UK Brexit Crisis - now on to next steps

So, the Tory split over Brexit is beginning to resemble the GOP's in the House over budgets:

"As Johnson’s resignation was announced, Labour MPs were being briefed about the government’s soft Brexit plan by May’s de facto deputy, David Lidington, in a sign that Downing Street is beginning to accept that it will need to draw on cross-party support to get her plans through parliament, without the backing of hardline Brexiters…Jacob Rees-Mogg, chair of the pro-Brexit European Research Group of Tory MPs, said it was of 'grave concern,' that the government had briefed Labour. 'If they plan to get this deal through on the back of Labour votes, that would be the most divisive thing that they can do.'”  link

It's possible there will be a no-confidence vote soon, pushed by the extreme Brexiters among the Tories--a rare move by a faction to bring down its own party's government.  May already is warning that if the government falls there will have to be an election, and "that divided parties lose elections.  'f we don’t pull together, we risk the election of Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister,'one cabinet minister said, summarising what was said at the meeting."  Indeed.  Labour made huge gains in the recent election, and will be only too happy to see this Conservative minority government collapse.

The EU side is reacting with studied nonchalance, seasoned by a whiff of Schadenfreude:  "A senior Brussels source insisted they were unruffled by Davis’s resignation, dismissing it as 'UK politics' 'Let’s see how it goes. We negotiate with the negotiators,' he said...The European council’s chair, Donald Tusk, tweeted: 'Politicians come and go but the problems they have created for people remain. I can only regret that the idea of #Brexit has not left with Davis and Johnson. But … who knows?'” Note the Trumpian ending there.

For those who love how the Brits show off their oratorical skills, honed at Oxbridge debate societies, the exchange between Johnson and May is outstanding.  Johnson wrote: "On Friday I acknowledged that my side of the argument were too few to prevail, and congratulated you on at least reaching a cabinet decision on the way forward. As I said then, the government now has a song to sing. The trouble is that I have practised the words over the weekend and find that they stick in the throat."  May replied:  "Thank you for your letter relinquishing the office of secretary of state for foreign and Commonwealth affairs. I am sorry – and a little surprised – to receive it after the productive discussions we had at Chequers on Friday, and the comprehensive and detailed proposal which we agreed as a cabinet... As we developed our policy on Brexit, I have allowed cabinet colleagues considerable latitude to express their individual views. But the agreement we reached on Friday marks the point where that is no longer the case, and if you are not able to provide the support we need to secure this deal in the interests of the United Kingdom, it is right that you should step down."  link

Good observation, GB.  In fact, Johnson, Farage, et al. were so surprised to have won that they inadvertently let slip that they actually had no idea what would come next.  It was predictable all along that this would turn out to be extremely difficult to manage in a way that did not hurt the UK economy and/or result in the UK largely stuck with EU rules over which it had no say.  Indeed, the No side was saying it all along.  The whole referendum was dreamed up by Cameron and his cronies as a way to shut up the anti-EU faction in the House that was making it hard for them to govern.  Now governing has gotten much harder, and instead of lancing a boil the referendum has caused the infection to metastasize.  

If the UK "crashes out" of the EU without a negotiated deal the costs will be high:

"Higher charges on international credit card payments. Extra taxes on parcels from Europe. More red tape for hospitals that import blood or organs for transplant.  These are some of the potential consequences the United Kingdom will face if it crashes out of the European Union without a deal on trade, according to notices published Thursday by the UK government...Companies have been asking for guidance from the government since Britain voted to leave the European Union in June 2016...The 24 documents published by the UK government cover areas including banking, medicine, farm subsidies, organic food production, nuclear power and science research funding.

"In many cases, the government warned that businesses would face more red tape and higher costs.  UK customs officials have estimated that filing new trade declarations would cost businesses up to £20 billion ($26 billion) per year. The British pound took a hit after the documents were published, falling 0.75% against the dollar to $1.28. Around 50 more notices will be published before the end of September."  link

Johnson and Farage insisted that Brexit would be not only cost-free, but a money-maker for the UK.  This was economic nonsense, and the May Government now is being forced to bit the bullet on just how costly this move will be. And of course, she actually opposed Brexit in the first place.  The EU actually is proving itself quite resilient these days.  Italy's new "populist" government just tried to circumvent the 2 percent of GDP the rules allow for annual budget deficits by adopting a plan with a 2.4 percent deficit.  Yesterday they backed down in the face of EU insistence.  Apparently, the idea that the Brussels "bureaucrats" could be bullied by elected parliaments with anti-EU majorities was wrong; Germany and France back the Bureaucrats, and everyone else has no option but to follow their lead.

