Tag: Northern Ireland

I’m seriously confused (Danni, US) Brexit is the process of the UK leaving the EU, which it narrowly voted in favour of in a referendum in June 2016. The process is governed by article 50 of the EU’s Treaty of Lisbon and is happening in two stages: first, the two sides negotiate their divorce deal (the “withdrawal agreement”), and after this they will sort out their future trading relationship. In theory, the post-Brexit trading arrangements between the EU and the UK will avoid a “hard” border, but they could take years to negotiate so the EU has insisted on a “backstop” guaranteeing the absence of a hard border until those arrangements are in place. The backstop leaves the whole of the UK in a customs union with the EU “unless and until” the EU agrees it can leave. Brexiters do not like this at all. This now looks quite likely, but it may only last for a few months because a new European parliament is sworn in in July and EU rules require all member states to be represented – a problem if the UK is still a member. Why does Jeremy Corbyn think he can negotiate a different or better deal with the EU than Theresa May? Other than that, hardly any of the 68 trade deals from which the UK benefits as an EU member, and which it said it would have replicated by the time of departure, are near, and none will be ready by 29 March, according to the FT. Brexiters talk about “trading on WTO terms” as if it is what the world does, but it does not: it may trade under WTO rules, but all 164 members of the WTO have also agreed bilateral or regional trade deals that allow them to trade on much better terms than the WTO baselines. No sensible nation would leave the world’s largest single market, the EU, to trade with it on WTO terms, as would happen in the event of no deal. (Remo Casale, New Zealand; Georg Beck, Germany) In order: By the British government softening its red lines to allow it to arrive at a form of Brexit that is acceptable to both the EU27 and the UK parliament – something it should have done a long time ago – or, possibly, by holding a second referendum.

Likely support in Commons: little more than the 202 seen on Tuesday if May secures no real changes. Quick guide Brexit and backstops: an explainer A backstop is required to ensure there is no hard border in Ireland if a comprehensive free trade deal cannot be signed before the end of 2020. As a result, the EU insists on having its own backstop - the backstop to the backstop - which would mean Northern Ireland would remain in the single market and customs union in the absence of a free trade deal, prompting fierce objections from Conservative hard Brexiters and the DUP, which props up her government. Under the plan the UK would have to join Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland in the European Free Trade Association (Efta), which would then allow it to participate in the European Economic Area (EEA). The ‘plus’ in this option refers to a temporary customs union with the EU, which would need to be negotiated to avoid a hard border ion the island of Ireland. The temporary arrangement would remain in place until the EU and UK agreed a specific trade deal. Labour, the main proponent of the idea, says it would help businesses with supply chains and solve the Irish border issue. May argues that it goes against the referendum result as it would preclude the UK signing its own trade deals. Likely support in Commons: most of Labour’s 256 MPs would back this in a whipped vote. What is a customs union and why does it matter?

Here’s your no-frills primer to what’s going on in Brexit – and what might happen next. Two-and-a-half years and a fraught series of negotiations after the UK voted to leave the EU, the two parties finally managed to sign their two-part divorce deal late last year. In theory, this whole package must now be approved by the British parliament so the necessary legislation can be passed to allow the UK to formally leave the EU as planned at the end of the two-year article 50 exit process on 29 March. So why isn’t it? Essentially because the withdrawal agreement – and particularly the backstop, which will come into force if the detailed terms of the future trading relationship do not manage to avoid that hard Irish border – does not have a majority in parliament. MPs in favour of Brexit fear it could leave Britain a perpetual Brussels “rule-taker”, potentially trapped in the EU’s regulatory orbit for ever. Those opposed to Brexit say the deal risks leaving the country economically weakened, with no say in EU rule-making, and worse off all round than staying in the EU. The Ulster unionists of the Democratic Unionist party, on whom the government relies for its majority, also object, leaving the government facing a crushing defeat in the House of Commons. For this reason, Theresa May, the prime minister, pulled the Commons vote on the agreement that was planned before Christmas, rescheduling it for 15 January in hopes she could persuade the EU to come up with concessions or guarantees that would win her opponents (or enough of them) over. The problem is that while there is no clear majority for May’s deal, there is no clear majority for anything else either: not for a second referendum, nor a fresh election (Labour’s objective), or no deal (which almost all economist and business groups say would be a catastrophe), or a mooted “Norway-plus”, single-market style deal.

Theresa May’s room for manoeuvre should her Brexit deal be rejected next week was further constrained on Wednesday night, after the government lost a second dramatic parliamentary showdown in as many days. An increasingly boxed-in prime minister must now set out her plan B within three working days of a defeat next Tuesday, after the rebel amendment passed. There were furious scenes in the House of Commons as the Speaker, John Bercow, took the controversial decision to allow a vote on the amendment, tabled by the former attorney general Dominic Grieve. The motion setting out the government’s plan can be amended by MPs hoping to push their own alternative proposals, from a second referendum to a harder Brexit. He told MPs: “There is a question of the extension of article 50, which may well be inevitable now, given the position that we are in, but of course we can only seek it, because the other 27 [EU members] have to agree.” Quick guide Why extend the Brexit transition period? But it also, after an intervention by the Democratic Unionist party, committed the UK (not the EU) not to have any trading differences between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. The new EU idea is to extend the transition period to allow time to get to option A or B. The Irish and the EU will also still need the backstop in the withdrawal agreement, which must be signed before the business of the trade deal can get under way. Otherwise it is a no-deal Brexit. Mann was among a group of Labour MPs who met the prime minister on Wednesday to discuss what changes she could make to win their support for her deal, with other attendees including Stoke Central MP Gareth Snell.

