Brexit. Why do Brits want Out of the EU?

LONDON (Reuters) - Lawmakers approved legislation on Thursday which will allow Britain to leave the European Union on Jan. 31 with an exit deal, ending more than three years of tumult over the terms of the unprecedented divorce.

They voted 330 to 231 in favor of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill, which implements an exit deal agreed with the EU last year.

That allows Prime Minister Boris Johnson to turn the page on one of Britain’s deepest political crises in decades, putting an end to the fears of an immediate disorderly exit which had cast a shadow over the economy and fueled divisions over the 2016 referendum decision to leave the EU.

“It is time to get Brexit done. This bill does so,” Brexit minister Stephen Barclay told lawmakers, summing up hours of debate in parliament.

The legislation now heads to parliament’s upper chamber and is expected to become law in the coming weeks, leaving enough time to allow Britain to leave at the end of the month with a deal to minimize economic disruption.

In recent years, financial markets have been mesmerized by the twists and turns of Britain’s Brexit drama, with its acrimonious negotiations in Brussels, knife-edge votes in parliament and heavy defeats for unstable governments.

But after Johnson called a snap election late last year and then won a large majority by promising to deliver Brexit at the end of January, the uncertainty over when and how Britain will leave the EU has largely abated.

The focus has instead turned to upcoming talks on long-term arrangements with the EU that will kick in when a transition period - during which Britain remains subject to EU rules - ends on Dec. 31.

Johnson is adamant that the free-trade deal he wants can be negotiated in time, but his EU counterparts are less convinced.

On Wednesday, Johnson met European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in London hours after she had made a speech saying it would be “basically impossible” to agree everything by the end of the year.

Johnson’s opponents, many of whom argued to stop Brexit or give the public another vote, say his approach risks creating another ‘no-deal’ cliff-edge at the end of the year when the transition period ends.

However, Von der Leyen has indicated that even if a whole deal cannot be negotiated in time, the most important and potentially disruptive parts can be prioritized.

Far-right leader, known as conspiracy theorist, backs PM as ex-No 10 aide predicts close ties

Hungary’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has given a ringing endorsement to Boris Johnson and Brexit, offering a pointer as to which European capitals are likely to be friendliest to post-Brexit Britain.

Orbán said Johnson and Donald Trump were “the most courageous, the most dynamic and the most ready to effect change” of all the politicians in the world today. The admiration is mutual: it emerged this week that Tim Montgomerie, a former aide of Johnson, said he expected Britain and Hungary to forge a “special relationship” after Brexit, and praised Orbán’s thinking on the “limits of liberalism”.
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Also on Thursday, Croatia’s prime minister, Andrej Plenković, warned that negotiations over access to British waters for the EU fishing fleet had the potential to end in a repeat of the cod wars of the 1970s, when the UK was forced to deploy the Royal Navy to deal with outbreaks of violence on the seas.

Speaking as his country assumed the six-month presidency of the EU council , Plenković said he “never thought Brexit was a very bright idea”.

Orbán, however, criticised European leaders who thought Brussels held the cards in the negotiations and called on Europe to be “generous” during the next 11 months. “I think the EU misunderstands the situation, because they believe that a good relationship with UK is the Brits’ interest, but it is our interest too, the other members of the EU,” he said.

He paid a lengthy tribute to Johnson’s election victory last month. “The whole world was against him: the liberal leftist media, the global Soros network and all the tools of the pro-remain EU, but just because he and the British people believe in democracy, they’ve done it,” said Orbán.

The Hungarian prime minister has been in power since 2010, and in 2018 he won a third consecutive term. His government is in trouble with Brussels over corruption and rule of law issues, and has spent the past five years campaigning relentlessly on the supposed threat to “Christian Europe” from migration.

Orbán has promoted conspiracy theories, usually with antisemitic undertones, about the overarching influence of George Soros in Hungary and across Europe, and has also tapped into another far-right conspiracy theory, that of the “great replacement”.

He has built a fence along the country’s border with Serbia, and his government has been accused by human rights groups of starving migrants by denying them food in the transit zones where they must process asylum claims.

While all this has been criticised by rights groups and many European politicians, Montgomerie, a former journalist who was hired as a senior adviser to Johnson last September, praised the Hungarian government’s ideology, saying there was a lot for Britain to learn from Orbán, and promising close relations with the country after Brexit.

“Budapest and Hungary have been home, I think, for an awful lot of interesting early thinking on the limits of liberalism, and I think we are seeing that in the UK as well. So I hope there will be a special relationship with Hungary amongst other states,” said Montgomerie, in a speech to a thinktank in Budapest last month, comments that were posted online and first uncovered by Buzzfeed News earlier this week.