Sebastian Mallaby lays out the problem and the options:

"In 2016, the expectation of chaos was ridiculed by the Brexit gang that won the referendum. To cite four leading Brexiters who later held cabinet positions: Britain would 'hold all the cards' in negotiations with the European Union; it could 'have our cake and eat it'; a replacement trade deal with the E.U. would yield 'the exact same benefits'; and the bargaining would be 'the easiest in human history.' Once Britain freed itself from the shackles of the E.U., it would conclude wonderful new trade deals of its own and rapidly emerge as the Singapore of Europe.

"Now the government has published a draft exit treaty. It is as long as a Dickens novel and far more confusing. The most controversial portion concerns the Irish 'backstop,' which would kick in at the end of a transition period unless Britain managed to negotiate an unexpectedly deep trade deal with Europe. To avoid a destabilizing hard border between Northern Ireland and the independent Republic of Ireland, the backstop provides that the North would live by Europe’s rules on food products and goods standards, even though the United Kingdom would have lost all influence over those rules’ content.

"Meanwhile, to minimize trade barriers between the North and mainland Britain, the mainland would remain within the E.U. Customs Union. This would prevent it from negotiating its own separate free-trade deals; so much for the vision of Britain as Singapore. What’s more, Britain would not be allowed to shake off this restraint without the E.U.’s approval, and the European Court of Justice would adjudicate customs disputes. So much for the Brexiters’ promise of enhanced British sovereignty.

"Whether or not it gets a new leader, the Conservative Party faces four options. The first is to push the prime minister’s deal through Parliament, but for now it seems to lack the votes for that. The second is to try to break the logjam by calling an election, but this would pose a risk that the Labour Party, now firmly rooted on the far left, would take power, so the Conservatives are unlikely to go there. The third option is to leave the E.U. without a deal. But this would risk such chaos — empty shelves in supermarkets, 20-mile traffic jams at new border checks — that most Conservatives won’t want that, either...

"The fourth option is a new referendum. This would be cumbersome to organize and uncertain in its outcome, but at least it might deliver a sense of closure for the nation. The parliamentary process has generated a compromise that is pleasing to no one. If it is implemented, Brexiters will spin a myth that they were betrayed by bureaucrats and Eurocrats and the establishment writ large: Their populism will grow even more poisonous. A second vote would give the Leave camp an opportunity to vote for a cleaner break with the E.U., even if it came at the expense of Ireland. It would also give Remainers a chance to make the argument for solving the whole Brexit problem by staying in the E.U. Then the nightmare would be over."  link

Clearly, Brexit has not met the Brexiteers' expectations because those were foolishly naïve.  Now the country is confronted with the reality of what is likely rather than a wish-fulfillment dream.  It's hard to imagine that this really can end without another referendum, this time giving voters a choice between accepting Brexit as negotiated or staying in the EU.  The odds are that they'd vote to reverse the previous referendum, which would be a very good thing--and which likely would end the UK's history of being a pretty bad EU member because it no longer would have to worry about placating the Boris Johnsons.

The British Parliament votes on the Brexit agreement in the coming week, and there's general agreement it will lose.  The only question is how badly.  May's been warning MPs that this is the best deal they can get with the EU, other than some cosmetic changes they can toss in to help May save face (Lithuania's President says, “Usually there are some — I can joke — tricks. We promise to promise.”).  But there is nothing in the way of a substantive change the EU is going to offer.  link

Of course, Boris Johnson--Britain's Donald Trump--who famously and incorrectly assured voters in the referendum campaign that they literally could have their cake and eat it, and that it all would be very easy and smooth, now insists that if only Her Majesty's Government show "a bit of gumption" by threatening to crash out of the EU without an agreement they'll have more leverage to force through major changes.  The reaction on the Continent:  "Europeans have gone slackjawed at London’s political chaos, with normally demure diplomats comparing the process there to a slow-motion car wreck...E.U. negotiators say the British are badly deluded and that their own business leaders actually fear a no-deal Brexit less than concessions that could give British businesses advantages in the vast E.U. market without the obligations of E.U. regulations and taxes."  Exactly!  Johnson's understanding of trade seems to be just as primitive as Trump's; no wonder both visibly stumble from crisis to crisis.

So, both sides now are girding for an outcome neither actually wants.  "On the E.U. side, preparations have accelerated in recent weeks, as the depth of the British chaos becomes clearer, according to diplomats involved in the discussions. And on Friday, the British government warned of border disruptions for up to six months if the United Kingdom crashes out of the E.U.  Within a matter of days, the E.U. and Britain could impose measures to allow planes to keep flying, medicine and food to continue flowing into the United Kingdom, and British citizens living in Europe to remain there. But any plans will be temporary, analysts say, leaving deep uncertainty."

