Brexit

 Brexit 

Date	March 2017 - 2019
Interest of	Camila Carlbom, Joanna Cherry, Dominic Cummings, Michelle Dewberry, Nigel Farage, Paddy Hannam, Gina Miller, Brendan O'Neill, Gloria De Piero, Alan Riley, Dominique Samuels, Spiked Online, Wolfgang Streeck, Rishi Sunak, Eloise Todd, Guy Verhofstadt, John Ward

Brexit, a portmanteau of the words "British" and "exit", is the process by which the United Kingdom (UK) intends to withdraw from the European Union (EU), as a result of the June 2016 EU Referendum in which 17,410,742 voters (37.44% of the electorate) voted to leave the EU.

On 20 June 2017, the day after Brexit Secretary David Davis opened the first round of negotiations in Brussels, LBC radio presenter James O'Brien claimed he had proof that Conservative MPs believe leaving the European Union will be a disaster - no one wants to be Prime Minister through Brexit.

Brexiteers to pay divorce bill

In November 2017, it was reported that the UK government had accepted that the Brexit divorce bill could amount to as much as £40 billion. This means that the 17,410,742 Brexit voters (37.44% of the electorate) could be liable to pay £2,297.43 each.

Since 16,141,241 voters (34.71% of the electorate) voted to Remain, they should not have to pay anything. Nor should the 12,948,018 people (27.85% of the electorate) who abstained from voting. Which means that 62.56% of the UK electorate do not have to pay anything for exiting the EU.

So let the Brexiteers stump up £2,297.43 each!

Laughing stock of Europe

Brexit Secretary David Davis and EU's Michel Barnier negotiating on 19 June 2017

On 17 June 2017, Swiss newspaper Der Bund published the following article entitled "Lachnummer Europas" ("Laughing stock of Europe"):

If it weren't so serious, the situation in Great Britain would almost be comical. The country is being governed by a talking robot, nicknamed the Maybot, that somehow managed to visit the burned-out tower block in the west of London without speaking to a single survivor or voluntary helper. Negotiations for the country’s exit from the EU are due to begin on Monday, but no one has even a hint of a plan. The government is dependent on a small party that provides a cozy home for climate change deniers and creationists. Boris Johnson is Foreign Secretary. What in the world has happened to this country?

Two years ago David Cameron emerged from the parliamentary election as the shining victor. He had secured an absolute majority, and as a result it looked as if the career of this cheerful lightweight was headed for surprisingly dizzy heights. The economy was growing faster than in any other industrialised country in the world. Scottish independence and, with it, the break-up of the United Kingdom had been averted. For the first time since 1992, there was a Conservative majority in the House of Commons. Great Britain saw itself as a universally respected actor on the international stage. This was the starting point.

In order to get from this comfortable position to the chaos of the present in the shortest possible time, two things were necessary: first, the Conservative right wingers’ obsessive hatred of the EU, and second, Cameron’s irresponsibility in putting the whole future of the country on the line with his referendum, just to satisfy a few fanatics in his party. It is becoming ever clearer just how extraordinarily bad a decision that was. The fact that Great Britain has become the laughing stock of Europe is directly linked to its vote for Brexit.

The ones who will suffer most will be the British people, who were lied to by the Brexit campaign during the referendum and betrayed and treated like idiots by elements of their press. The shamelessness still knows no bounds: the Daily Express has asked in all seriousness whether the inferno in the tower block was due to the cladding having been designed to meet EU standards. It is a simple matter to discover that the answer to this question is No, but by failing to check it, the newspaper has planted the suspicion that the EU might be to blame for this too. As an aside: a country in which parts of the press are so demonstrably uninterested in truth and exploit a disaster like the fire in Grenfell Tower for their own tasteless ends has a very serious problem.

Already prices are rising in the shops, already inflation is on the up. Investors are holding back. Economic growth has slowed. And that’s before the Brexit negotiations have even begun. With her unnecessary general election, Prime Minister Theresa May has already squandered an eighth of the time available for them. How on earth an undertaking as complex as Brexit is supposed to be agreed in the time remaining is a mystery.