On Thursday No 10 described Montgomerie as a “former adviser” without giving a reason for his departure.

It’s time to let the fantasy of the “British nation” die.
The United Kingdom may be finally coming to an end.

On Thursday, Parliament passed the withdrawal agreement on which Prime Minister Boris Johnson successfully campaigned in last month’s general election. By the end of the month, it will be signed into law. The United Kingdom will leave the European Union on Jan. 31.

For decades, membership in the European Union helped glue together a fragmenting United Kingdom; now Brexit is tearing it apart. The short-lived fantasy of the “British nation,” too, may finally meet its end.

Mr. Johnson’s plan is likely to lead to a border between Northern Ireland and Britain for the first time in modern history. The policy — designed to allow Britain to radically break with Europe while Northern Ireland remains aligned with the rest of the bloc, including the Republic of Ireland — is an astonishing betrayal of the Ulster unionists, whose politics is predicated on the sanctity of the United Kingdom. And drawing Northern Ireland into the same regulatory system as its southern neighbor poses a remarkable opportunity for the nationalists. A once-more united Ireland is firmly in view.

That certainly hasn’t gone unnoticed in Scotland. The pro-independence Scottish National Party, which took 48 of Scotland’s 59 seats in December’s election, reads the writing on the wall. A large majority of Scots voted to remain in the European Union during the 2016 referendum; to allow Northern Ireland but not Scotland to remain aligned with the European Union’s market will only add to the sting. Nicola Sturgeon, the S.N.P.’s leader, has already formally requested that the Scottish parliament be given powers to hold an independence referendum. Mr. Johnson, for his part, has made clear that he intends to stand in the way of such a vote, but he may not be able to block it forever.

So maybe this is the end. Not this week, but perhaps by the end of the decade. First Scotland, then Northern Ireland, leaving just England and Wales, a mini-union, which itself could break up under pressure from Welsh nationalists.

Would that really be so bad? Actually, it wouldn’t be. The breakup of the union certainly won’t be easy but it may be one of the few good things to come out of Brexit — not just for Scotland and Ireland but also, and perhaps especially, for England.

After being released from the unionist grip, Northern Ireland could join a flourishing Irish economy and a more socially liberal — how things have changed! — society. For the nationalists it will represent a long-desired reunion. Although Irish unity is what unionists most fear, they might now be able to reconcile themselves to their Irishness after being betrayed by London.

Scotland could take its own future in hand. It has a higher mortality rate than England, and while it is less unequal than its southern neighbor, the gap between them has narrowed over the past two decades. Scots have put off dealing with these issues by putting the blame on London. Independence will deprive them of that excuse and force them to face divisions in their own society. An independent Scotland will come into its own political identity, rather than one premised just on contrasts.

And even England would benefit. Despite its being the dominant nation in the United Kingdom, the arrangement hasn’t been good for it. It doesn’t have a sense of itself as a nation to be transformed and is divided between the vibrant, youthful and pro-European big cities — especially London — and the aging, stagnating and anti-European rest of the country.

Freed from the grip of the decayed British nation and British state, England could finally be done with its delusions of grandeur. Fanciful beliefs about British importance in the world would crumble. England would be only around the eighth-largest economy in the world. And it would probably have to give up its nuclear weapons — the United Kingdom’s nuclear submarine base is in Scotland.

England need not be, as many fear, a rump United Kingdom, parochial, perhaps even irredentist. Less cocksure and more understanding of its real place in the world, it may soon rethink its hostility to the Europe Union. Scotland suffered a process of deindustrialization similar to northern England’s and Wales’s — but it voted to remain. As the writer Anthony Barnett and others suggest, a progressive English nation, on the model of the Scottish one, could emerge. This England might have an ordinary democratic nationalism that understands its own aspirations and those of others.

The idea of breaking up the union isn’t quite as outrageous as it might seem. The “United Kingdom” is neither ancient nor stable. Before 1945, “national” Irish, Welsh, Scottish and English identities were for many not local varieties of national Britishness but part of something much bigger: an imperial identity.

British World War II propaganda explained that the United Kingdom was just one equal element of a British Commonwealth of Nations that, along with India and the colonies, made up “the British Empire.” It was the empire that fought the war, not the United Kingdom. Soldiers died for “king and country” — but that country had no name. No one died for “the United Kingdom.”

After 1945, “Britain” — a national United Kingdom — was one of many post-imperial constructions that emerged from the ashes of the British Empire. From then into the 1970s, the United Kingdom existed as a coherent economic, political and ideological unit, distinct from the rest of the world. There was a national British economy, a national British Army and a national British politics dominated by two national, unionist parties. It was a brief period of British nationhood. In fact, it was the only one. This national United Kingdom was broken up economically starting in the 1970s by the closely related processes of globalization and deepening economic integration with Europe.

