Thoughts on next week’s Brexit vote:
1) withdrawal agreement, including the backstop, won't change, and is needed if there is ever to be a deal, regardless of the shape of the future relationship and who governs. Backstop caters for *all* scenarios, including no deal in future
1) withdrawal agreement, including the backstop, won't change, and is needed if there is ever to be a deal, regardless of the shape of the future relationship and who governs. Backstop caters for *all* scenarios, including no deal in future
2) the political declaration allows for a spectrum of future options, ranging from a Canada-style FTA to an EEA-type arrangement or a customs union. However, the fact remains: all of these possibilities need the withdrawal agreement, including the backstop, in substance, as is.
3) Regardless of who is prime minister, governs, and the composition of parliament, various flavours of cakeism that are sold in different doses across much of the UK’s political spectrum will always remain just that: cakeism.
4) It would be unwise to simply assume that an election or a referendum that produces a narrow or inconclusive result is preferable for the 27 to a no-deal.
5) May’s Brexit is driven by one thing: ending freedom of movement. If anything is to change, that is the position that needs to change for any EEA-type deal, single market participation, or remain, should there be a referendum, to be considered realistic
6) EU position on free movement will not change for one simple reason: without free movement, what is the point of the EU? Blair & co. are wrong to suggest otherwise. If you don't like or understand free movement then you should not be in the EU, & cannot be in the single market
7) The EU and the 27 have so many big issues to sort out. Nobody wants to be dealing with Brexit, and Britain’s very unique obsession of conflating freedom of movement with immigration, for another decade. Ends.