Great Britain will end up leaving its most important trading partner and will be left weaker in every respect. It would make economic sense to stay in the single market and the customs union, but that would mean being subject to regulations over which Britain no longer had any say. It would be better to have stayed in the EU in the first place. So the government now needs to develop a plan that is both politically acceptable and brings the fewest possible economic disadvantages. It’s a question of damage limitation, nothing more; yet even now there are still politicians strutting around Westminster smugly trumpeting that it will be the EU that comes off worst if it doesn’t toe the line.

The EU is going to be dealing with a government that has no idea what kind of Brexit it wants, led by an unrealistic politician whose days are numbered; and a party in which old trenches are being opened up again: moderate Tories are currently hoping to be able to bring about a softer exit after all, but the hardliners in the party – among them more than a few pigheadedly obstinate ideologues – are already threatening rebellion. An epic battle lies ahead, and it will paralyse the government.

EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier has said that he now expects the Brits to finally set out their position clearly, since he cannot negotiate with himself. The irony of this statement is that it would actually be in Britain’s best interests if he did just that. At least that way they’d have one representative on their side who grasps the scale of the task and is actually capable of securing a deal that will be fair to both sides. The Brits do not have a single negotiator of this stature in their ranks. And quite apart from the Brexit terms, both the debate and the referendum have proven to be toxic in ways that are now making themselves felt.

British society is now more divided than at any time since the English civil war in the 17^th century, a fact that was demonstrated anew in the general election, in which a good 80% of the votes were cast for the two largest parties. Neither of these parties was offering a centrist programme: the election was a choice between the hard right and the hard left. The political centre has been abandoned, and that is never a good sign. In a country like Great Britain, that for so long had a reputation for pragmatism and rationality, it is grounds for real concern. The situation is getting decidedly out of hand.

After the loss of its empire, the United Kingdom sought a new place in the world. It finally found it, as a strong, awkward and influential part of a larger union: the EU. Now it has given up this place quite needlessly. The consequence, as is now becoming clear, is a veritable identity crisis from which it will take the country a very long time to recover.

A Tory Brexit

In an article dated 31 March 2017, The Canary reported:

Voting to leave the EU is not inherently racist or foolish. Even those of us who would have chosen to remain in the EU cannot ignore its serious flaws. Particularly its anti-democratic tendencies. In recent years, the EU deposed the democratically elected leaders of Greece and Italy, and replaced them with pro-austerity technocrats. This is a challenge to democracy. It is not ignorant or bigoted to question a continuing and deepening alliance to such a system.

But the left-wing Brexit of greater democracy and protection from radical neoliberal austerity is never going to happen under this current government. May’s Brexit is about quite the opposite. The PM is more interested in dismantling hard-won rights. And cutting the taxes paid by wealthy individuals and corporations.

In order to protect Britain from the losses associated with leaving the single market, May’s government has confirmed it would turn Britain into a tax haven – cutting corporation taxes radically to attract business. May has also campaigned to withdraw Britain from the European Convention on Human Rights, and has steadfastly refused to guarantee working people’s rights after Brexit. The rights that ensure us all a minimum wage, maximum hours, and safe workplaces. The ones that all but ended sweatshop/workhouse conditions in the UK. Yet these rights may well end up on the chopping block as May courts corporations to stay in the country.

UKIP has enabled this. It has sold working-class Britain a lemon.

Article 50

On 2 October 2016, the first day of the Conservative Party conference, Prime Minister Theresa May announced she would trigger Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union by the end of March 2017 which would make the UK set to leave the EU by the end of March 2019. Although the terms for withdrawal have not been established, May has promised a Bill to remove the European Communities Act 1972 from the statute book and to transfer existing EU laws into the UK domestic law.

On 3 November 2016, upon an application by Gina Miller and others, the High Court ruled that Theresa May's government could not trigger Article 50 without first consulting Parliament.

On 20 March 2017, a Downing Street spokesman announced that Prime Minister Theresa May is to officially notify the European Union on Wednesday 29 March 2017 that the UK is leaving. Her letter invoking Article 50 was delivered to Donald Tusk, Chair of the European Council, at 12:20 hours BST, after which she made a statement to the House of Commons.

