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No Deal Brexit Preparations to begin January 1, 2019
Just like clockwork and as promised by the Theresa May government preparations for a possible No Deal exit from the European Union will begin on January 1, 2019. The Prime Minister has said it all along yet no one believed her, even though there were plenty of examples when she informed the media in advance on what actions she would be taking in relation to Brexit and when, and then did exactly as promised.
She didn’t keep her promise to hold the vote on the draft Withdrawal Agreement last Tuesday. However, politics isn’t like baking a cake where you simply assemble the ingredients, mix it all together, and throw it in the oven for an hour.
Forgive the Prime Minister for a promise that was broken for a good reason.
Why allow a vote when the thing you’re trying to approve will certainly fail? That would’ve wasted the time of every MP in the House of Commons and provided the EU with an advantage over the holiday season; Namely, EU officials getting to spend the holidays blaming the UK for failing to pass the draft Withdrawal Agreement which would’ve put the UK government deep into defensive territory by the time they returned to Parliament on January 7th.
Theresa May and her government have looked wobbly at times throughout the past 2.5 years, but at ‘mission critical’ points she and her ministers have delivered. Strange, but heartening.
“Through perseverance, many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.” — former British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli (1804 – 1881)
The latest example of that is the kept promise to begin preparations before January 1, 2019 in case of a No Deal Brexit by ensuring enough medicine will be available for every Briton (including Theresa May’s medication for her diabetic condition) and now, the UK military has offered to assist the government in the immediate post-Brexit timeframe — including 3500 troops for government use.
Such army personnel can drive transport trucks, direct vehicular traffic at the ports, fly goods by military aircraft to remote parts of the UK, and fill any staffing or logistical gaps that could be created in the case of a sudden No Deal Brexit scenario.
It may be highly unlikely, but it’s still good policy to plan for gaps or shortages in the system.
“Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.“ — former U.S. President, Ike Eisenhower (1890 – 1969)
In a fluid situation it’s a great thing to plan ahead, yet once having arrived at the ‘gap in the road’ (for example) or having arrived at a day when there actually are milk shortages (for another example) its ongoing planning that will save the day.
Ongoing resourcefulness and a permanent ‘CAN-DO’ attitude, combined with relentless pursuit of important goals is what will allow Britons to succeed every time. Ask any gold medal athlete or any 5-star general, or any platinum selling recording artist. A ‘CAN-DO’ attitude is a million times more valuable than a ‘CAN’T DO’ attitude.
It’s those qualities that Britons have displayed over the centuries that worked to create the great United Kingdom we see today; The 6th-largest economy in the world (and for a few centuries, the largest economy in the world by a significant margin!) with a very high standard of living and quality of life in the here and now.
Although all of those stats could and should be even better than they are at present, it’s still a magnificent accomplishment.
Micheal Gove & Sir Nick Carter Give Hope that there is No Problem Too Big for the UK to Handle
‘Hope’ is a powerful word. If people have hope, if they see a reasonable plan forming, and if they see people like Micheal Gove handling the worst-case scenario far in advance of any potential problems, it provides the hope that’s required for human beings to maintain a high level of life satisfaction and function most efficiently. There are more quotations about ‘Hope’ than about any other single word in the English lexicon.
“Nothing is ever a problem” must be the mantra of the Brexit Secretary if the UK’s exit from the European Union is to succeed.
Whether help from the UK military will ever be required or not, it’s good to know that General Sir Nick Carter, the Chief of the Defence Staff has reached out to Micheal Gove, the Brexit Secretary, to inform him that it’s available if needed.
That’s a government and a military infrastructure working together to ensure that nothing is ever a problem for Britons. See; Operation Yellowhammer.
In the meantime, the more and better the UK government and the UK military prepare for a No Deal Brexit, the more EU negotiators will become convinced that the UK really is leaving the EU and that they may need to modify the draft Withdrawal Agreement in order to prevent a so-called ‘Hard Brexit’ scenario — which will negatively affect the EU’s trade surplus with the UK presently running at £95 billion per year (net, £67 billion annually) and with no ability for them to replace that massive (obscene?) trade surplus anywhere else.
