Skip to main content

A Hard Date for a Hard Brexit

Theresa May has affirmed that the UK will be leaving the EU at 11pm UTC on the Friday 29th March 2019, and this will be enshrined into law.

This sounds very strong, but actually it's another unforced error by a UK government out of its depth. So far the government have gotten away with its incompetence because the effects of their folly haven't become apparent yet, and won't until Saturday 30th March 2019. This gives a whole weekend of Brexit euphoria, before things start to go wrong on April Fools day 2019.

These tough-sounding red lines are designed for two audiences. Firstly, Brexiters are getting jittery and need reassurance. They want out before EU directive 2016/1164 on tax avoidance comes into force. Secondly, Britain is playing a high-stakes game of bluff with the EU, whereby if the UK sounds serious, the EU may be forced into concessions. Unfortunately the EU is too big to be bullied, and this is a strategic blunder.

The biggest problem with this date is that cutting off your options is a really bad idea, especially if the UK isn't ready to leave. Secondly, a transitional period must in practise involve an extension to EU membership, as the time to draw up alternatives is running out fast. Law making takes time, and if the UK has days left before a hard Brexit, there's not enough time to amend the necessary legislation.

All this makes a no deal Brexit much more likely.  Britain can of course manage outside of the EU in the long run, but the transition must be managed delicately and be prepared for properly. So far the UK has shown nothing of this. So without any infrastructure in place, no IT systems, agreements, departments or procedures in place, we are suddenly expecting everything to be fine. It won't be.

One of two things will happen. Either the UK will yield to the EU demands, and remain under the ECJ and all EU law for a while longer, or the UK will crash out. Let's be completely clear. Brexiters will try to blame the ensuing chaos on the EU, but the EU has so far been generous and magnanimous, and remember it's the UK that's leaving. The blame lies entirely with Theresa May and Brexiters pursuing an unnecessary, unrealistic and hard Brexit. They committed the ultimate mistake of believing their own hubris.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Can information theory prove the existence of God?

I recently came across this website by Perry Marshall, which makes a really interesting proof of the existence of God. The argument is basically that DNA constitutes information (a code), yet all information that we know of is the product of a mind. Randomness cannot create information. Therefore, God exists. Lovely argument. Now let's pick some holes. 1) My first observation is that this argument is almost exactly the same as entropy. The argument is that DNA is a low entropy state. Yet randomness always increases entropy. Therefore DNA cannot be the product of random processes, therefore it must be the work of God (or Maxwell's Demon). However this argument is invalid because localised decreases in entropy are perfectly possible, and expected, even though the entropy of the system as a whole increases. Considering that the site claims to make use of information theory, it presumably is aware of information entropy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_entropy It fo...

Breaking the Article 50 Impasse

Andrew Tyrie overestimates the UK's control over when the UK government can invoke Article 50. As with much of the Brexit debate, hope and aspiration trump cold hard reality. The next few months will see a lot of work by the UK government setting up new departments and policy positions relating to the triggering of Article 50 and Britain's exit from the EU. This is a sensible and necessary delay. However this article by The Independent makes the case that the UK should delay invoking Article 50 until we establish an informal agreement with the EU on our exit terms. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-theresa-may-andrew-tyrie-must-manage-unrealistic-expectations-warns-tory-mp-a7220681.html This is very desirable from the UK's perspective, but flatly contradicts statements by the EU (including direct statements by Jean-Claude Juncker, Donald Tusk and Cecilia Malmström, as well as official EU policy) that no talks can happen prior to invoking Article 50...

Identity is taking over politics

Mark Lilla writes in the New Statesman ( September 2017 ) that the "Left", i.e. the US Democratic Party, social justice and anti-facism movements, lost the US election due to being side-tracked by gender and race issues. Enough of the electorate weren't buying it and Trump won. In hindsight attacking a large proportion of the electorate based on their gender and race is never a good idea, no matter which race or gender you are talking about. No, it's not acceptable to denigrate men or white people either. Trump of course did the same, by attacking foreigners, Mexicans, Muslims and women, but he got away with it due to media bias and partisan politics. At home, Peter North, a prominent pro-Brexit blogger, tweeted about "self determination". This immediately raised the issue of what is "self", and lo and behold we are back to identity again. If we all feel European, then being governed by the EU is indeed self-determination, and let's not ki...