The whole thing is insane. And to think it all started out as a ploy by David Cameron to save his hold on No. 10 by promising the anti-EU faction of his party a referendum on membership...only to lose it.

Matt O'Brien of the WP gives the clearest explanation of what's really happening:


Even if you’re not a fan of British humor, it’s hard not to laugh a little at Brexit.  Sure, there have been bigger disasters in history, but it’s rare to find dumber ones. The whole idea, after all, behind Britain leaving the free-trade zone that is the European Union was for it to “take back control” from the bureaucrats in Brussels so that it could … make its own free-trade deal with the European Union? Well, that and keep immigrants out.

The problem, though, is that the E.U. links the free movement of goods to the free movement of people. It won’t give you one without the other. So the only way Brexit wouldn’t be a worse deal than the one Britain already has would be if the deal wasn’t really Brexit in any meaningful sense of the word. Which is to say if it was just a fig leaf that kept Britain’s current relationship with the E.U. more or less intact while giving it a new name. But then what would the point of all this be? Well, that’s the joke. (I told you, it’s British humor.)

Now, in case all of this wasn’t already absurd enough, there’s another layer to it: Northern Ireland. It’s the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with an E.U. country, and the fact that you can’t tell that — there are no checkpoints or barriers between the two — is one of the great achievements of the peace process of the past 25 years. Why does that matter? Well, a “hard” Brexit that pulled Britain out of the E.U.'s customs union would end all that. Everything that moved between Ireland and Northern Ireland would suddenly need to be inspected to make sure that it complied with the other’s different rules and regulations. Which, of course, is a nonstarter for the Northern Irish, whose votes British Prime Minister Theresa May needs to maintain her slim parliamentary majority.

So if economic pragmatism wasn’t enough of a reason to prefer a “soft” Brexit that changed very little, political expedience would seem to be more than one. And it has been. Indeed, the May government has agreed to what’s known as an “Irish backstop” that would keep all of Britain in the E.U.'s customs union for an indefinite period of time. The idea being that Northern Ireland needs to remain in to prevent a hard border from being set up between it and Ireland, and that the rest of the United Kingdom needs to then stay in as well to prevent an economic border from being set up between it and Northern Ireland. In the meantime, Britain and E.U. would work on hammering out a new deal that would supposedly resolve all of these contradictory issues — taking Britain out of the E.U.'s customs union without taking Northern Ireland either out of it or out of the United Kingdom’s customs union — at a later date.

The problem is that this compromise isn’t good enough for the biggest Brexit backers in May’s Conservative Party, who really believed that the only reason they couldn’t have their cake and eat it too was that Brussels wouldn’t let them. And so now it’s up to her to try to come up with a solution to a problem that doesn’t have one. The simple story is that a win for British sovereignty — a hard Brexit — would be a loss not only for the British economy but also for Irish integration. And while they might be willing to make that first trade-off, that’s not the case for the second.

Which is why it wouldn’t be surprising if all this ended the most fitting way possible: with another vote that gives them a chance to pretend that none of this ever happened.

www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/12/10/brexit-looks-more-more-like-bad-joke/?utm_term=.21a91883548d

One way to think about this is through US history.  Essentially, the Constitution created a customs union among the states, a common market, right in Article I, Section 8, which gives Congress the power:  "To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;...To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures; To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;  To establish post offices and post roads;  To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."  And in Section 9:  "No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state.  No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one state over those of another: nor shall vessels bound to, or from, one state, be obliged to enter, clear or pay duties in another."  And Section in 10:  "No state shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection laws: and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any state on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress."

Post-World War II Europe recognized that the huge common market of the United States gave our country an extraordinary advantage in the modern economy by allowing for an efficient movement of the principal factors of production (goods and services, capital, and labor) across state boundaries without tolls, customs checks, passports, etc.  Americans take this for granted, but under the Articles of Confederation states did put up trade and other economic barriers against each other, one of the reasons why the Framers scrapped rather than amended the Articles, as they had been called to do.  Europe has had a harder time accomplishing this because of its long history of "blood and soil" nationalism, but the architects of the EU ultimately had in mind a United States of Europe that would look a lot like the United States of America.  In a sense, the EU is an homage to the US.  No wonder some Brits--mainly in England--don't like it.

"Lawmakers in Britain’s Conservative Party on Wednesday triggered a no-confidence vote against Prime Minister Theresa May, threatening her leadership as she struggles to secure a deal for Britain to leave the European Union.  May responded that she would not resign but would carry on with her vision for Brexit. She warned rebellious lawmakers that ousting her would not make getting a better Brexit deal any easier, but instead would bring delay and confusion.

