What is ‘no deal’ Brexit?

[Talkstotrees]

Perhaps I have been burying my head in the sand. I have consistently dismissed the notion of ‘no deal’ actually happening as being totally ridiculous. No responsible government would allow such a catastrophe to happen on their watch. The unknowns are too great and the knowns are too damaging.

Now, it seems, I may have been too trusting - or perhaps not trusting enough, depending on who I listen to. My head is spinning a bit with it all and I’d welcome views on:

• is ‘no deal’ really an option? Surely Parliament will step in and halt/postpone Brexit if a way forward is not agreed.

• What would the consequences be of ‘no deal’? Can anything be done to mitigate?

I know this has been discussed many times in many threads, however I am becoming quite concerned and could do with hearing something positive (eg, either no deal Brexit won’t happen or if it does it won’t be awful).

Thanks

I don't know if Parliament can actually step in, and I think May is pig-headed enough to let us crash out, without fully realising what she is doing.

"No Deal" is to latest "£350m on a bus".

Its a jingo and means something different to everyone, and nobody knows what it will be.

To me it would be coming out of the customs union and single market ... without having any trade agreement with EU, so enforcing WTO default tariffs. But in reality i think it will mean "kicking the can down the road" so trade between uk and eu continues as usual until some deal is agreed.

As I understand it...no deal with Europe means wto rules and 3% tariffs on a lot of regular goods until alternative deals could be set up.
It would mean no “divorce payment” but also no agreement on the Irish border.
We might need visas to travel to Eu countries but the planes and ferries would still run.
A lot of institutions such as Europol would have to address the resulting issues separately.
This is the outcome that will likely cause a short interruption in supply chain. There are a lot of questions about how financial services would run.

The 'mechanism' for departing the EU has never been tested so it is almost impossible to know.
As members have joined, there have been many years of discussions and altering individual countries laws and regulations to match the EU and once they have 'matched' the EU has (sort of) taken over some of the responsibility.
A 'No deal' means that all responsibilities jointly held with the EU (some 760 major pieces of legislation), suddenly become invalid.
Some can be relatively easily 'rewritten' (months rather than years of negotiation).
It would be like your worst day ever. Getting up and finding no hot water, milk gone off in your fridge for your breakfast, twisting your ankle on the step as you leave the house, car not starting, and so on. Everyone will be in a similar position (unless you happen to have loads of money in a bank that doesn't fail).
Of course it won't all happen at once but as so many aspects of the EU are so completely woven into almost everything we do, the lack will become apparent gradually.
It is difficult to say whether there is any 'going back'. Even 'just cancelling' Brexit, if the EU will allow it at this point, will still not get the UK 'back' to where it was immediately before the 2016 vote, as the exchange rates have fallen, companies have either already moved, are thinking of moving or have folded. Opinions have changed, there is an increased 'dislike of foreigners' which is souring previous relations.

Positives are, apart from no payments to the EU, the ability to agree our own trade deals and tariffs and set our own laws and rules.- the “return of sovereignty”
Downsides are less co-operation around security, employment, research & development..
It leaves issues for brits abroad, especially concerning health & pensions.

Positives are that it clears Farage out of the European Parliament.
I don't know how something can be returned if it was never lost as in sovereignty.

I am sorry, but 'No deal' is a lot 'worse' than Silver and Viking have suggested. The Pound has already 'lost' around 3% compared to the Euro in the 2 1/2 years.
WTO tariffs hit food produce by on average around 20 percent, some much higher some a bit lower. To set up 'better' WTO deals can take 10 years or more IF other countries agree, and that is not guaranteed that they would.
Having to get visas to travel is just a tiny fraction of 'stuff' that will go wrong.
The EU are not out to 'punish' the UK (as is wrongly suggested by the tabloids) but there are rules and a 'No deal' rips all the rules up.
It is like your car or house insurance. 1 minute past midnight when your insurance expires, you are 'out' and not covered, and saying 'pretty please' cuts no ice. Just rules.

I think the plan is to move all Eu legislation onto the U.K. statute book, from day 1 and then change individual laws as appropriate.

I doubt the milk will go off

senior we already had sovereignty even the government's own white paper said this.

Sorry I always have to chip in at the mention of sovereignty.We always had this. The Farage taking it back nonsense was pure myth! The Govt even acknowledged this.

We had complete ability to set our own rules in most matters, education, crime, health, pensions, defence, policing, fiscal policy,tax, inheritance, property, planning, local government etc etc etc.
We just agreed to delegate some shared common regs on food, agriculture,environment and some workers rights. The vast majority -95% -of which we agreed with anyway and in many cases initiated.

As for what no deal means-UK agricultural exports to the EU would face new tariffs of 14.4 per cent for starters.

Payments to the EU were less than 1% of GDP, roughly £160 per person.
The UK has already 'lost' that amount many times over while it messes around. I thing a recent estimate was over £500 Million a week and probably more as there is so much being thrown at the project as the gov realise quite how much they have 'messed up'.
Trade 'deals' depend on at least 2 parties. The UK can't say 'I will offer you that' and EXPECT the other parties to agree, they can perfectly reasonably say 'on your bike' or other more succinct expressions.

The dislike or foreigners thing isn’t only the UK, it’s hit a lot of countries, in and outside Europe, and is horrible. Similar happened after other major economic downturns.and is the most frightening element IMO. Restoring trust within communities can take decades.

{I think the plan is to move all Eu legislation onto the U.K. statute book,}

Nice 'soundbite' theory. The bad news is that the UK has to 'prove' that standards for food etc are maintained, meaning more vets (for live animal and meat trade) and similar problems with almost everything else. Currently much of the examination and verification of the meat industry is done by Eastern European veterinary trained persons, those that Mrs May is wanting to 'expel'.
For ANY trade with the EU (or indeed anywhere else in the world) all inspectors have to be 'certified' and at present most of this certification is through EU bodies. No deal means that certification is lost, so 'no trade'.