Parliamentary debate

In a House of Commons debate on 11 October 2016, the Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer put 170 questions about Brexit to the government and sought an assurance that Parliament would be given a vote on the terms of the exit negotiations:

"We do accept and respect the result of the referendum. But neither those who voted to remain nor those who voted to leave gave the government a mandate to take an axe to our economy. By flirting with Hard Brexit the Prime Minister puts at risk Britain's access to the single market rather than doing the right thing for jobs, for business and for working people in this country. So much for putting the national interest first!"

For the government, Brexit Secretary David Davis said he was not prepared to outline Brexit aims in detail since it was “not black or white” whether the UK would stay in the single market and Parliament could not expect to be given every detail of the government’s plans for leaving. Davis said the government had a mandate to get the best possible deal but insisted he could go no further than talking about overarching aims because revealing the UK’s top priority would prove “extremely expensive”. Sterling fell to one of its lowest ever levels of $1.22 as David Davis was speaking.

Background

The process of withdrawal from the European Union has, since 2007, been governed by Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union. No member state has ever left the EU. Under Article 50, the withdrawal must be in accordance with the Member State's constitutional requirements and uncertainty exists as to the constitutional requirements in the UK. Unless extensions are agreed to unanimously by the Council of the European Union, the timing for leaving under the article is two years from when the UK gives official notice, but this official notice was not given immediately following the referendum in June 2016. The assumption is that during the two-year window new agreements will be negotiated, but there is no requirement that there be new agreements. Some aspects, such as trade agreements, may be made difficult to negotiate by the EU until after Britain has formally left the EU.

Withdrawal has been the goal of various individuals, advocacy groups, and political parties since the UK joined the European Economic Community (EEC), the predecessor of the EU, in 1973, though continued membership of the EEC and the Common Market was approved in a 1975 referendum by 67.2% of votes.

 

Related Quotations

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Theresa May	“Brexit means Brexit, and we're going to make a success of it.”	Theresa May	July 2016
Mark Rutte	“I'm totally, totally, totally against referendums on multilateral agreements.”	Mark Rutte
Frans Timmermans	“They are now being disappointed. Look at what the divisiveness of Brexit has done to the UK. Today, the UK looks like Game of Thrones on steroids.”	Frans Timmermans	16 May 2019

 

