We are and have always been a sovereign nation. However, we voluntarily surrendered a few pieces of that sovereignty to the EU in exchange for all the benefits that come from EU membership. So we won't "become a sovereign country again" after Brexit, because we never weren't. We will however regain control over those aspects of British sovereignty we had surrendered to the EU.
But of course, since we're leaving, we will also lose everything that comes with EU membership.
Think of it like a gym membership (metaphor, not literally). If you stop paying, you're no longer a member - and you don't get to keep using any of the equipment or facilities.
Now, you might well put on weight as a result. But it would be absurd to blame the gym. Yet some people seem quite happy to blame the EU for the natural consequences of our own decision to leave. Perhaps because it's "easier" than facing up to the fact that we are creating all the problems for ourselves. Remember, the EU never asked us to leave. They're not trying to force us out. Quite the contrary: they wanted, and still want, us to stay.
The legal process to leave the EU is summed up in a brief document called Article 50. One element of Article 50 is that we automatically leave the EU exactly 2 years after "invoking" (i.e. activating) Article 50. That's right there in black and white in the text.
So by invoking Article 50 when she did, Theresa May set the clock ticking. And on March 29, 2019 at 11pm our 2 year period will be up, and boom - we're out of the EU. Call that Brexit Day.
Our departure will happen automatically. Parliament doesn't have to do anything to make it happen. What Parliament does have to do is to pass a giant stack of laws to make our departure a bit smoother. Because at the moment we have lots of laws that are EU laws. Those have to be copied into UK domestic law since they will cease to apply as soon as we're not members any more. But even if Parliament doesn't manage to finish that process, we're still going to be out of the EU on Brexit Day.
One of the things being discussed is extending Article 50, literally asking for "more time" i.e. to move Brexit Day so that we can better prepare. We have to ask for an extension, but it's not automatically granted. Instead, all other EU27 countries have to agree to the request. If even one of them vetoes it, no extension, and Brexit Day stays when it originally was. But if we do get permission, then we can move the deadline by X months (whatever we asked for and got agreement on).
That does NOT stop Brexit. We are still on an automatic conveyor belt out of the EU. But we spun the belt backwards a little, so we're further away from the drop at the end.
To stop Brexit entirely, we have to do something else: rescind Article 50. Theresa May would need to write to the EU and say something along the lines of "We've changed our minds. Really. We've decided we don't want to leave, and we want to stay in the EU. We are therefore formally requesting that Article 50 is revoked." (Ok, she'd dress it up in more flowery language, and print it on nice headed paper, but that's the gist of it.
And that's it. The EU can't oppose the request. Not unless they suspect it's insincere. (There's some language about "intent" in the process). But if we genuinely ask for a cancellation, that's something we can do unilaterally. They can't block the request. They can't force the exit process to continue.
If we did revoke Article 50, we would stay EU members just as if the last 2.5 years of arguing, bickering, job losses and chaos never happened. We would have the same membership conditions, the same EU budget rebates, the same opt-outs. Of course, it's easy to expect that other EU countries would be pretty miffed at all the hassle we've put them through (uncertainty, costs etc.) but if we sit in a corner quietly for a while, without grumbling, they'll get over it.
So what happens on Brexit Day?
Probably the most important thing is that we lose all the agreements we're currently party to as EU members. Those include membership of the Single Market and Customs Union (that allow for free trade across the EU, financial firms to sell their services across all EU28 member states from London, etc.). They also include over 40 free trade deals that we enjoy with other countries by virtue of EU membership, covering places such as Japan, Canada and Singapore. But we would also lose close to a thousand other legal arrangements, governing everything from trademarks and patents to aircraft safety, drivers' licenses, international haulage rights, etc. etc.
So all of that would be gone, instantly, with a snap of the fingers, on Brexit Day.
Now we can start talking about Theresa May's deal. It comes in two parts:
- The Withdrawal Agreement: legally binding, covers how we leave.
- The Political Declaration: not legally binding, covers what our future relationship with the EU will look like.
Part of the Withdrawal Agreement is an arrangement for a transition period, i.e. a period of time during which most EU arrangements will still apply to us. During that transition period, life will carry on without too much disruption. We'll still be able to work and live in other EU countries. We'll still be able to trade with the EU without worrying about customs declarations and tariffs. And so on. It's inaccurate to say that nothing will change, because we may lose some of the agreements we used to have with non-EU countries via the EU. But broadly speaking it won't be too disruptive.
However, the end of transition will represent another abrupt change. That's when we will experience the full effects of all those 1,000+ agreements that vanished on Brexit Day.
You can think of the Political Declaration as a wishlist, like a letter to EU Santa. We've stuck everything and anything that we might want to get out of a future relationship into the document, so it's (deliberately) incredibly vague. We could end up with a strong relationship with the EU, a weak relationship, or no relationship at all - all are possible under the Political Declaration.
