Nerve wrecking Brexit saga
continues
Asad Mirza
The unprecedented drama and blames of unconstitutional steps in the
mother of all parliaments i.e. in the UK, came to an end around 2 am at the
night of 10 Sept. The Parliament was suspended until 14 October after a day and
night of high drama.
The day (9September) started with chaotic scenes as the prorogation
formalities began in the early hours of Tuesday. Speaker of the House, John
Bercow, expressed his anger at the suspension of proceedings, saying it was
“not a normal prorogation. It is not typical. It is not standard. It’s one of
the longest for decades and it represents... an act of executive fiat”.
A group of opposition MPs, carrying signs saying “silenced” tried to
prevent the Speaker John Bercow from exiting his chair to go to the House of
Lords to complete prorogation proceedings.
Earlier in the day, Boris Johnson once again failed in his attempt
to force an early general election after opposition MPs abstained and Labour
leader Jeremy Corbyn said he would not let his party walk into “traps laid by
this prime minister”. This was the sixth parliamentary defeat for the prime
minister in a week, more defeats than Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair
or Gordon Brown had in their entire tenures as PM.
Despite royal assent being given to legislation requiring a delay to
Brexit beyond October 31 unless a divorce deal is approved or parliament agrees
to leave the EU without one by 19 October, Johnson insisted he would not ask
for another Brexit delay.
What is this barohua all about? In fact all this started two years
before, with the Brexit Referendum. The British public was taken for granted by
the then PM David Cameron, and asked to vote for or against remaining in the
EU. The vexing equation, which the UK had with, the EU has been continuing for
the past 42 years. However, this time the electorate was misled in believing
that UK’s membership of the EU has been detrimental to the common British
citizens, and they would be in a better position if the UK left EU, as then in
many matters it would be free to take its own decision and will not be bound to
EU laws to allow more immigration from EU countries.
Subsequently, after the voters voted in favour of leaving the EU in
2016, David Cameron resigned and Theresa May took charge of the country. But
many commentators and analysts are of the view that very little progress took
place between the British government and EU, under her leadership, on how the
UK will leave the EU. As a result of which she lost a vote of confidence and
Boris Johnson took over from her.
Now according to a vote secured by Boris Johnson, Parliament will be
suspended for five weeks despite the on-going crisis surrounding Brexit.
A historical ceremony known as "prorogation" took place
once Commons business was concluded on Monday (9 Sept.) evening, MPs were
summoned to the House of Lords to hear a message from the Queen halting
business in both houses until 14 October.
The move means the PM will not attempt again to force a snap general
election in October if MPs vote down his attempt.
Opposition fears that a vote next month might allow the PM to take
the UK out of the EU without a deal, despite legislation due to become law on
10 Sept. barring him from doing so unless he has reached a deal with Brussels
or secured parliamentary approval for no-deal.
UK faces 'unnecessarily painful recession thanks to government
policy
The PM's official spokesman said that while the government would
obey the law Mr Johnson would not be requesting another extension of the
Article 50 EU withdrawal process. Under repeated questioning by journalists at
a Westminster media briefing, he did not rule out the possibility of Mr Johnson
resigning.
Boris Johnson, who this week lost his majority in the Commons, fired
21 Tory MPs and saw two ministers resign in two days – his own brother Jo
Johnson, and Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd.
Mr Johnson last week sacked a number of senior members of his own
party, many of them having served in top government jobs, including former
chancellors Ken Clarke and Philip Hammond, and Winston Churchill’s grandson Sir
Nicholas Soames, after they supported opposition moves to block a no-deal
Brexit.
The basic fallacy that most involved in the Brexit debate have fallen
for is the notion that the future is mapped out for the Britishers, after
leaving the EU.
On the one hand, many of those who support the UK leaving the EU
have been smitten to the old idea of the nation-builders that the nation is the
natural unit of political order.
On the other, many of those who support EU membership, see in the
European Union a new model of political organisation that heralds the emergence
of international or global structures, where states are necessarily bound into
a net of commitments.
Some other concepts related to the saga are;
Hard and Soft Brexit
A soft Brexit would be more advantageous for international investors
as it would allow them to continue to use the UK as a base for broader EU trade
without having to worry about trade barriers when moving goods across the
English Channel.
However, what is certain is that a hard Brexit would inevitably
result in sudden and intense change to Britain’s customs regime, including the
introduction of tariffs and Value Added Taxes on goods moving between the EU
and UK, as well as goods entering the UK from other international origins that
had previously enjoyed duty deferral under EU trade agreements.
Understanding the Stop Gap
Measure
Perhaps one of the most confusing and controversial issues in the
negotiations has been that of how Brexit will affect the border between the
sovereign Republic of Ireland and the UK territory of Northern Ireland. The two
entities have been peacefully coexisting since the signing of the Good Friday
agreement in April 1998, but the possibility of re-establishing a “hard border”
between them runs the risk of reigniting tensions – an outcome both the
leadership of the UK and EU would like to avoid.
The Impact Of Different
Regulatory Regimes
Brexit will not only create trade barriers in the form of potential
tariffs and/or duties on inbound shipments and reciprocal tariffs and/or duties
on the other side of the English Channel, it will also create disparate
regulatory regimes.
One of the key reasons Britons voted in favor of leaving the EU was
to take back control of certain political and regulatory decision making. For
highly regulated industries, such as pharma, food manufacturing, chemicals,
etc. that are active in both the UK and EU, that likely mean adherence to two
separate regulatory regimes, which will increase costs and time to market. This
applies to UK-based businesses but also international businesses in those
markets.
In all this the sufferer has been the common citizen, who has been
fed on lies and a replay of which took
place earlier in the USA and India. Ambitious political leaders feel that they
can take the voters for granted and do whatever they want, once elected to
power. By doing so they are only demeaning the democratic process but also
forgetting that democratic institutions have enough checks and balance, built
in to disallow them their whims.
Emerging from no deal will, in other words, be extremely difficult,
intensely time-consuming and politically troubled. And all the while, trade
with the EU will continue to be hit by tariffs and checks. Those hoping for an
early denouement to the Brexit saga are likely to be sorely disappointed. No
deal will just be the start.
---ends---
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