Are England & Wales Ready For A Hard Border With Scotland By 2023?

With Brexit madness in full flow the case for a hard border with Scotland by 2023 is also gathering momentum. Here's why...

Even amidst the corruption and lies in the Leave campaigns during the EU referendum of 2016, Scots still voted overwhelmingly in favour of Remain 62% to 38%. 

If Brexit proceeds, the UK government believes the British economy will under-perform by about £15bn a year in terms of government tax receipts, meaning it will need to borrow more and more to maintain current spending. Even if you believe in unicorns , it's therefore likely that extreme pressure on public spending across the UK will mean declining public services and increasing misery for many. 

Against this backdrop, the economic concerns during the first Scottish independence referendum seem less troubling. After all, Scotland (population 5.4m) is larger than 7 EU member states and even if it's economy is more precarious than other small EU members, it might prefer the protection of the world's largest trade bloc to a flat-lining UK. This could also mean that qualms about accepting the Euro would fall away.

At any rate, Scotland now intends to hold a second independence referendum by 2021. As Brexit impact and uncertainty worsens, it is likely that bruised Scots will be more likely to vote for both independence from the UK and for membership of the EU.  The original margin against independence of 55:45 could therefore easily reverse.

Just as the UK is unlikely to be able to avoid physical checks at its border with Ireland, the remainder of the UK would be unable to avoid physical checks at its border with Scotland. But, perhaps more crucially, Scottish politicians seem unanimous in saying that Northern Ireland must not be placed in a better trade position with the EU than Scotland - which would be the case if the 'backstop' were to kick in.

It's also been suggested that under a 'semi-Brexit' England & Wales might benefit from this type of scenario in their ability to agree trade terms with the EU, rather like the Isle of Man.

Of course, the sensible option is to revoke the Article 50 notice and stop all this nonsense entirely, but British politicians are too scared of the fascists for that...

The Last Days Of The Brexiteers

As the UK Parliament begins five days of debate on whether and, if so, how the UK might leave the EU, four things tell you that we are seeing the last days of Theresa May and her merry band of Brexiteers. 

At stake is whether the UK (a) crashes out of the EU with no deal and has to rely on World Trade Organisation tariff rules ("No Deal"); (b) exits on the basis of May's daft draft Withdrawal Agreement and a vague commitment to a future trade deal on uncertain terms that won't cover everything yet binds the UK to follow EU rules with no influence ("May's Deal"); or (c) does not exit at all ("No Brexit").  

Here's why the result should be No Brexit:

"The economy, stupid"

After all the lies told during the Leave campaign, the government now admits that every form of Brexit will leave the UK economy smaller than it would be if the UK remains a member of the EU, even after 15 years of trying to make a go of it alone.

How dumb would any Member of Parliament have to be in order to deliberately vote to make the economy smaller?  That can only mean less money for everyone, whether they're workers or benefits recipients. Investors would reduce their investments in the UK because they would see lower returns from a less valuable economy. There'd be less money for both state pensions (because the tax take would be lower) and private pensions (because pension funds would see lower returns like other investors). An ageing population and stricter controls on immigration would mean higher taxes on a declining number of people in work (and fewer carers for the old folks).

Anyone feeling the pinch now will know Brexit Britain would be a far worse place to live.

The UK Can Revoke Article 50 Notice On Its Own, Free of Charge

The government has wasted a fortune on 5 QCs trying in vain to stop the European Court of Justice ruling on whether the UK on its own can cancel or revoke its notice to leave the EU. This morning, the Advocate General filed her opinion which recommends that the court find in favour of that claim. She says the UK can unilaterally revoke its Article 50 notice any time before it expires, by notice to the European Council, following UK parliamentary approval. 

The ECJ usually follows the Advocate General's opinion.

That means it is highly likely that the EU will be bound to accept that the UK Parliament can direct the government to notify the European Council that the Article 50 notice is revoked, in which case Brexit is over, free of charge. Simplez! 

And the Brexiteers' legal problems don't end there...

The Government's Own Legal Advice Does Not Help The Brexiteers

May's draft Withdrawal Agreement says that if the UK and EU can't agree a future trade deal within 2 years, the UK will remain in a customs union with the EU that it can't escape without EU agreement. Brexiteers suspect it might never escape (the 'backstop').

