Brexit. Why do Brits want Out of the EU?

BIRMINGHAM, England (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May’s government will not accept two different customs regimes in the United Kingdom after Brexit so the European Union needs to show less dry legalism in talks on Northern Ireland, Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab said.

“What we’re not going to do is see the United Kingdom carved up into two separate customs regimes... that is just not on the table. Frankly, I think it’s outrageous even to contemplate it,” Raab told Sky News.

“We need to see a bit less dry legalism and dry dogmatism and a bit more of the flexibility that we have demonstrated in our white paper,” Raab added.

Thanks to the European Union and the fact that both the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom belonged to the EU and the common market and customs union, the border and the question of reunification, yes or no, no longer played a de facto role, and a decades-long civil war between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland could be ended. The reality of the EU had in fact made the question of the region's membership irrelevant.

With the Brexit and its reversal of history, the ghosts of the past are now threatening to return to Northern Ireland. Continental Europe, where much more of this historical dynamite is still available, should study this experience and the attempt to reverse the European order very carefully in its very own interest.

The supporters of Brexit, the majority of the British, were not interested in economic prosperity, but in regaining full political sovereignty for the United Kingdom. And sovereignty is not defined by them by the realities of the present and the future, but by the past of the world power Britain in the 19th century. Today, however, Britain is a European middle power and no longer a global empire and will not become one again, with or without EU membership.

With the Brexit, the majority in Britain has opted for the European past and against the present and the future, for the 19th and against the 21st century. For if the rest of the continent followed the British example and the EU disintegrated, what would be the consequences?

The states of Europe would be forced back into an order of sovereign states, into whose laborious equilibria and hegemonic aspirations, would be forced and, because henceforth powerless, would finally abdicate from the world stage. Europe would be torn apart between transatlanticism and Eurasia and an easy prey for the non-European great powers and world powers of the 21st century - and, if things got bad, even for their global hegemonic struggles. In this way, Europeans would no longer be able to determine their own future, but would merely understand what is decided elsewhere without them.

The old, declining European order had prevailed at the end of the Thirty Years' War. The order of the Middle Ages, based on the universal church and universal emperorship, had perished in the Reformation, wars of religion and the formation of powerful territorial rule, which had been replaced since 1648 by the "Westphalian order" of sovereign territori

Europe dominated the world at that time, and Britain had become the European world power by the 19th century at the latest. In the first half of the 20th century, this "Westphalian order" also broke up into two world wars, but these were actually European wars over pre- and world domination. When in 1945 the weapons remained silent, the Europeans, including the European victorious powers, had lost their sovereignty, which was replaced by the bipolar order of the Cold War and the sovereignty of the two non-European nuclear superpowers.

The EU was and is the attempt to regain European sovereignty peacefully by integrating the interests of the European states. The decisive factor was the prevention of a relapse into the old system of power rivalry, of mutual alliances and hegemonic aspirations, and the creation of an economically, legally and politically integrated continental order.

In the 21st century, with the emergence of a new world order whose focus will be Pacific and no longer Atlantic, Europe will still have exactly one chance, not more - because most global trends are directed against Europe. The old European nation states will not be able to cope with this new competition if they do not come together. And even then, huge efforts will be needed.

A return to a glorious past is pretty much the last thing that will help Europeans. Because the essence of the past is that it is over. That is exactly what Brexit is all about, not first and foremost the economy.

Three Conservative ministers support a new Brexit referendum, a former cabinet member has revealed.

Phillip Lee told a meeting of Conservatives for a People's Vote on the fringe of the party's conference in Birmingham that Tory MPs were under "huge pressure" from activists not to speak openly of their concerns about EU withdrawal.

The packed meeting heard former cabinet minister Justine Greening say none of the suggested Brexit options - Theresa May's Chequers plan, Boris Johnson's preferred "super-Canada" trade agreement or no deal - could win a majority in the House of Commons.

And the former education secretary said only the offer of a so-called People's Vote could "unblock the stalemate" after Mrs May's final negotiation with the EU this autumn.

With MPs offered a "meaningful vote" on any deal, Ms Greening said: "The Chequers deal isn't going to get through, I don't think a Canada deal would get through and no deal is absolutely going to be voted down by Parliament. That's a fact.

"We are going to reach stalemate... I think there is a growing band of Conservative MPs who have thought their way through this and reached the logical conclusion that a referendum is the only way we can unblock Parliament's stalemate.

"A growing number of Conservative MPs recognise this. It's a question of when they make their views known, not if."

Dr Lee, who quit Mrs May's administration in June over Brexit, told the meeting he believed some other ministers were "on the cusp" of doing the same.

He said: "I suspect there are significant numbers of colleagues who see the argument for a People's Vote.

"I know of three ministers who do. But it is a difficult environment for them to come out."

Another former minister, Anna Soubry, said it was "appalling for democracy" that politicians and business figures who oppose Brexit privately have not made their views publicly known.

Ms Greening, who walked out of the Cabinet in January, warned Conservatives would never shake off the label "Tory Brexit" if EU withdrawal proved unsuccessful.

"The words 'Tory Brexit' will be ringing through the country forever and a day and there will be no pivoting for our party if this doesn't work out," she said.

She said she would be "holding firm" in any Commons vote, regardless of pressure from whips to back a deal secured by the Prime Minister.

"I will be holding firm because this is a historic vote," she said. "It is not normal party politics, it is something that sits above all that for MPs and they have to remember that when they troop through the voting lobbies. This sits above all the whipping."

“Sometimes I have the impression that the British think that it’s us quitting Great Britain, but it’s exactly the other way around,” he said to laughs from an audience of several thousand, adding that the British public had never properly been informed about the consequences of quitting the bloc.