By virtue of Brexit Secretary, Micheal Gove, and Chief of the Defence Staff and General Sir Nick Carter working together to prepare for a No Deal Brexit, Theresa May ensures that the EU will be much easier to deal with henceforth and she can expect the Irish backstop (a red herring if there ever were one!) to be dropped from the draft Withdrawal Agreement so that the European Union’s £67 billion (net) annual trade surplus with the UK isn’t lost over something far less important.
Message Received, Theresa May?
It’s not you Theresa May, it’s your draft Withdrawal Agreement that’s caused your problems!
That can’t be said enough, for it’s the only glaringly wrong thing that Theresa May has done throughout her premiership.
Perhaps ‘wrong’ is too strong a word as it’s more like an error of omission (but an ‘omission’ that has the potential to cost the country dearly!) and her brutal personal schedule, plus a lack of support from her party, added to the lonely battle of one human being against many in Brussels must have contributed to Theresa May’s failure to grasp the importance of the fourth and final piece of the Brexit puzzle.
It’s been pointed out many times that more people want you to fail than want you to succeed when you’re a British Prime Minister. The UK political system and certain media outlets are particularly harsh on British PM’s, but that’s the life those politicians chose so there can be no complaining. Although we can understand she might experience a high level of frustration from time to time.
Theresa May Comments After the Conservative Party Confidence Vote
With characteristic class and resolve Theresa May stood outside 10 Downing St. last night after what was surely the most trying day of her premiership and spoke candidly about the result of the Conservative Party confidence vote — which she won — but not by the landslide predicted.
Some 117 Conservative MP’s voted against her staying on as leader and 200 voted for her to continue.
Though Theresa May won on numbers, former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was forced out even though she survived a similar confidence vote with 4 more votes than Theresa May has just done allowing Theresa to continue her premiership.
Which must send Theresa May a clear message. And that message must be that at least 17.4 million Britons and 117 Conservative Party members are very concerned about getting stuck in a permanent Customs Union/Single Market with the European Union — with no chance to leave it, ever!
That’s a bad deal by any standard, and I hope the Prime Minister recognizes that millions of Britons (and non-British, but significant stakeholders in the UK economy) are genuinely concerned and it isn’t about political tub-thumping.
Britons Need Proof the Backstop Has Been Removed or a Firm End Date to Customs Union Membership Has Been Agreed
It’s of no use for EC President Donald Tusk and EU President Jean-Claude Juncker to tell Theresa May that the Irish backstop won’t ever be employed so don’t worry about it. It’s equally of no use for a non-legally binding addition to the Political Declaration document. It’s not worth one penny.
Because neither Donald Tusk nor Jean-Claude Juncker will remain in their posts after the EU elections next year, and their successors won’t be obligated in any way to follow non legally binding agreements that were made prior to their own swearing-in ceremony. Not only that, but unless these terms are written into the legal document (the draft Withdrawal Agreement) they aren’t binding, they’re just fluff.
The only way to solve this problem is for Theresa May to inform both the EC and EU presidents that her party will not vote up a draft Withdrawal Agreement in which there is an Irish backstop, or one that doesn’t have a firm end-date for Customs Union membership. And the EU can forget about the £39 billion divorce payment.
“Tory MP Iain Duncan Smith, a former party leader and a Brexiteer who voted against Mrs May in Wednesday’s vote, said he wanted to “send a strong message” to the PM.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We cannot go on just with the idea that a fiddle here and a fiddle there is what the problem is.”
Instead, he said Mrs May should say that the £39bn the UK has agreed to pay the EU as part of the divorce deal is “at risk”.
“They have got to say to the EU… we are not committed to this £39bn unless we get some resolution.” — BBC
For as long as the existing Withdrawal Agreement continues to include a backstop clause and/or lacks a Customs Union automatic escape date, I strongly suspect it will continue to be voted down in the UK House of Commons, and if the EU is looking to drive the UK into a so-called ‘Hard Brexit’ they’re on that trajectory with certainty.
Let me repeat: As long as there is a backstop, the draft Withdrawal Agreement won’t pass in the UK House of Commons.