May claims this is just paranoid and the EU also wants the backstop to be temporary. But she's raised suspicions that this is yet another pork pie by refusing to release the legal advice on her daft Withdrawal Agreement, on the basis that disclosure is "not in the public interest". This is tosh. Not only is it perfectly normal to release the full terms of legal advice given to ministers (including the papers requesting that advice), in order to allow their decisions to be challenged by judicial review; but any client can also waive the right to claim legal professional privilege if disclosure of the advice would help it's case.  

So the mere fact that the government has refused to disclose the legal advice allows us to infer that, at the very least, the disclosure would not help the case for accepting May's Brexit plan. 

But the fact that the Attorney General is prepared to do time in the Parliamentary cells for contempt, tells you that the advice is probably very bad indeed.

Huge momentum for a People's Vote, Remainers Are Younger

Even if MPs don't have the cajones to do their job and simply direct the government to revoke the Article 50 notice, they can very likely rely on a referendum to give them a clear mandate to do so. 

The Labour Party says it should first go through the charade process of trying to win a vote of No Confidence in May's government to trigger a General Election, failing which it will seek a People's Vote. But given that a No Confidence motion requires more support, the odds are they'll have to go with a People's Vote.

The support for Remain has likely increased significantly.

Following the march by over 700,000 people in October, a petition requesting a People's Vote signed by 1.4 million was delivered to the Prime Minister's office yesterday.

It is predicted that by mid-January 2019 the number of surviving Remain voters after the 2016 referendum will exceed the number of surviving Leave voters.  

A Channel 4 poll of 20,000 voters last month found 54% in favour of Remain.

Lastly, any referendum tends to be a vote on the government. In 2016, the government of the day was on the Remain side of the debate and it's been suggested that many Leavers voted against the government out of protest at their being 'forgotten' rather than because they really wanted Brexit.  But this government would be on the Leave side of a People's Vote and has been so obsessed by Brexit that it has failed to solve people's problems from 2016 - and, if anything, has made those problems worse. Any 'protest vote' would therefore favour Remain.

The #Brexidiots Know The Game Is Up But Are Committed To More Lies And Deception

David Davis wrote an extraordinary letter to Theresa May in December 2017. 

He whinged that the EU has been explaining to UK businesses the risks associated with the UK leaving the EU with "No Deal". The EU says that, to minimise the impact of Brexit, contracts will need to be renegotiated and EEA-facing operations will need to move into the remaining 27 EU countries ('Brexodus').  

Davis claims these explanations are a problem because the EU has not made any "reference to the possible alternative arrangements that might be agreed".  But he admits that the chance of any successful legal challenge to require the EU to mention such potential arrangements is "low" and "high risk politically and financially". 

In other words, Davis has no confidence that alternative arrangements will be agreed to prevent the need for the Brexodus of the portion of any business that relies on trade with the EEA or EU trade deals with other countries - jobs included. 

This means the very real choice facing the UK is either "No Deal" (with the consequences explained by the EU) or to withdraw its Article 50 notice and remain in the EU.

Instead, Davis promises two things: he will "continue to press our case" with the EU - which he admits has a low chance of success - and engage in "greater communication with UK businesses to provide assurances where we can." 

But given the EU's strong legal position it is clear that reliable assurances cannot be given. Any such assurances would be yet further lies and deception from the Leave camp.

This means that remaining in the EU is the only viable option for the UK, and the Brexidiots know it but are unwilling to admit it. Yet.

Think Of The #Brexidiots On the Darkest Day Of The Year

How fitting, on the shortest, darkest day of 2017, that we should think of all those Brexidiots who stood in front of that big red bus 18 months ago selling Brexit fantasy snake oil to would-be-Leavers. 

The 'promise' was that Brexit was not only practicable, but simple, low cost, would leave the UK with more money and that trade deals would be plentiful and easy. 

Yet all those snake oil salespeople - the lurkmen, touts and bludgers - have done ever since is submit to every demand the EU has made. Painting themselves and the UK into a corner where it must comply with all EU laws and trade rules but have no say in how they are made.  The member state becomes the vassal state, an EU colony, in the words of Brexidiot Johnson.