The embattled prime minister had pinned her hopes on a last-ditch effort to persuade the European Union to work with her in devising a legal guarantee, known as a “joint interpretative instrument”, that she believes could get her Brexit deal through parliament. Following an address by May before a dinner, and subsequent discussions among the 27 member states, the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, suggested it was difficult to imagine any deal getting through parliament at the moment, and that it was not up to the EU to satisfy the demands of rebellious MPs. Juncker said: “Our UK friends need to say what they want, rather than asking what we want. Read more Deliberately avoiding the confrontational approach demanded by her hard Brexit critics, May had appealed to her EU counterparts to work with her in revising the Brexit deal. But Juncker said that he could not understand the mindset of British MPs, and indicated an unwillingness to bend to the Commons, setting up a nervous few weeks for Downing Street. The prime minister still hopes to begin a short, intense period of final negotiations with EU officials following the Brussels summit, leading to an additional guarantee that No 10 insists must have legal weight. The UK had hoped to set a year as a target for getting out of the backstop by negotiating a free trade deal or an alternative arrangement for avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland. That prompted hostile Conservative MPs to table a motion of no confidence in her as party leadership, which she saw off on Wednesday by 200 to 117. If it comes into force, the UK would remain in a customs union with the EU. And for the #eu also there will be no third country more important than the #uk.

Ministers have released a summary of the Brexit legal advice, which spells out that the Northern Ireland backstop will continue indefinitely “unless and until” the UK and the EU are able to agree alternative customs arrangements. Brexit legal advice and threat of contempt of parliament – explainer Read more The document, which falls short of the full legal advice demanded by the Commons last month, is likely to provoke a row in parliament. Cabinet sources have repeatedly said that the full legal advice contains stark warnings about the backstop that are not included in the summary. Over the weekend it emerged that Geoffrey Cox, the attorney general, had written to cabinet ministers warning: “The [backstop] protocol would endure indefinitely.” On Monday afternoon he will give a statement to MPs and take questions about the controversial backstop and whether the UK can get out of it easily. The summary document says that the backstop will continue to apply “unless and until its provisions are superseded by a subsequent agreement between the UK and the EU establishing alternative arrangements”. The entire treaty, meanwhile, “does not contain any provision on its termination,” the official document says, meaning that “it is not possible under international law for a party to withdraw from the Agreement unilaterally.” Labour and the DUP have both threatened to complain to the Speaker of the Commons that ministers are in contempt of parliament for failing to release the full legal advice, after the government was defeated in a vote on 13 November, where MPs successfully demanded to see the whole legal advice. Labour is expected to push for the government to be found in contempt of parliament if that is not published by Monday night. Exiting the backstop would be by mutual agreement between the UK and the EU, via a joint committee made up of equal number of representatives of both sides. If the committee cannot agree, the matter would be referred to a five-strong arbitration panel with five members, two from each side and an independent member. That panel would consider if either sides had acted “in good faith” in refusing to agree an end to the backstop – but adds that it would be difficult to prove the contrary.

The UK is “indefinitely committed” to the Irish backstop if it comes into force, the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, has told MPs as he explained to them the legal advice he gave the government on the planned Brexit deal. “There is no point in my trying or the government trying to disguise that fact.” Cox said that the main calculation was the “political imperative” of either entering into the agreement or not. He dismissed suggestions that no other similar treaty existed that would endure so permanently. “There are hundreds throughout the world ... The whole Vienna convention has entire sections on permanent treaties,” he said. But Cox told MPs there was no legal basis in article 50 for the backstop to be permanent and it would be “vulnerable to legal challenge” if it ever came to pass that Northern Ireland remained in both the EU and the UK. In his statement, Cox urged MPs to have patience, saying that untangling 45 years of entangled legal arrangements “will take time to work out”. “The divorce and separation of nations from long and intimate unions, just as of human beings, stirs high emotions and calls for wisdom and forbearance,” he said. He said: “This is not a question of the lawfulness of the government’s action, but of the prudence as a matter of policy and political judgment of entering into an international agreement on the terms proposed.” Responding to demands that the government should publish the advice in full, Cox said that he was offering MPs more than just the text of the legal advice, saying he was giving “a full frank and through opportunity” for him to give his direct legal opinion on MPs’ questions. Ministers earlier released a summary of the advice, which spelled out that the backstop would continue indefinitely “unless and until” the UK and the EU were able to agree alternative customs arrangements.