Related Documents

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:A new turf war with Strasbourg pushes Warsaw further down the road towards Polexit from the EU	Article	4 August 2021	Paul Nuttall	Will the schism between Poland and the European Union over legal differences eventually lead to "Polexit"?
Document:Antisemitism threats will keep destroying Labour	blog post	12 February 2020	Jonathan Cook	If we are only allowed to gently chide Israel in ways that cannot meaningfully advance Palestinian rights, if we are prevented from discussing the strategies of staunchly pro-Israel lobbyists to silence Israel’s critics, if we are denied the right to push for an international boycott of Israel of the kind that helped blacks in South Africa end their own oppression, then nothing is going to change for the Palestinians.
Document:Boris Johnson in Downing Street for five years: what could possibly go wrong?	Article	30 December 2019	John S Warren	All the cards are held by Boris Johnson because he has the answer to all the problems facing Britain. Save, perhaps, one: what could possibly go wrong for the Conservative-Brexit Government?
Document:Boris Johnson is a threat to democracy itself	Article	18 June 2019	Simon Wren-Lewis	We can only hope that while most Conservative members want to live in a world where there is no spoon, enough voters prefer changing the real world in ways that enhance, rather than diminish, our democracy.
Document:Boris Johnson's first two priorities for post-Brexit Britain	Article	1 February 2020	Richard Murphy	Boris Johnson has admitted what Brexit was for. He wants to control and constrain people. The market in labour will be constrained. And let’s not for a moment pretend that a Freeport supports markets: freeports are instead about permitting the free movement of capital beyond the control of the state and without the imposition of any taxes.
Document:Brexit is the villain in accidental death of the economy	Article	6 August 2023	William Keegan	The Brexit miscreants who conned the nation just carry on shamelessly, while their replacements, Rishi Sunak and co, take up the banner and Keir Starmer, once a noble remainer, offends his natural followers by ruling out rejoining the EU or even the single market.
Document:Brexit reveals Corbyn to be the true moderate	blog post	12 September 2019	Jonathan Cook	It is time to stop acting like zealots for neoliberalism, squabbling over which brand of turbo-charged capitalism we prefer, and face up to our collective responsibility to change our and our children’s future.
Document:Britain didn’t vote Labour just to get a new iron chancellor	Article	4 August 2024	William Keegan	The economic damage wrought by Brexit continues. Our investment and growth prospects would benefit enormously if Starmer and Reeves abandoned this policy of “no return to the customs union, single market or freedom of movement”. I repeat what I have said before: the Labour manifesto commits it to removing unnecessary barriers to trade. But Brexit is the most formidable barrier of all!
Document:ECJ Advocate General says UK can revoke Article 50 unilaterally	Article	4 December 2018	Tony Connelly	Article 50 allows the "unilateral revocation of the notification of the intention to withdraw from the EU, until such time as the Withdrawal Agreement is formally concluded"
Document:Election 2017: finally, a real choice for Britain's voters	Article	17 May 2017	Raoul Martinez	No wonder the billionaire-owned media are attacking Jeremy Corbyn with everything they've got. But we the people can still win.
Document:England prepares to leave the world	Article	4 November 2016	Neal Ascherson	"If you believe you are a citizen of the world you are a citizen of nowhere." Mrs May will pass into folklore with that line, just as Mrs Thatcher is remembered for "There is no such thing as society."
Document:Interfering with Laura Kuenssberg	blog post	25 November 2019	Craig Murray	It's no coincidence that it is precisely the old and the poorly educated that are the targets of Dominic Cummings’ "Brexit election” strategy. If it comes off, Laura Kuenssberg and her fellow hacks will have proven that the power of the mainstream media is as yet unbroken.
Document:Jeremy Corbyn’s Coventry speech on Brexit in full	Speech	26 February 2018	Jeremy Corbyn	"So I appeal to MPs of all parties, prepared to put the people’s interests before ideological fantasies, to join us in supporting the option of a new UK customs union with the EU, that would give us a say in future trade deals."
Document:Just like that: How the Tory magic trick was done	blog post	18 December 2019	Chris Jackson	Boris Johnson will not be leading the people into any mythical promised land, rather they will be led like lemmings off the edge of a cliff. The population of the nation now have more austerity, economic inequality, privatising of the NHS and ever deteriorating public services to look forward to, led by a right wing, elitist, populist.
Document:Labour has ignored its voters – it is now paying the price	Article	24 June 2021	Paddy Hannam	George Galloway speaks to Spiked Online about the problems faced by the Labour Party, and his campaign in the 2021 Batley and Spen by-election
Document:Legal Challenge To Brexit	Article	27 November 2018		The UK can stop the Brexit process unilaterally, without the consent of the other 27 EU Member States
Document:Message for the Red Wall	blog post	12 April 2022	Clifford Thurlow	"This is my message for the Red Wall. If you reach a crossroads and your destination is to the left and by mistake you turn right, the further you travel along the wrong road the further you will move away from your destination. It is not easy to turn back, to change your mind. Sometimes, you have to in order to survive."