Alternatively: As long as there’s no automatic end date to Customs Union membership, the draft Withdrawal Agreement won’t pass in the UK House of Commons.
Like it or not, that’s where we are. And the job of politicians is to fix political problems. So, it’s time to get to work, Theresa May.
Is Theresa May Up For It?
Full marks to Theresa May for making it through another brutal day. Why anyone would want to be a British Prime Minister is quite beyond me — but more power to her! — especially if she gets the backstop removed from the draft Withdrawal Agreement, or if an automatic end-date to Customs Union membership is added to the draft Withdrawal Agreement.
You’re becoming a better Prime Minister every month, Theresa May.
Now just meet this final challenge and you’ll be 4-out-of-4 and able to score highly among British Prime Ministers throughout Britain’s history. Your country needs you to be that good, that dedicated, and that strong!
It’s Not You Theresa May… It’s Your Brexit Deal!
Very Important People said it would never happen.
They said it would be impossible for Britain’s 1922 Committee to gather enough votes to call for a leadership contest in the Conservative Party. They laughed, they wrote Op/Eds mocking the UK Conservatives, and they called the European Research Group (ERG) a paper tiger — because word on the street was — they couldn’t muster enough votes to challenge Theresa May’s premiership.
Yet, within one week of Theresa May bringing home a substandard draft Withdrawal Agreement, the ERG and its friends gathered enough votes to call for a leadership review and they made it look easy. Well done!
Tonight, between the hours of 6:00pm and 8:00pm London time, Theresa May will be reapplying for her job, and if she loses, she will remain Prime Minister until the Conservative Party chooses a new leader. If she wins, the Conservative Party won’t be able to contest her leadership for 12-months no matter what good or bad she does during those 12-months.
So it all comes down to this;
Do you trust Theresa May with the reins of power for the next 12-months leaving the Conservative Party as mere passengers (accomplices?) in the Brexit bus that Theresa May is driving?
Theresa May Has Nobody to Blame but Herself
It’s the Prime Minister who has created this situation. When you’re driving the car and you don’t like where you’ve ended-up, it’s 100% your fault.
Theresa May lollygagged her way through the first 2-years of her premiership, and then suddenly returned from Brussels 2-weeks ago with the ol’ hurry up and sign this draft Withdrawal Agreement before-the-ink-is-dry gambit.
Which seemed a bit off to say the least. Uh, can we read it first, or do we have to vote on it… unread? British MP’s seemed taken-aback by this approach and it took a few days for them to respond. And respond they have!
The Prime Minister is going to hear loud and clear from her party tonight, and by the end of it she may be a lame-duck Prime Minister or she’ll win them over and be free of leadership contests for the next year.
Either way, it’s on her.
It’s Not Her Leadership – It’s the Substandard Draft Withdrawal Agreement
Theresa May has said all along that she wanted a real Brexit and made sweeping statements like, “Brexit means Brexit” and “No Deal is better than a Bad Deal” and “Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed” and other, similar, strong statements which the UK public and media ate-up like chocolate. Oh, how we loved her!
But now that it’s time to deliver, the Prime Minister has fudged on one crucial part of Brexit and it’s arguably the most important part of all — the sudden appearance of a Northern Ireland ‘backstop’ — which could prevent the UK from ever arranging its own trade deals in the post-Brexit timeframe.
You can check for yourself, the words “Northern Ireland backstop” never appeared in the 2016 referendum on EU membership. And, as there wasn’t any other UK referendum on EU membership since the United Kingdom joined the European Union in 1993, that term never appeared anywhere else either.
It’s something that Brussels and Theresa May have dreamt-up because they weren’t committed enough to find a workable solution to an Irish border problem left over from a previous century. Disappointing to say the least — because to overcome political problems is what elected officials are paid to do and if they can’t do it, they don’t deserve their jobs.
The four pillars of Brexit were and are:
- Take back control of the UK’s borders and immigration
- Take back control of the UK legal system
- Take back control of the UK economy
- Take back control of UK trade
And Theresa May’s draft Withdrawal Agreement only succeeds on the first three due to the so-called ‘backstop’ clause in the draft Withdrawal Agreement. The backstop wouldn’t be required at all if a political solution had been found at any time over the past lollygagging 2-years.