Because the UK is definitely the biggest loser out of Brexit.

And that's why 2018 will be the year it is stopped.

Time To End This False Brexit Farce?

As the EU/UK joint report on "progress" makes clear, the parties have done nothing more than agree "in principle” on only three of many, many issues to be resolved if the UK is to leave the EU (and that remains a big “if”). Aside from the ongoing price tag, there are the three aspects worth noting below. But my overriding concern is that the very reasonable steps which people and businesses are already taking to minimise their exposure to the downside (and maximise exposure to the upside) of the Brexit “Black Swan” are probably the main source of lasting damage for the UK, and unless the Brexit process is soon halted that lasting damage will be done. 

The first area of common ground is that if citizens wish to retain their EU rights (with some family members being able to join them), then UK citizens need to be ‘legally resident’ in (another) EU member state, and EU citizens legally resident in the UK, on the date of the UK’s withdrawal. But they may well need to apply for that status, and this opens a chasm of uncertainty. 

After some scary moments early this week, the UK now seems clear that the Good Friday Agreement must remain paramount. That deal was predicated on EU membership, so it's a Trojan Horse for what the “Leave” camp are now calling “Leave in name only” (or “LINO”). There is no clarity at all, for example, on how the absence of a ‘hard border’ between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland can be accommodated in light of typical import/export checks and other constraints between the EU and ‘third countries’ (as the UK will be). My sense is that there could never be agreement on that, the result of which is stated (in para 49) to be that: 

“the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North - South cooperation, the all-island economy and the protection of the 1998 Agreement.” 

The demands from Scotland, Wales and London to receive equal treatment with North Ireland in this respect also seem to be honoured in paragraph 50 of the report. Other provisions suggest free movement of labour will continue, as will free movement of goods ‘placed on the market’ prior to UK withdrawal. There are references to transitional arrangements but no cap on their duration...  Uncertainty abounds.

There is no mention of free movement in relation to any services, let alone financial services - which are a bellwether for the UK economy. Financial passporting was ruled out by Mr Barnier on 20 November, but perhaps it might yet leap out of the Good Friday Trojan Horse. Be that as it may, there is nothing sufficiently certain on this front that should tempt firms which are currently passporting from the UK to delay the process of establishing new EEA passport ‘hubs’ within one of the EU27 countries by March 2019 (or, indeed, EEA firms from establishing a UK presence). Management and staff will also be considering their own personal risks and opportunities related to this, particularly where they might benefit from rights that flow from becoming legally resident in an EU27 member state before the UK’s withdrawal. 

No doubt there are also people and firms in other sectors who will be similarly disinclined to halt or pause their own efforts to minimise their exposure to the downside of Brexit, and maximise their exposure to the upside. It is this risk management activity in the face of continuing uncertainty that seems likely to cause lasting damage to the UK...

Brexit Needed Your Fully Informed Consent

In 2016, the Swiss parliament realised the people had made a terrible mistake in a narrow, binding 2014 vote to impose quotas on EU workers.

While Switzerland is not an EU member, it's the EU's third largest trading partner after the USA and China - so more important than the UK on its own - and has a free movement agreement for all EU citizens, meaning EU citizens can live and work there.

The EU was not intimidated by the Swiss vote in 2014. The EU (including the UK, even after the Brexit vote) continued to insist that any attempt to restrict free movement of EU citizens would automatically exclude Switzerland from the EU single market. Imposing quotas would end all of Switzerland's 120 trade deals with individual EU members and result in exclusion from the EU’s chemical regulation, research and education programmes.

So the Swiss parliament decided not to implement the quotas on EU workers. Voters had not been informed of all these consequences of voting to impose the restrictions. Conservative politicians were outraged, but that was felt to be a price worth paying to protect the Swiss economy.

UK citizens are already personally familiar with the need for consent - especially where that is the basis for processing their personal data under the Data Protection Act 1998. Indeed, the UK government was instrumental in developing the new, more stringent General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and has committed to retain it post-Brexit. 

Where consent is relied upon for the processing of personal data, it must be a "freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject's wishes... a statement or ... clear affirmative action [which] signifies agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her."