(That's why whenever you see politicians arguing that this or that change should be made to the Political Declaration, it's a figleaf. Regardless of what gets written into the P.D., none of it carries legal weight. It's a statement of intent, nothing more. So even if they get their pet version of Brexit written into it, that doesn't mean we'll end up at that situation in the real world once the dust settles on the negotiations.)
So Theresa May has the W.A. and P.D. negotiated, and is now trying to persuade MPs to vote for it. But it's not particularly favourable to the UK, so they're not very keen to do so.
Some Brexiter MPs are pushing for a clean break with the EU. None of this messing around with transition periods, just OUT out on Brexit Day.
In practical terms, that will be a disaster of course because we'll have thrown away 40+ years of international relations, with nothing to replace them.
But some of them don't care. Leaving the EU (or "leaving Europe" as some of them still absurdly mischaracterise it) has become such an obsession for them - in many instances, going back decades - that they genuinely couldn't care less about the detail or the consequences, they just want to GET OUT NOW.
So when you see talk of "no deal", that means that we would exit the EU on Brexit Day without any formal agreement either on our terms of exit, or on our future relationship. There would be no transition period, nothing to cushion the shock of departure. One minute, companies will be trading freely, the next they'll be staring at a pile of customs declarations and rules-of-origin forms.
As you can imagine, economists, CEOs, and other experts are in complete agreement that would damage the economy, likely much worse than during the 2008/2009 financial crisis.
Again, we have to come back to the fact that the Brexiter MPs know this, but they just don't care. Getting out of the EU is literally all that matters. You can think of them as a claustrophobe desperate to leave a plane. It doesn't matter that it's at 30,000 feet, or that they don't have a parachute. They just want to rip open the nearest emergency exit, and jump.
In fact, that's a good metaphor. We're in the EU plane now, cruising comfortably along. A "no deal" Brexit would be like leaping out of it without a parachute, or anything else to arrest our fall. And our economy will end up as a strawberry jam smear across the landscape.
But wait a minute, there's been all kind of talk about WTO, and trading on WTO terms. What's that all about?
Well, the WTO is an organisation established to help countries trade more smoothly with each other. There are now 164 countries that are WTO members (covering over 95% of the global economy).
Trade on WTO terms is better than having nothing at all. It's basic rules instead of anarchy. But it's not great either.
That's why every single WTO member, without exception, has free trade agreements or trade facilitation arrangements with at least some other countries.
WTO allows that. Paraphrased, WTO members have to trade on WTO terms unless they come to a "better arrangement" i.e. a free trade deal. And because WTO's not particularly brilliant, countries devote huge amounts of time, effort and resources into striking trade deals to be able to conduct better-than-WTO trade.
So yes, it's true that everyone trades on WTO terms. But they don't trade on WTO terms alone. It's like all houses have foundations, but no house consists of foundations alone.
That is one of the big deceptions of Brexiter MPs when they talk about WTO trade. They focus on the first part ("everyone trades on WTO terms") and completely ignore the second part.
But you can't ignore the second part just because it doesn't fit your narrative. The real world is a certain way, even if it's awkward because it doesn't work how Brexiters would like it to.
So if we leave the EU without reaching a deal, we will have to rely on trading on WTO terms. Better than nothing, certainly. But not a great deal better. We will be the ONLY country in the whole world trading on WTO terms alone. A very lonely club to be in.
And that's why one of the most important arguments of Brexit isn't about which deal we end up with, but whether we can prevent a no deal outcome.
Because "no deal" is a disaster. It's the over-the-cliff-edge scenario. We fall out of the EU with nothing to replace all our existing relationships.
And that's why the Government is spending billions of pounds (£4.2 billion, at the last Budget) on no deal planning. Because the friction introduced by new customs processes could lead to long lines at ports, which translates into goods being stuck in transit, which means shortages. So the Government is planning to prioritise shipments of food and medicine, and it has pushed companies such as the supermarkets, pharmaceutical firms etc. to stockpile several weeks or months of supplies.
There is an almost endless list of other "bad stuff" that is likely to happen if we don't reach a deal, and end up leaving with a "no deal" Brexit. Again, all of it stems automatically from the loss of legal arrangements we have as EU members. For example, financial firms in London will no longer have permission to sell products to customers in EU27 markets. TV broadcasters in the UK will no longer be able to use their UK licenses to broadcast in Europe. UK trademarks will no longer provide protection across the EU. And so on, and so on, and so on.
None of that is because we're being "punished". It's all just the simple, foreseeable, logical consequences of leaving the EU "club" and losing the benefits of membership.
Hope that clarifies things for you a bit.