“There never was a real referendum campaign in Britain in the sense of an information campaign,” he said when asked about the possibility of a second British vote on EU membership. “The British, including government ministers, are only now discovering how many questions it raises.”

“If talks (on air transport) go wrong, then no more British airplanes can land
on the continent. People didn’t know that, and they should probably have been told,” he said.

Big companies will be handed huge tax cuts to woo them to Britain if there is a no-deal Brexit, Dominic Raab has suggested.

Corporation tax would be slashed to as low as 10 per cent, the Brexit secretary said, as part of efforts to “pull every lever we’ve got to see us through”.

Labour pounced on Mr Raab’s comments to declare the Tories “want to turn our country into a tax haven for the super-rich”.
[...]
The UK’s current corporation tax is 19 per cent and is set to fall to 17 per cent by 2020, under existing government plans.

Gavin Williamson, the defence secretary, has threatened to block the EU from using British facilities for "rival" satellite projects if the UK is shut out of the bloc's Galileo enterprise.

It comes after it was revealed in summer that Britain had set aside £92m for an alternative and independent satellite project as negotiations continue in Brussels over the UK's future participation in the EU's Galileo programme.

Britain's defence scientists have played a vital role in the development of Galileo and Mr Williamson has previously described the Commission's approach as "deeply disappointing" after it appeared Britain could be locked out of the project.

But speaking at a fringe event during the Conservative Party conference, Mr Williamson appeared to go further than his previous remarks in comments reported by The Times.

"All the capabilities for Galileo don't sit in France, don't sit in Germany and various other countries; they sit in Britain," he told party delegates.

"The only country that can make something like this work is Britain and the question they [the EU] have to ask is, can they do it without us? I would say 'no'. Can we do it without them? I would say the answer is 'yes'."

The newspaper also added that Mr Williamson was asked during the event why the government would allow EU base assets on British territories if the UK were to be locked out of the Galileo project after exiting the bloc.

He replied: "Let's be clear: as it develops, they're not going to be able to use our facilities to do what I would call a rival project. We can make our project work. I don't believe they can make their project work.

"I'm very happy to sit down with them and discuss how we can make a project work together, but as equals, not as a taker of rules."

The Galileo programme is funded and owned by the EU.

The European Commission has overall responsibility for the programme, managing and overseeing the implementation of all activities on behalf of the EU.

Galileo's deployment, its design, and the development of the new generation of systems and the technical development of infrastructure is entrusted to the European Space Agency (ESA).

The Commission has delegated the operational management of the programme to the GSA, which oversees how Galileo infrastructure is used and ensures that Galileo services are delivered as planned and without interruption.

Arlene Foster has said the Good Friday Agreement is not "sacrosanct", insisting the landmark peace treaty could be altered to accommodate a Brexit deal.

The DUP leader, whose party props up Theresa May's government, said the historic agreement "could evolve" in the EU context and expressed frustration at warnings from pro-EU campaigners over Brexit's potential to undermine aspects of the international treaty.

Ahead of a speech on the fringe of the annual Tory conference, Ms Foster praised Boris Johnson's "positive" Brexit vision and said she would work with him if he became prime minister.

She also poured cold water on Ms May's idea of having regulatory checks in the Irish Sea, saying: "It's our one red line".

Critics accused Ms Foster of "reckless and desperate stuff" and condemned her for prioritising her party's "cosy deal" with the Conservatives over the ongoing risk of violence in Northern Ireland.

She told The Telegraph: “It has been deeply frustrating to hear people who voted Remain and in Europe talk about Northern Ireland as though we can’t touch the Belfast Agreement.

"Things evolve, even in the EU context. There has been a lot of misinterpretation, holding it up as a sacrosanct piece of legislation.”

The DUP campaigned against the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, when it was approved by referenda on both sides of the border.

The former first minister also endorsed the "spirit" and "belief" in Mr Johnson's Brexit plans, ahead of the ex-foreign secretary's eagerly-anticipated speech to conference, which is being interpreted by many as a leadership bid.

Ms Foster said: “I think people want that hope, they want to be positive. I think the reason why so many people are turned off by Brexit is because they are being fed a diet of negativity - whether it’s infighting, Brussels, being disrespected by people over there.

“We haven’t been able to talk about the aspirations for the nation, we’ve spent so much time arguing about what’s happened, is it going to be a disaster for Ireland in inverted commas...instead of actually focusing on what we can achieve in the UK with the Brexit negotiations.

“What we want to see, and I’m not making a comparison between Boris and the Prime Minister, is belief. We want to see that spirit.”

Asked if she would work with Mr Johnson, Ms Foster said: “Our confidence arrangement is with the Conservative Party. It was signed by the two chief whips. It is a party-to-party agreement.

“Whoever leads the Conservative Party we will work with as it’s in the national interest. The reason we signed the agreement was to ensure Brexit.”

It will come as a boost to Mr Johnson, after the party's Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson initially described his suggestion of a Canada-style trade deal as "too vague".

In a separate interview with Bloomberg TV, Ms Foster torpedoed the prime minister's plan for regulatory checks in an attempt to resolve the Irish border wrangle.

Asked if her party could accept such checks, she said: “No and it’s been very clear all along that has been our one red line - that we cannot have either a customs border down the Irish Sea or a regulatory border because that would make us separate from the rest of the United Kingdom and that doesn’t work from a constitutional perspective and it doesn’t work from an economic perspective either.”

Political opponents roundly condemned the DUP leader's comments.

A reminder: 178 days to go and zero plan, but chaotic Brexit negotiations.