The UK's own EU referendum was a non-binding vote and a simple Yes or No to leaving the EU.  No one would argue that any voters were really "informed" as to the consequences of Brexit. Only a few of those consequences are clear 18 months later.  Many people are very angry that they were misled by Leave campaigners who claimed that leaving the EU would be easy, that it would cost nothing, that there would be new trade deals by now and the UK would be able to spend its EU contributions on the NHS instead.

But it is clear that the EU does not feel the need to compromise with the UK - after all it didn't need to for Switzerland.

On this basis, the non-binding referendum vote to leave the EU was not fully informed and Parliament should now now decline to proceed with it. The Article 50 notice to leave the EU can and should be withdrawn.

Mau-Mauing The Brexiteers

In 1970 a group of indignant, physically intimidating citizens gathered in San Francisco's Office of Economic Opportunity to confront a useless bureaucrat over the fraudulent failings of the Office's poverty relief efforts. The bureaucrat's initially condescending approach soon turned to humiliation and he ended the meeting with a pathetic promise to call his absent boss for some real answers the following morning. Satisfied with the bureaucrat's humiliation, however, nobody turned up to hear him make the call. 

Re-reading Tom Wolfe's famous article on the confrontation last night, it struck me as something of a parable for the campaign against Brexit, and yet revealed a key difference that firmly points to that campaign's success. 

Wolfe called his article on the confrontation in San Francisco "Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers" in reference to both the intimidation by Kenya's anti-colonial Mau Mau Uprising and the tendency for public officials and politicians to send an underling to 'catch the flak' rather than face it themselves. He ends it with the observation, however, that the bureaucrats were ultimately successful. The flak catcher caught the flak and everyone went on with business as usual.

Brexit was billed by the Brexiteers as a poverty relief effort, but we've since discovered it was riddled with fraud, from the claims that there would be an "extra £350m a week" to be spent on the NHS, to the claim that the Tory leader could send the Article 50 notice without reference to Parliament, to the claim that the notice could not be withdrawn and the Brexit process stopped, to the notion that the UK would not need to settle its membership tab on the way out, to the claim that new trade deals would be easy... to the now utterly hollow claim that "Brexit means Brexit".

Such lies and misinformation have cast the Brexiteers as very, very low grade officials indeed. Whether or not you applaud their elevation to cabinet minister by a weak (and faux-Remain or closet Leave) Prime Minister, that step has at least highlighted their total and complete incompetence to lead or achieve anything. Years after launching their mendacious campaign to 'free' the UK from some imagined EU 'dictatorship' they are yet to offer any concrete details for an EU trade deal, let alone a 'Global Britain'. They have even failed at the first hurdle, skewered by their bizarre denial that the UK would need to settle its membership bill before leaving. These people are simply living a fantasy.

The indignant citizens actually confronting these bureaucratic flops are an intimidating bunch. They draw strength from representing at least 16 million people, for a start. They also tend to be the very people whom the Brexiteers must have been relying on to actually achieve the impracticable task of unwinding over 40 years of British efforts to make the UK a key player within the European Union. Beyond the disaffected UK civil servants there are millions of importers, exporters, manufacturers and their workers throughout British industry, investors and investment managers, QCs, judges, academics, teachers, nurses, doctors, students... a whole civil society of people who understand how the UK works, the value of its EU membership and that it does not work in isolation and who consider themselves EU citizens as well as UK citizens. They are angry and they are fighting for their rights and in many cases their homes.

But the key difference between the #StopBrexit campaigners and the indignant citizens who gathered in the San Francisco Office of Economic Opportunity in June 1970 is that no one is letting the hapless Brexiteers off the hook.  Unlike short-sighted Leave voters and the dormant botnets of the Leave campaign, their Twitter accounts are very much alive and connected to ongoing investigations, court proceedings, official complaints and petitions. They are relentless in challenging the hollow rhetoric flowing from the Brexiteers. And unlike the Brexiteers, anti-Brexit politicians are not fighting for their credibility - they can safely rely on inertia and the vast weight reality, statistics, events and common sense to expose the Brexiteers' feeble lies and misinformation on a daily basis. They are not satisfied with the mere humiliation of May, Johnson, Gove, Davis, Fox and their supporters and apologists (including the Labour front bench!). No, they are turning up the next day, every day, day after day, demanding answers and an end to Brexit.