It would mean no “divorce payment”

I think legal opinion disagrees with you on this. This payment is for commitments we have already made, like MEPs pensions. Also if we refused to pay our international obligations how to you think we'd look to other countries we then tried to do trade deals (which would inevitably be worse than deals we have now through the EU) with? I know we broke our agreements with the EU but we promise we won't do that with you!

As for just falling back onto WTO rules, we don't even have the infrastructure to manage this.

And we can't just fall back onto who rules.
Other who members can block us, e.g Russia , Argentina...and they've already raised objections.

Wto not who!

This payment is for commitments we have already made, like MEPs pensions.

Er... wait, you mean there's a way to avoid paying Farage & Hannan ANY pension for their MEP time?! That's inspired. The whole thing is a disaster, but boy that would be some super nice silver lining.

A basic summary: inews.co.uk/news/brexit/no-deal-brexit-what-meaning-uk-leave-uk-consequences/

"No deal" means we leave the EU on 29th March with no transition period. The UK government would copy over existing EU laws so anything purely domestic should continue as usual. However, any area where we currently operate internationally under the EU legal framework (trade, aviation, travel etc) would suddenly no longer be governed by that framework. Bear in mind that doesn't just mean any way in which we deal with any other EU member state, it is any area globally which we currently participate in as members of the EU. For example, we have thousands of free trading arrangements covering anything from Chilean blueberries to South African lemons. Flights between the US and the UK are covered by the framework of the EU Open Skies regulations.

The Biggie is of course border checks. WTO rules state that any nation or trading bloc must have secure bordera, or allow goods from any nation through under equal access terms. The EU and the UK would be forced to operate customs checks on goods crossing between us. Alternatively, we and they have to let goods from all other countries through without checks. The EU cannot do that of course, as then the single market would not exist. We could theoretically allow that, but that means unchecked children's toys etc from China, chlorine-rinsed chicken from the US etc could all enter the UK freely.

There are two problems with the necessity of introducing customs checks. Firstly, the infrastructure does not exist at a sufficient scale. For decades, the vast majority of our imports have either originated in the EU or been transported to us via other member states, who performed the necessary customs checks on our behalf. Hence, there will be massive delays at entry points ( just take a look at the daily queues of lorries crossing between Germany and Switzerland) not to mention the hassle and expense for UK businesses of additional paperwork.

Even more serious is the Irish border. The GFA depends on no hard border, no checks, no physical infrastructure, so that citizens living in Northern Ireland can choose to identify as purely Irish, not British, citizens.

Exiting the EU with no deal whatsoever is insanity and anyone who doesn't reise that does not understand the consequences. I don't really think there is any genuine political will for no deal, but I fear the incompetent government could end up there by mistake.

The 'divorce' settlement is around 25 Billion as it stands up to March 2019. It becomes around 39 Billion IF the UK gets a transition period to the end of 2020. Crash out 'no deal' means it HAS to pay the 25 Billion (over a few years, not all immediately). As stated, reneging on payment would totally 'stuff' any deals the UK may attempt with anyone else as it's 'credit rating' would drop drastically, so almost a cash only deal.
WTO rules are damn complicated and as a result take many years to set up and it only takes one country taking exception to a possible 'deal' to scupper it completely. The bizarre thing is that those who 'object' may not even be the main focus of the deal. Say the UK wanted to sell sheep to Africa. As there are other countries selling sheep to Africa New Zealand for example), THEY get involved in the discussions.

Thanks all. Childrenofthesun, your post summarises my understanding (although much more eloquently ).

Can Parliament not step in and save the day? Surely their duty is to do so, haven’t they pledged to work in the best interests of country and constituents? No deal is in no one’s best interests.

Personally I doubt that we will leave without a deal. There is a huge amount of effort going into securing a deal, no deal is something few politicians want, (there are some).
As a pp said, because no country has left the EU before, much is untested or unknown. Commercial, legal, regulatory. But there has also been scaremongering in both sides which is unhelpful.

I'm hoping that, if it came to a shit deal/no deal vote in Parliament, MPs would not have the bottle to put us through a no deal scenario. If they have any sense they would accept whatever deal TM cobbles together and then have a career in getting paid to whinge about it in the media.

@Seniorschoolmum . If you read @Childrenofthesun you will see that alleged scaremongering is , in fact, telling the truth.

I don't know if anyone is sure what Parliament are able to do. If TM negotiates a deal, Parliament has to vote on it. However, if they don't vote it through, what happens next is anyone's guess! Maybe the default is no deal, or the EU might be persuaded to extend the negotiating time, although they said they would only do this if there was a significant political change,so I assume there would need to be a general election or maybe a second referendum, presenting the public with the terms of the deal. I don't know what they could put on a referendum ballot paper though. If "remain in the EU" or "stay in SM/CU" were options, that would have to be with the agreement of existing members.

From what I can see, the most likely option is a "Blind Brexit" where a withdrawal agreement is fudged without anyone really knowing what happens next. There will be no withdrawal agreement without something agreed about the NI border though.

But I don’t want a shit deal. I don’t think anyone wants a shit deal. Even the likes of Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, David Davis, Nigel Farage and now Arron Banks have said that remaining was better than TM’s deal. So why not put it back to the people?

I totally disagree with having had the referendum in the first place - it should be for our elected and non-elected representatives to make informed decisions on our behalf BUT there was a referendum and both campaigns were flawed. People were sold a version of leaving the EU that is not achievable.

I have been against the People’s Vote idea but I can now see that it might be the only way of getting us out of this mess