Westminstenders: Here we go again

[RedToothBrush]

Vote 12th March: Meaningful Vote on the Withdrawal Agreement

Vote 13th March: If WA fails, vote on No Deal

Vote 14th March: If WA fails, vote on A50 extension

Not much more to add at this stage that's not repeating what's been said before.

ICJ? The same ICJ who told us to give back the Chagos Islands?

Pmk

All seems very staged to me, as if this was all pre planned for effect.

Hmmm ... I wondered that too

Maybe they have been playing Scrabble for months.

Would praying for a miracle work, do you think?

No

yep bellinisurge have heard lots of speculation about the choreography of this.

Meanwhile our sales of euro fighter typhoons to Saudi are going well. Despite Germany's arms embargo.

Daniel Keohane
‏*@KeohaneDan*

The one and only @tconnellyRTE said just now on main RTÉ bulletin: UK wants a free trade agreement, and if EU not acting in “good faith/best endeavours”, then HMG wants to be able to take case to an arbitration panel, and would like right to unilateral withdrawal in that case.

{The idea that the WA being passed means that Brexit is over is the naïvest thing I’ve heard today. Possibly this year.}

Whatever happens, whether the WA is signed or not there will be many months of wrangling to create a government that has anything like a single forward moving idea.
EU based business can't sit around for all this time waiting for a decision. The UK hasn't even started to get to grips with dark money and the lies around the referendum, and there are signs it is on the way again so it delays the possibility of the UK making a properly balanced choice well into the future and you have the likes of the ERG, Farage and Tommy Robinson agitating continuously.
The UK collapsing would be bad, but Europe collapsing would be truly catastrophic. A delay of more than a week or two for 'technicalities' once a decision is taken is all that can be afforded.

tatiana I listen to German news and what German business is telling the govt here
Much more exposure to Brussels here too, many more visits from EU officials

Where are you getting your impressions of the EU from ?
Direct sources, or what other Remainers tell you they think / wish ?
it sounds more like wishful thinking, because it doesn't fit what is being said repeatedly in Germany

German manufacturing has stated publicly that a delayed No Deal Brexit would cost them more money
All that prep to be redone for a different date
Varadkar says Irish business have told him the same

Of course the WA doesn't remotely mean Brexit is over
but it does mean the first 21 months stay pretty much as now and there is more time to sort out the rest.

After transition, the EU retains its trade with the rest of the world, all its agencies too,
so they think within 20 months transition, they can sort out the 10% or so of their trade that is with the UK

The view here is that No Deal is the most probable outcome
but that May might yet get through her WA in the last week of March

Germany / the EU have no wish to start renegotiating with this disfunctional government and HoC
They just want to move on
If the UK wants a softer Brexit with CU etc then this should be negotiated within transition

For the UK, “good faith/best endeavours” means cake

The UK wants a Canada++ type deal, in order to be able to make trade deals with the USA or anyone it wants
There is no way to avoid a hard goods border NI / RoI there
The UK also wants frictionless borders GB / EU, for JIT

So the talks would bog down

The only longterm trade deals that would not cause a hard NI border are
either (best option) SM+ customs arrangement
or CU+all the SM trade rules - i.e. basically the backstop

which the Tories don't want

Which is why they keep trying to kill off the backstop

Laura Kuennsburg

"16 or 17 ministers were pulled together tonight for a meeting in Cobra room in Cabinet Office - more progress been made than expected sources suggest - now down to 'how constructive ERG and DUP are willing to be' says a source"

An international court would uphold the backstop and not allow the UK out,
if future trade talks broke down because the UK wanted to keep EU trade benefits without the 4 pillars

The govt & ERG know this

They also know that the magical tech solution won't be ready in 10 years or 20.

Otherwise, they wouldn't be so frantic to kill the backstop.

Face-saving music
Enough for the ERG, or do they want legal changes ?

Alex Wickham@alexwickham
Brexiters and DUP are now saying No10 is trying to bounce them into backing the deal. Still some way to go get to a majority

Yep if 16 or so MPs pulled into cobra room for meeting and DUP vote for WA it might get through with the amendment that's going to be announced. Everyone so frightened of no deal which TM was relying on it could get her deal through. ( sigh) if not then its no deal by accident. ( sigh) can't see a PV in sight tbh.

Daniel Boffey
The package negotiated by Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker is expected to be in three parts:

. A joint interpretative instrument – a legal add-on to the withdrawal agreement.
It will give legal force to a letter from Juncker and Donald Tusk, the presidents of the commission and council, given to May in January
which stated the EU’s intention to negotiate an alternative to the backstop so it would not be triggered or get out of it as swiftly as possible, if it was.

. A unilateral statement from the UK.
That is likely to seek to explain the British position that, if the backstop was to become permanent and talks were going nowhere on an alternative,
the UK would seek to exit the arrangement.
< >

. Additional language in the political declaration to emphasise the urgency on both sides to negotiate an alternative to the backstop,
and flesh out what a technological fix would look like.

It is hoped this will be enough to persuade the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, to change his initial legal advice that the backstop could be in placed indefinitely.

The problem:
Very, very little of this is significantly new.

The most substantive element is the joint interpretative instrument.
But it falls well short of Cox’s demands over the last week for what amounted to a unilateral exit mechanism from the backstop.
< of course it does >

Well its about to be announced because HoC is filled up and children's act amendment only had a handful of MPs listening to it until about 10 minutes ago.

Holding dogs paw even harder. Here it comes!

That's nothing new at all!

You listen to the German news and German business BCF thats it. - you don’t have particular any beeline to the EU.

I speak 4 languages, read newspapers in all 4 of them, have houses in France and Italy and friends all over the world. London is a very international city. Your idea that London Remainers are somehow out of touch is incredibly provincial.

OCD posting on Brexit because you have nothing else in your life does not making you any better placed to judge what is going on than anyone else.

There is nothing more wishful thinking than your woefully naive interpretation of the WA and its impact.

"Unilateral statement" means the EU don't agree with this
and would presumably oppose it in the ICJ or wherever the case ended up.

Cox's objections to the WA are that the UK couldn't get out of the backstop
Since almost nothing has changed, that is likely to remain the legal situation

The unilateral statement is posturing, for public and HoC consumption
Face-saving

Liddington saying in the HoC that May has got legally binding changes.

As a German living in Germany, I completely agree with BigChoc's post above re what German business is telling the government here.

I would also say that the public (or at least the non-apathetic part of the population that has some interest in politics) is thoroughly fed up with the UK's antics and there's a general feeling that some humble no deal pie may be the only way to shatter British delusions of still being a world power that must be pandered to. Sadly, I have to agree and I say that as a massive (former?) anglophile. Really feel for all the remainers, but must admit I'd be quite pissed off with too many last-minute EU concessions - sorry!