Document:Project Brexit	Comment	24 June 2017	David	Project Brexit: "Doomed to Failure"
Document:Rachel Reeves needs to develop some decent ideas very quickly	blog post	25 May 2023	Richard Murphy	Rachel Reeves is a person out of time, out of ideas, and right now with no answer to any question that might reasonably be asked of her. It's very depressing.
Document:Richmond Park prospective candidate: I would vote against Article 50 in Parliament	Statement	4 November 2016	Christian Wolmar	Statement by Labour Party prospective parliamentary candidate Christian Wolmar who aims to win the 2016 Richmond Park by-election
Document:Sunak likes the single market. So why doesn't Labour?	Article	5 March 2023	William Keegan	"I had many criticisms of Thatcherism and its impact on unemployment and social harmony, but one thing Margaret Thatcher got right was the importance of the EU single market and attracting Japanese, German and other firms to the UK. All this is now up for grabs by Starmer and his team."
Document:The Brutal Legacy of Bloody Sunday is a Powerful Warning to Those Hoping to Save Brexit	Article	19 March 2019	Patrick Cockburn	What we are seeing is the two most divisive issues in modern British history coming together in a toxic blend: these are Brexit and the Irish question.
Document:The Centre Blows Itself Up: Care and Spite in the ‘Brexit Election’	Article	13 January 2020	David Graeber	At the 'Brexit Election' of 2019, the anti-Semitism accusations weakened Labour immensely. But it was the – ultimately successful – campaign by the 'Centrists' to force Jeremy Corbyn to reverse his position on Brexit that really ensured their party’s electoral disaster.
Document:The Challenge of Brexit to the UK	strategy document	2 January 2018	Chris Donnelly	"So, if we consider what qualities and characteristics we need in those whom we select for leadership today, in a period of rapid and profound change, in all sorts of institutions – government departments, big companies, the NHS - the conclusion is that we need to look for people who have abilities that suit a wartime environment"... Leadership understands that in a period of tumultuous change you cannot control, you have to command..."
Document:The Dreamings of Dominic Cummings	Article	24 October 2019	James Meek	For Dominic Cummings the whole Brexit crisis may be a venturesome trial with disposable vessels: voters, the Conservative Party, the United Kingdom. If it doesn’t work out, there’s always California, and the rest of the solar system.
Document:The Price of Peace	blog post	6 November 2018	Craig Murray	It is not possible to understand the current state of play in Brexit negotiations, without understanding that those effectively driving the Tory Party position do not view a hard border with Ireland as undesirable. They view it as a vital achievement en route to rolling back power sharing and all the affirmative measures which brought peace to Northern Ireland, in an affirmation of the glory and power of unionism.
Document:The Real Reason Theresa May’s Brexit Has Failed	Article	2 March 2019	T. J. Coles	So, the choice faced by ordinary British people is between a neoliberal EU supported by millionaires like Kenneth Clarke or an ultra-neoliberal Brexit supported by multimillionaires like Jacob Rees-Mogg. Meanwhile, ordinary working-class people pay the price for these elite games, as usual.
Document:The great con that ruined Britain	Article	3 April 2016	Peter Hitchens	Peter Hitchens, the repentant Thatcherite, has second thoughts about privatisation: if it’s all been so beneficial, why do so many of the containers that arrive in British ports, full of expensive imports, leave this country empty?
Document:Theresa May's Misconduct In Public Office	Article	9 March 2019	David Wolchover Joshua Silver	Theresa May's Misconduct in Public Office offence arises from what is alleged to have been her wrongful activation on 29 March 2017 of Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union
Document:Was EU Tax Evasion Regulation The Reason For The Brexit Referendum	Blog post	26 September 2017	Josh Hamilton	The EU's new anti-abuse measures coming into force in 2019 would tighten up restrictions on UK-based intermediaries that take part in off-shoring and tax avoidance, of which Britain is a global leader
Document:What is the Plan - the Plan is to have no Plan	Article	10 July 2018	John S Warren	The Brexit political mess we are now in, and the deep divisions and rancour that have been created were foreseeable and inevitable: it is a complete, shambolic mess. And be in no doubt: a 2nd Scottish Referendum will now require only 50% + 1 vote. Nothing else is sustainable now.
Document:Where we go from here - Britain after Brexit	Article	28 August 2016	Anthony Barnett	Analysis of the so-called "Brexit" referendum result and prognosis for the future of the UK by a "passionate European" who wants to "keep the European flame alive".
Document:With Brexit, the UK has achieved the gold standard of self-harm	Article	12 June 2022	William Keegan	Events in the foreign exchange market forced the UK off the gold standard in 1931, under what was by then the National Government. The Labour politician Sidney Webb famously declared afterwards: “Nobody told us we could do that.” Brexit, too, is reversible.
Document:Would-be German chancellor Scholz jumps the gun on EU expansion eastward, which may provoke more states to follow the UK and exit	Article	15 August 2021	Paul Nuttall	Olaf Scholz is a possible candidate for Chancellor of Germany at the September 2021 German parliamentary election. He has warned Russia to expect further European integration and expansion into Eastern Europe. Will this encourage more countries to follow the UK and leave the European Union?

Many thanks to our Patrons who cover ~2/3 of our hosting bill. Please join them if you can.