Try Jon Worth’s Brexit flow diagrams. Studied at a superficial level you’d be forgiven for thinking it resembles coming out of an HS2 project plan, but stick with it.
https://jonworth.eu/brexit-what-next/
Latest version is from today. However, doesn’t take into account the recent statement from Verhofstadt which potentially muddies the waters even further.
Thanks for that, its very useful and perhaps is something that should have been used during the referendum campaign to help people better understand the consequences of all potential scenarios, though the current mess would have probably been way to difficult to flow!
Surely that wouldn’t pose an immediate problem. Boris requests the A50 extension and it is declined by Europe. We then leave by default with no deal on 31st October, albeit with total chaos due to the government being dysfunctional as a result of two months of turmoil and a busted majority. If I’m understanding things correctly that’s all quite feasible as things stand at present.
Of course Britain could revoke A50 entirely, but would anyone do that?
You talk about it as if it were just a minor detail, but any potential trade & economic issues as a result of crashing out would be far reaching and potentially very serious. This is the very centre of why we are where we are. I know the popular belief amongst hardcore leavers is that this is all an effort to derail Brexit entirely, and thus no deal would be fine, but the people looking closer at the fine details, projections and advice see a very difficult time ahead if we are daft enough to fall out with no deal. And those people come from both sides of the argument, not just remainers.
Which brings me neatly to this little gem:
Could that be because, like it or not, Johnson is reflecting quite a heavy body of public opinion?
You'll find all sorts of public opinions held by heavy bodies of the population, but that doesn't mean you have to follow every demand by the mob. Every indication is that no deal is by far the worst scenario for the UK & the EU. Indeed so much so, that it was barely discussed by the Leave campaign who instead promised the UK an "easy" deal. This hasn't happened for a multitude of reasons, but most of all because the Leave campaign frankly mis-sold Brexit. However, thankfully the reason we elect a Parliament is to take all those wants & needs that 65M+ people have, process them, discuss them, analyse them, debate them & try to find a balance between what people want, want people need, and what is practicable in the real world. For this reason referendum in this country are not legally binding, only legislation passed by Parliament backing the result of referendum is.
In all honesty, in the light of the 52-48 split, Cameron's government would have been well within their legal rights to say that they have considered the result, but believed that it was too close to call, and that no clear mandate on how to leave existed. They could then have chosen a second, more in depth referendum to decide this (which is what the referendum should have been in the first place), gone ahead with invoking A50, or simply said that it wasn't viable. The first and last options would have seen anger from leave supporters, but it would have been perfectly legal given that the country was obviously split on the subject.
What they chose to do as we all know was to go ahead with plans to leave, but without any clear mandate on how, with a pre-supposed timescale for negotiations though not one as to when to start them. However as time has gone on it has become more obvious that the lack of a coherent mandate from the off was the biggest problem of all, because no matter what deal has been presented, factions on either side of the argument have not agreed to it. This is in part because some of the facets such as the Backstop were simply not properly considered in the early scramble to convince people Brexit would be easy. So to some extent, those planning & campaigning for leave are to blame. They were simply too naïve, or worse simply were not prepared to present the full case to drive people's opinions on Brexit before the vote, and to focus both government & Parliament on negotiations and manage expectations. The Leave campaign, it's pledges, it's methodology, it's planning were flawed, as the last three years have shown.
And so now MPs, there to act as a buffer between "popular opinion" and reality, find that they cannot allow a no deal scenario through, and want more time to consider the options & explore new ones. That's how it is, that's how it should be, and frankly the Brexiteers jumping up and down demanding their shiny will just have to sit back and wait. Because we all know here that the moment anything goes wrong with their shiny, they will be the first ones to complain.
<Phew!>
)