The Democratic Unionist party (DUP) has rejected any regulatory divergence between Northern Ireland and Britain in the Brexit deal, but there is already some divergence – and it will help keep the lights on, and the food safe, at the party’s annual conference on Saturday. Northern Ireland gets its electricity and trades its livestock in ways which distinguish it from mainland Britain and which have nothing to do with Brexit. Hard, soft or no Brexit, Britain must begin to heal its wounds | Martin Kettle Read more Northern Ireland is part of a single electricity market with the Republic of Ireland, it applies extensive checks on livestock coming from Britain and has distinct rules on the transport of hazardous waste – pragmatic, uncontroversial measures which are not deemed threats to Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom. However, DUP leaders who gather in Belfast for the party’s conference will thunder anew against different rules for Northern Ireland and Britain envisaged in the Brexit deal, branding them an existential threat to the union and therefore reason for the party to issue its own threat to pull the plug on Theresa May’s government. The former foreign secretary Boris Johnson is expected to amplify that warning in an address to about 600 party faithful. Sammy Wilson, one of 10 DUP MPs who shore up the Westminster government under a fraying confidence and supply agreement, branded the leaders of the business and farming groups as “puppets” of Downing Street. “If you see divergence between GB and Northern Ireland, it would only be in those areas where it would make sense for Northern Ireland to be aligned with the EU,” she said. “It won’t be the case that a whole raft of EU law is dumped on Northern Ireland. “There cannot be a border down the Irish Sea, a differential between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK,” the party leader, Arlene Foster, told the BBC last month. Blanket opposition to any new regulatory divergence has shredded the DUP’s relationship with May, endangered its pact with her government and alienated traditional business and farming allies.

A leaked 26-page political declaration, to be approved by EU leaders at a Brexit summit on Sunday, paints a picture of the future relationship that differs substantially from the proposals made by the prime minister at Chequers in the summer. Brexit: leaked political declaration in full Read more May is expected to give a statement on the declaration to the House of Commons on Thursday. The UK has accepted in the withdrawal agreement, approved by both sides, that the country will stay in a customs union with the EU, should a trade deal that can avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland not be ready by the end of the transition period. The text reiterates the longstanding EU red line that British access to European markets will only be offered on the basis of “open and fair competition”. Theresa May has proposed to the EU that the whole of the UK would remain in the customs union after Brexit, but Brussels has said it needs more time to evaluate the proposal. As a result, the EU insists on having its own backstop - the backstop to the backstop - which would mean Northern Ireland would remain in the single market and customs union in the absence of a free trade deal, prompting fierce objections from Conservative hard Brexiters and the DUP, which props up her government. That prompted May to propose a country-wide alternative in which the whole of the UK would remain in parts of the customs union after Brexit. What it does guarantee is the UK would be stuck as a vassal state accepting EU laws and trade policy unless the EU decides to release us.” The document is otherwise littered with vague aspirational language which fail to secure commitments from the EU on key British demands. In her statement in Downing Street, May expressed confidence that the issue could be solved, saying: “Last night I spoke to the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, and I am confident that on Sunday we’ll be able to agree a deal that delivers for the whole UK family, including Gibraltar.” No 10 feels that the text of the political declaration has improved considerably in the last few days, and is particularly satisfied with the language on “alternative arrangements”. The document further commits both sides to coming to an agreement six months before the end of the 21-month transition period after Brexit on a fisheries deal on “access to waters and quota shares”.

Sammy Wilson, the party’s Brexit spokesman, said the government had not stuck to its promise that Northern Ireland would not be treated differently from the rest of the UK in the Brexit withdrawal agreement. “Since the government has not honoured its side of the bargain we tonight tried to spell out some of the consequences of that,” Wilson told the BBC. Brexit weekly briefing: May digs in after week of turmoil Read more The DUP, whose 10 votes May relies on for a majority in parliament, abstained or backed Labour in a series of votes on the budget. The DUP’s fury about the prime minister’s Brexit deal, and its decision to withhold support from the finance bill raised doubts about the future of the confidence and supply arrangement on which May’s ability to secure a majority is based. Wilson, said the government had reneged on its promises, and “consequences were inevitable”. Consequences were inevitable. With Brexit only a few months away, something has got to give.” DUP sources suggested the decision to withhold their support was a shot across the bows of the government, rather than a signal that the confidence and supply deal was in abeyance. But, without the DUP’s support, May would find passing any contentious legislation in the coming weeks impossible, and the gesture underlined the depth of the party’s frustrations about the outcome of the Brexit negotiations. The government had to cave in on the issue of cutting the stakes for addictive fixed-odds betting machines, which prompted the resignation of the sports minister Tracey Crouch, after the threat of a backbench revolt on the finance bill. Jenrick’s concession, made during the debate, came after a cross-party amendment tabled by Labour’s Chuka Umunna and the Conservative Anna Soubry, secured the backing of 11 Conservative MPs – more than enough to wipe out May’s majority, even without DUP backing.