“'I will contest that vote with everything I’ve got,' said May, speaking outside her Downing Street residence. 'I stand ready to finish the job.'  The no-confidence vote involves only Conservative Party lawmakers and not the entire Parliament. If she is toppled as party leader, replacing the prime minister could take weeks. Changing leaders now, May warned, would 'put our country's future at risk and create uncertainty when we can least afford it.'”  link

Even if May survives this revolt she's politically wounded just by the fact that the Tory backbenchers have forced this vote.  And it's possible that at some point soon her minority government will face a no-confidence vote of the whole Commons which could force a new election.  All this with just over 3 months left before Brexit is scheduled to take effect, with or without a UK-EU agreement.  What a mess!  This is the legacy of that posh toff David Cameron.  The idiot.

Theresa May is being urged to give her MPs free rein to vote for a second referendum, with a new group of ministers poised to back another public ballot on Brexit...Senior figures in the government are convinced that with no sign of the parliamentary stalemate being resolved, Tory MPs must be allowed a free vote in a series of ballots over different options – allowing ministers and backbenchers to support a second referendum as a way out.  Some ministers are planning to take matters into their own hands and back another public vote should the prime minister’s beleaguered Brexit deal be rejected. 'Once the deal has been voted down, there will be no clear government position and we will be freer,' said one."  link

The problem with May--well, a problem--is that she tends to be completely linear in her thinking.  The public voted for Brexit and the government has to deliver it, never mind that after 2 1/2 years of negotiations it's much clearer to officials and the party what the real costs of Brexit will be.  A more flexible politician would see that there's no majority for any of the alternatives in Parliament.  The sensible thing would be to whittle down the choices, then go back to the voters and have them choose between, say, the negotiated deal or no Brexit.  But instead she keeps digging in deeper saying the government has  “a democratic duty to deliver what the British people voted for...I have never lost sight of my duty and that is to deliver on the referendum result and to do so in a way that protects British jobs, keeps us safe and protects our precious union.”  This is just obtuse in light of the facts as they exist.

The reality is that the UK has been divided over membership in the EU from the very beginning.  So there really is no solution at all.  Former Tory chairman Chris Patten puts it this way:  “It would be nice to think that some kind of solution – a Norway option, another referendum, or May’s deal, or plunging out without a deal – would actually close the debate and the lion would lie down with the lamb, but I don’t see it happening.  It will go on and on and on.”  As it has for decades.  That's one reason why many EU governments are content to let them go, reducing the internal dramatics that distract the Union from it's bigger project of creating a more unified continent.

Labour members are significantly more opposed to Brexit than Jeremy Corbyn is, with 72% of them thinking their leader should fully support a second referendum, according to a study of attitudes in the party.  The polling, part of an ongoing wider academic study into attitudes in various parties, found that only 18% opposed Labour campaigning for a second referendum, while 88% would then opt for remain if such a vote was held...The findings 'increase the pressure on Labour’s leader to get off the fence', [the study's author] said. 'If Jeremy Corbyn genuinely believes, as he has repeatedly claimed, that the Labour party’s policy should reflect the wishes of its members rather than just its leaders, then he arguably has a funny way of showing it – at least when it comes to Brexit.'”  link

Most observers believe that Corbyn actually favors Brexit, but can't say so because most of his party's voters, and especially its dues-paying members, oppose it.  So he waffles.  Ultimately, it seems more likely than not that a second referendum will have to be called now that the actual conditions for Brexit are known.  Theresa May can't keep harping back to 2016 as if nothing's changed in the meantime.  And Corbyn can't hide behind a general election forever.

Parliament is now considering Brexit, taking preliminary votes in the lead-up to next Tuesday's vote on the EU-UK deal negotiated by the Government.  Yesterday they took a somewhat symbolic vote against a no-deal "crash-out" from the EU:  "British Prime Minister Theresa May suffered another setback to her Brexit withdrawal deal Tuesday as members of her own Conservative Party joined opposition Labour Party MPs in favor of a vote to curb the government's spending powers if Britain fails to secure an agreement deal on its departure from the European Union.  Parliamentary members voted 303 to 296 in favor of an amendment to the Finance Bill that will restrict May from amending taxes to cope with the consequences of crashing out of the European Union without an agreement."  link

