knows it finally faces someone with the cojones to walk away is fine for domestic press consumption but gets more of a shrug outside the UK. Sure: the EU believes the risk of a ‘disorderly Brexit’ has risen even further in recent weeks. Most see it as a majority chance. Some as a near certainty.

But the mistake I am afraid the Prime Minister is making is to believe that, because they believe that, he is likely to get some materially different and better deal than his predecessor. My instinct is that they conclude from recent events that his primary objective is to win an election by reunifying the right and squeezing the Brexit party.

In which case, delivering a ‘no deal’ Brexit, or committing unequivocally to it in an election manifesto and trying to keep the Remain side of British politics split for that election will be the Prime Minister’s aim, regardless of the revisions the EU offers him on the Political Declaration or examining the alternative arrangements to the backstop. Indeed anything offered to the Prime Minister would have to be loudly declared insufficient and an indication of EU intransigence, or the strategy does not work. If that is one’s analysis, then one of course politely expresses enormous interest in urgently seeing new concrete legal ideas in print from the UK, but one does not hold one’s breath.

That EU politeness is of course being oversold here pre-prorogation as indicating new openness to non-backstop solutions. ‘Do not damage my hand, just as my tough new approach is making progress’. It is appreciably more likely that it is a careful blame avoidance strategy from the EU.

Both sides now have just one final chance in the coming weeks to draw back from the brink, and not reconcile themselves to this now being simply a blame, or blame avoidance, game. Seen from my seat it looks most improbable that they will. It will require courage, creativity and compromise. And the political market for those may be exhausted by both sides.

But if we do lurch to ‘no deal’ it will not, I am afraid, be some easy rapid patching up of reasonably amicable relations after an election, and smooth progress towards a fairly ambitious free trading and security relationship.

It will much more likely be a fractious, potentially quite seriously conflicting relationship, in which, for years, not months, the UK lives on much worse trading terms with the EU than most of the developed world. Trading terms which will depend overwhelmingly on decisions taken in rooms where no Brit is present. In which trading tensions will inevitably spill over into other areas of cooperation, of which there ought, at this time, to be legions, because the appetite will wither on both sides. This is bad for all.

Former colleagues on both sides of the Channel talk with some foreboding of a potentially lengthy deep freeze in cross-Channel relations as these tensions mount and the incentives to cooperate diminish.

Real political leadership – on all sides – involves weighing up very soberly where alternative paths are likely to end, and then communicating to the public why both your destination and your route to it are in the public’s best interests.


https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/09/i ... al-brexit/

[Mellsblue]

Which is fine as an observation save I'd think you've already fallen off the edge if you're equating prorugation with MPs voting for a recess and equating the actions of Bercow with Boris. Brexit continues to divide in opinion, even between those who're financially conservative and socially liberal(ish), and fail to conquer, and I can only see it getting worse

I’m not equating them. I’ve said all along they’re both terrible but with Boris's being worse. You’re the one defending Bercow for breaking convention/the constitution and ignoring the parliamentary clerks. Which is mad before you even get the fact he’s not even pretending to be neutral and is being kept in office despite serious HR allegations against him. All solely because he is a Remainer. I’ve also said that in reality the timing of the prorogation is not radically different to having a recess at this time. I’ve not mentioned the avenues towards bring either in to being. You’ve made that leap.
If I have have fallen off the edge, with a bit of luck, you’ll cushion my landing.

saying something is 90% the same has the ring of equating something

I'd take the point I went of the edge a while ago

And yes I do take a very different view on Bercow, who btw when he broke with tradition did include in the options being brought forward to the house some strong hard Brexit options alongside the pro deal, and anti no deal options. wanting to empower and listen to the house isn't the same as closing it down in the hope you can ignore them

The 90% was in the actually reality of the situation at this time of year - rather than the procedure to reach both and the rules once in place - and, in part, driven by cries such that we are in the midst of a coup. I do take your point, though. Should’ve gone 89.9%

Do you think there will be RR where we land.

I’m not really bothered about the motivations for why conventions are being broken and the constitution being stretched. I’m worried about precedent being set for those who may follow. Despite all the self-flagellation we live in benign times. That won’t always last and these precedents suddenly become very dangerous. Despite thinking he’s a prat and a narcissist, I have a lot of respect for Bercow’s move towards giving parliament more voice. I have chaired numerous political committees and always try to allow as much debate as members desire. Despite the drivel we spout on here, I believe debate is healthy and the best way to a good outcome. Orduuuuuur. Orduuuuuuur.

[Digby]

I'd go closer to 9% in similarity.