The Brexit Chronicles

Breakthrough?

Published on October the 17th, 2019. 17.30.

Well, well... The light at the end of the 'tunnel' negotiations turned out not to be the headlamp of the oncoming train but the bright sunlit uplands after all. After some intense wrangling the long awaited Deal has finally been signed by the UK and the EU. There will be Peace In Our Time, little Jimmy will sleep in his own room again, and bluebirds over the White cliffs of Dover. Or maybe not.

The DUP have stated they can't support the Withdrawal Agreement, and Labour in their own typically confused way have said they want another Article 50 extension as well as a second referendum on it, despite the EU having ruled out any further delay beyond the end of October. Yeah, good luck in legislating for and organising another vote in a few short days Mr Clueless Corbyn! In an even more bizarre twist of fate, those who were so vociferous about an Exit Deal being considered by Parliament now want to prevent the commons doing just that! I kid you not...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/16/brexit-legal-action-stop-boris-johnson-putting-withdrawal-agreement-before-mps

But the devil is of course in the detail, and the detail looks suspiciously like the May Deal lite. This from a BBC article illustrates one of the many issues; It seems those EU officials may be able to overrule UK officials. "Where the Union representative requests the authorities of the United Kingdom to carry out control measures in individual cases for duly stated reasons, the authorities of the United Kingdom shall carry out those control measures."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50083026

Does that sound like a sovereign nation, where officials from a bloc we have supposedly left are able to overrule those of the UK government in order to impose EU regulations? Not to me it doesn't, and probably not to many Tory MPs as well. Along with the other problematic areas highlighted in the article such as the ongoing contributions to the EU budget after 'Brexit', they may well balk at the attempt to force-feed them an unpalatable Withdrawal Agreement at the fourth time of asking. But even if this revised submission doesn't pass, at least BoJo has shrugged off the constraints of the Benn Act and tossed the hot potato back into Parliament's lap.