MPs have to wade through 6 documents & 400+ pages when considering the EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill or "WAB". The WAB is as messy as a hairball. It references dozens of other Acts, making it exceptionally hard to understand. And there's tonnes of horrible stuff buried in it...
Time to do some digging.
Gotcha 1: the transition period runs until December 2020. It can only be extended once, to either Dec 2021 or Dec 2022. But the Government gets to decide whether to extend it and for how. Parliament can only approve or turn down the extension.
Gotcha 1: the transition period runs until December 2020. It can only be extended once, to either Dec 2021 or Dec 2022. But the Government gets to decide whether to extend it and for how. Parliament can only approve or turn down the extension.
But that means that if the Government decided not to ask for an extension by the deadline to do so, we crash out on no deal at the end of December 2020. We would only have until then to finalise our future relationship with the EU to avoid a no deal fate.
Gotcha 2: WAB stipulates the Government has to get Parliament to approve its negotiating objectives for our future relationship with the EU, but that these must be based on the Political Declaration. The PD has been watered down so this virtually guarantees a hard Brexit.
Means the Government can hold Parliament "hostage". The WAB says no negotiations can start until Parliament approves the negotiating objectives. So Parliament either has to say "yes" to Govt pursuing a loose and damaging free trade agreement, or "no" and negotiations don't start.
In other words, under the current WAB, any idea of pursuing a close single market/customs union relationship with the EU has fallen by the wayside. They're not within the PD, so they cannot form part of the future negotiating objectives.
Gotcha 3: "Once free movement has ended, beneficiaries of the citizens’ rights part of the Agreements who have not yet secured leave to enter or remain in the UK under EU Settlement Scheme would no longer have a lawful basis to reside in the UK unless further provision is made."
In other words, any EU citizen who fails to apply and get settled status before the end of the EU Settlement scheme is potentially liable to be deported or face other action by Immigration enforcers.
Gotcha number 4: WAB requires Ministers to make a declaration if any laws they want to pass will erode our regulatory & other standards below EU level. It doesn't prevent them doing so. They just have to notify Parliament that this would be one effect of the proposed laws.
I dug into a lot more smaller but still important points in my quick overview thread yesterday. Rather than go over the same ground again, I've embedded the relevant thread below...
If you'd like to do your own digging, all the relevant documents can be found at the link below... Take a shovel and some rubber gloves - you'll need them!
gov.uk/government/pub…
gov.uk/government/pub…