More significant was today's controversial vote on the process for consideration of the Brexit bill; referred to as the "business motion" or the "rule" as we would call it in Congress:  "Theresa May will be obliged to present MPs with a new Brexit plan within three days if her current proposal is voted down next week, after a procedural amendment to the plan’s progress through the Commons was passed amid chaotic scenes.  The amendment to the business motion for the plan, drawn up by the Conservative former attorney general Dominic Grieve, gives May the deadline to put forward new plans if she loses the vote, as many expect, next Tuesday.  The amendment was passed by 308 votes to 297 following stormy scenes in which a series of Conservative MPs castigated the Speaker, John Bercow, for allowing the amendment."  link

What made the vote so controversial was that Speaker Bercow, a hard-right Conservative, accepted the amendment, even after the House's professional parliamentarians told him it was not in order, following long precedent.  He conceded as much to the MPs:  “I understand the importance of precedence but it does not completely bind.  If we were guided only by precedence nothing in our procedures would ever change.”  Bercow's being castigated across the party/ideological spectrum for this decision.  But the fact that it passed is another indicator that May is not likely to get a yes vote on the agreement six days from now. If that's the case, Labour sources have indicated Jeremy Corbyn will roll out a vote on no confidence in an effort to force a new election; barring that, there will be a push for a new referendum on Brexit.  What a mess!

This really feels analogous to our situation in the U.S.:

1) A misinformed (perhaps criminally misinformed) segment of the population votes for a disaster.
2) Sure enough, disaster looms
3) Reality sets in and votes swing the other way at the next election
4) Sets up a contest between older and newer electoral reality in which old reality attempts to cling fast to a crumbling facade.

In retrospect, the sins of the first election include widespread disinformation involving a hostile foreign power and a failure to recognize or take adversaries (both domestic and foreign) seriously enough.

On a deeper note, new vulnerabilities in campaign finance (Citizen's United) and election oversight (Voting Rights Act ended) in the U.S. and a willingness to look the other way on dubious Russian wealth inflows in the U.K. may have contributed as well.

There is a lot to fix if we wish to maintain our sovereignty.

May's government has suffered the worst defeat in nearly 100 years, with the Brexit agreement going down by 432 to 202.  That is much worse than had been expected just a few days ago.  On Wednesday there will be a vote of no confidence, after which who the hell knows what's going to happen.  What a mess!

May lost nearly 120 Tories on the vote, while only 3 Labour Members and 3 Independents voted for the Government's proposal.  That's more than 1/3 of her party's Members opposing her deal.  It's a remarkable defeat, but once more shows that this entire catastrophe is and always has been about the deep divisions with the Conservative Party over the country's relationship with Europe.  No one seems to have a clue where they go from here.

Context.
Yes, similarities between UK revolt of the deplorables against tyrannical govt. & US deplorables rejection of same. Establishment/deep state/uniparty....fights back against real democracy in both cases, exposing a number of hypocrites in both cases. If May were really trying to do the bidding of the people, instead of helping their swamp undermine Brexit, she would have been thrown out of office. Pretty good head-fake by her.
EU in toto is in very deep shit, with elections for their nobles coming up soon as France, Italy, and UK (at least) hang by a thread. German govt. close to instability too. Look past WP etc for real coverage of developing new French revolution.

Was Pelosi's junket to Brussels another move by deep state to undercut our President? She seems unconcerned about availability of security for 90 or so Trump haters going there as opposed to SOTU, LOL.

As usual, jon, you've got pretty much everything wrong, lol.  Neither the UK nor US governments are "tyrannical" by any metric, so the first premise is laughable.  I've been to countries with tyrannical governments, and if you think the US or UK are like them I think you need to get out more.

The real issue in the UK is that a clique of upper-class Oxbridgians with delusions of Imperial grandeur posed as "populists" as part of a power-struggle within the Tory Party, and once they'd won the referendum had no idea what to do, so allowed Theresa May to take on the thankless job of saving their party from complete collapse. 

As for the EU, it's worth noting that public support for it on the Continent has increased dramatically.  For example, this is from January 4:  "Danish support for EU membership has reached a three-decade high in the wake of Brexit.   According to a Kantar Gallup poll published on Friday by the Berlingske newspaper, 66 percent of Danes are in favor of membership. That’s up from 54 percent in 2016, which is the year the U.K. voted to leave the bloc in a referendum. Support for a Danish exit has fallen to 22 percent, from 29 percent in 2016."  link  No country is threatening to leave the EU other than the UK, although many members would like to jettison Hungary for its anti-Semitic government's erosion of democratic norms.  The "New French Revolution" peters out by more and more each Saturday.

The "junket to Brussels" reflects your "news" source, but it was just a crew stop on the return trip from Afghanistan.  You know, the country where US troops have been fighting since 2001.  Maybe you heard about that.  I guess it's a "junket" if you sit at the airport to some people who've never seen an airport before.