It is this decaying British nationalism, a leftover from the 1970s, that is now disrupting the union, not the self-conscious Scottish, Irish and Welsh versions. Strong in England but weak elsewhere, with the exception of a handful of hard-core unionists in Northern Ireland, this British nationalism manifested itself in the calls for Brexit, from before the 2016 referendum and up to today. The Brexiteers wrongly believe that independence from the European Union will make the United Kingdom great again.

But Brexit and the delusions of the United Kingdom’s grandeur that go with it are the politics of the aged, of those who remember that brief experience of a united, national United Kingdom. The young people of England, like those in the rest of Britain, overwhelmingly supported remaining in the European Union. They also understand we need liberation from the practices of Westminster and Whitehall, not Brussels, and from the self-defeating rage of the old.

Only a few decades ago, a new United Kingdom emerged from the empire. Now, by forcing the breakup of the union, the old — drinking deep the delusions of British nationalism — may make it possible for a new England to emerge from the United Kingdom.

Freed from the grip of the decayed British nation and British state, England could finally be done with its delusions of grandeur. Fanciful beliefs about British importance in the world would crumble. England would be only around the eighth-largest economy in the world. And it would probably have to give up its nuclear weapons -- the United Kingdom's nuclear submarine base is in Scotland.

I see that progressives are bad news no matter which nation they infest.

Assuming that England and Wales would prefer to not give up their nuclear deterrent, is there any reason why a nuclear submarine base couldn't be built on English territory?

Since you quoted Edgerton, I don't get why you mention "progressives" here.

I don't understand your question either, since "England and Wales" don't have "their nuclear deterrent".

The way he cheers for what he imagines to be the downfall of English power makes it pretty clear that he is a progressive.

Ex-Labour minister says he is "100% certain" Scotland will become independent.

Ben Bradshaw said it was "completely untenable" for the government to deny a second vote on the matter, adding he had "no doubt" voters north of the border would opt to leave the UK.

The former culture secretary spoke out in an interview with the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel.

He said: "I have no doubt at all that Scotland will become independent.

"It is completely untenable that the Government in London is denying Scots the right to self-determination.

"The Scots expressed in the 2016 EU referendum, and in the two subsequent general elections, that they do not want to leave the EU.

"It is important to understand that the United Kingdom is based on the consent of all parts of the country."
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has already written to Prime Minister Boris Johnson requesting powers to hold a referendum be transferred to Holyrood.

The SNP leader has said previously she wants there to be a vote on independence in the later part of 2020.

Mr Bradshaw, the Labour MP for Exeter, revealed while members of his family had voted against independence in the previous referendum in 2014, they had since changed their stance.

He said: "I am married to a Scotsman. Every member of our family in Scotland voted against independence in the 2014 referendum.

"But in December's general election they all gave their vote to the SNP for the first time in their lives. And they would now vote differently from 2014.

"Scotland will become independent. I'm 100% certain about that."

Boris Johnson is set to take the UK out of the European Union at a time when a majority of voters want to stay, according to a new poll.

The BMG survey for The Independent found that with less than three weeks to go before Brexit Day on 31 January, voters are split by the highly symbolic margin of 52-48 per cent in favour of Remain – the reverse of the result of the 2016 referendum.

Participants also expected Brexit to be bad for the economy, the NHS, the unity of the UK and Britain’s place in the world over the next two years. Almost three in 10 (29 per cent) expected to be personally worse-off as a result of EU withdrawal, while just 15 per cent expected their finances to be improved.

And more than four out of 10 want the chance to vote on rejoining the EU within the next decade – 18 per cent saying a second referendum should be held within a year, 15 per cent in 1-5 years and 9 per cent in 6-10 years. Ten per cent said no new referendum should be held for 11 years or more, and 28 per cent said there should never be another one, while 20 per cent did not know.

There was little sign of enthusiasm for leaving the EU at the end of 2020 without a trade deal, with just 11 per cent backing this option, against 39 per cent favouring a deal on future trade relations and 27 per cent continued membership of the single market.

The prime minister is attempting to forge a Canada-style free trade agreement (FTA) with Brussels within this very tight timescale, but has vowed to leave without a deal rather than extend his deadline.

Mr Johnson’s 80-seat majority in the 12 December election has been taken as a mandate to make good on his campaign promise to “get Brexit done”.

But the vagaries of the UK’s first-past-the-post electoral system mean that, by a margin of more than 1 million, more British voters backed parties calling for a second EU referendum than supported those arguing for withdrawal without a confirmatory vote.