Conceivably, the UK could lose all chance of ever making its own trade deals if the backstop kicks-in — which could easily happen if we are to judge it by the low-level of success we’ve seen so far in Brexit negotiations.
Therefore, having failed to agree an Irish border solution, the Prime Minister is asking for more time to arrange an Irish border solution — even though nothing on this brief has been resolved in over 2-years? Give me a break!
Rewarding mediocrity is not the way to deal with politicians.
Either Theresa May is complicit in trying to keep the UK (permanently) inside the EU Customs Union and Single Market against the instructions of 52% of UK voters (thereby giving up any chance of Britain ever signing its own trade deals, which strays dangerously close to becoming an act of treason for a sitting Prime Minister) or she is very naively gambling with the UK’s future by allowing the backstop to form part of a signed and therefore legal Withdrawal Agreement (thereby giving up any chance of Britain ever signing its own trade deals, which strays dangerously close to becoming an act of treason for a sitting Prime Minister).
Summary
If Theresa May continues to insist that the backstop must remain part of the draft Withdrawal Agreement, the Conservatives need to cut her loose, fast. The backstop clause is just too dangerous for the country and if it ever did kick-in, it would prevent the UK from seeking its own trade deals — thereby dramatically limiting economic growth in the UK for the next 100-years. That’s treason and tragedy in one dose.
If Theresa May says she can remove the backstop or add an addenda to her draft Withdrawal Agreement with a guaranteed end-date to the UK’s membership in the EU Customs Union, then I hope UK Conservatives vote to keep her on and give her every opportunity to succeed as Prime Minister and importantly, every opportunity to succeed as the Prime Minister responsible for the UK’s exit from the European Union.
Notes:
- Calls by anyone for a 2nd referendum are premature at best, dangerous at worst, and it adds to civil unrest with real consequences for the country and the economy — and the poor losers of the 2016 referendum should realize the country already had a ‘People’s Vote’ on June 23, 2016 — and the government still hasn’t gotten the job done from that referendum. Adding more work to the UK government when they haven’t even caught up with the last referendum result is lunacy.
- Theresa May threatening to cancel Brexit is undemocratic. The People voted to Leave and the government is to follow their instructions with no departing from those instructions. She hasn’t the right, short of nuclear war breaking out, to cancel what her employers have instructed her to do. If she’s complaining the government has run out of time, let’s remind her that she spent 2-years lollygagging around doing nothing productive with Brexit. Yes, it takes both sides to make a deal, but there is much that could’ve been done that wasn’t; Like formulating a ‘No Deal’ plan to help ease the country through the immediate post-Brexit period in the event of a ‘No Deal’ Brexit. If she persists with her threat to cancel Brexit, she should be removed as Prime Minister and forced to resign her Member of Parliament seat in Maidenhead. That’s just too undemocratic to tolerate — for backbenchers, let alone for a Minister of the Crown, or indeed the Prime Minister of the country.
- Theresa May threatening to ask for an Article 50 extension is also a case of her wasting the first 2-years of her premiership, and then, not being able to get the job done on time. Again, if she persists asking for an extension to do her job when she should’ve been doing it all along, Conservative MP’s need to remove her from the PM’s chair.
- Apocalyptic cries about a so-called ‘No Deal’ Brexit should be ignored. The UK will begin saving money right away in the event of a No Deal Brexit: £39 billion on account of walking away instead of paying the EU for an Implementation Period, also, £12.205 billion (net 2019) will be saved by no longer having to contribute to the EU budget and £10.05 billion (net 2020) will be saved in FY 2020. Also, the obscene trade surplus that the EU runs with the UK of £95 billion per year will wither, perhaps by 50% per year until it hits zero. And in other ways, the UK will SAVE, SAVE, SAVE, money — beginning in the very first year of a No Deal Brexit. That’s a lot of money that the UK could put to better use than sending it to Brussels and hoping for morsels in return as the UK has done for decades.
Letter to Britain 