The BMG survey is the latest in a series of mainstream polls stretching back more than two years which have found a consistent majority for Remain.

Asked what they expected the impact of Brexit to be over the coming 1-2 years, some 52 per cent said it would weaken the Union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, against just 13 per cent who said it would be strengthened.

Some 45 said they expected the UK economy to be harmed, against 29 per cent who predicted improvement. And 39 per cent said the UK’s standing in the world would decline, compared to 28 per cent who said it would rise.

Some 29 per cent predicted a harmful effect on their personal financial situation, while 15 per cent expected it to improve. And 38 per cent said Brexit would be bad for the NHS over the next couple of years, against 25 per cent who expect it to be beneficial.

- BMG questioned 1,508 British adults between 8 and 10 January.

Needless to say that the Russian endorsed Remain in the Brexit referendum.

I can just about manage iterations of Canuck and a smattering of Creole.

Northern Ireland customs plans could take five years to implement, IfG says

The Irish border could yet snag Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal, with experts saying it will be impossible to deliver the computer systems for the special arrangements for Northern Ireland by the end of this year. Failure to implement the new systems will risk legal action by the European commission against Britain, the Institute for Government says.

In a new report, it says: “The [Brexit] deal has the support of no Northern Irish political parties and it looks almost impossible to complete the practical changes, for government and business, by the end of the year. Failure to comply with the withdrawal agreement could see the European commission begin infringement proceedings and the UK ending up at the ECJ [European court of justice].”

Johnson’s government remains adamant that there will be no checks or new reporting systems on trade crossing the Irish sea, despite Ireland and the EU insisting that those would have to be in place to protect the Irish border.

The prime minister’s intention to establish a trade deal with the EU by the end of December 2020 was also dealt a blow by Simon Coveney, Ireland’s deputy prime minister, at the weekend as he indicated the bloc would be in no rush to work to Johnson’s timetable.

In a blunt assessment of the likelihood of satisfying Johnson’s “ambitious” vision, he said the fact that Britain had put the timescale for a trade deal into law did not mean the other 27 European countries would fall in line. “In my view, it’s probably going to take longer than a year,” he said.

The IfG’s report says HMRC has previously stated similar systems to the proposed customs arrangements for Northern Ireland would take five years to develop and implement.

Part of the problem is that until the new trade deal between the UK and the EU is struck, the details of the Northern Ireland arrangements cannot be finalised.

The complicated system for Northern Ireland involves the region effectively staying in the single market but in the UK customs zone. This potentially means tariff charges and rebates, paperwork and physical checks on certain fresh foods and live animals going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.

In the new report, “Getting Brexit done: what happens now?”, the IfG says Brexit will be far from done on 31 January when the UK formally leaves the EU with the expected ratification of the withdrawal agreement ending the article 50 process.

“The UK will formally leave the EU at the end of January, and in that sense Brexit will be done, but many of the biggest Brexit jobs will be far from over,” it says. “It will continue to dominate government for years to come. The prime minister may hope to end Brexit’s dominance in the public debate after 31 January, but in Whitehall it will continue to be the biggest and most challenging task faced by a government in decades.”

Under the deal sealed by Johnson with the EU last October, animals and fresh food going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland will be subject to some physical checks, with a tariff and tariff rebate system operating for the first time. These are there to protect any substandard goods seeping into the EU’s single market through smuggling over the Irish border into the Republic of Ireland.

While all sides recognise the complexities of the new system, little public attention has been paid to the fact that new computer systems cannot be designed by either HMRC, ferry companies, or manufacturers or suppliers like Tesco until the trade deal with the EU is done.

The report says: “With the details of how the border will operate still unclear – and likely to be so for some months – and no preparatory work having happened for checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the 11-month timeline is almost certainly undeliverable.”

It notes that Sir Jon Thompson, a former chief executive of HMRC, said that a similar customs systems involving rebates could take up to five years to develop and implement.

Coveney issued his warning on BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show, saying the deal to be struck between the UK and EU over their future relationship was vast, encompassing security, data, aviation and trade.

He said: “When people talk about the future relationship in the UK in particular, they seem to only talk about a future trade agreement. Actually, there’s much more to this than that … I know that Johnson has set a very ambitious timetable to get this done – he’s even put it into British law – but just because a British parliament decides that British law says something, doesn’t mean that that law applies to the other 27 countries of the European Union.

“And so the European Union will approach this on the basis of getting the best deal possible, a fair and balanced deal, to ensure that the UK and the EU can interact as friends in the future. But the EU will not be rushed on this just because Britain passes a law.”