Sunday 9 December 2018

No one has a clue what will happen with Brexit!!

Every possible outcome, every possible option, ABCEDF, every possible disaster has been pored over, studied in infinite detail and interpreted. Yet still no one, not even the most intimately involved, knows what is going to happen next week when the Brexit debate comes to a vote in the House of Commons on Tuesday. Theresa May will lose seems to be the only accepted intelligence. But will she have to resign immediately because she no longer has the authority, moral or otherwise, to represent the government and the country as the prime minister, having failed to deliver what has take her 19 months of hard negotiating with the EU "partners" across the Channel. Her Brexit deal, a sort of soft/slightly hard/semi-shackling arrangement, now appears dead in the water. Well, we'll see. If she is heavily defeated by, say 100-200 votes, can she really carry on as prime minister? I think she thinks she can. I think she is so determined to finish the job whatever the pain and humiliation for her, that she will battle on. In fact she will lock the front door of Number 10 Downing Street and refuse to let any leadership challengers in. There is one small tiny hope for her. If she can get this notorious Northern Ireland "backstop" linked to a finite timetable, she might just get the votes she needs. In other words if in the next 24-36 hours she can persuade the EU negotiators and leaders to promise in writing that if there has to be a customs union throughout the UK to prevent any sort of hard border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic it will last no longer than two years, it could persuade the doubters and opponents and ditherers to sign up. At present the customs union agreement could go on for ever if there is no long-term EU/UK trade deal. That is unacceptable to nearly everyone. So all the EU has to say is, "Ok, UK Parliament, vote yes for the Brexit deal and we will guarantee that the UK customs union arrangement will be scrapped by 2022, whatever happens." In other words, let's be positive about signing a for-ever trade relationship, and let's all get a life. I don't know whether the EU is in the mood to be nice to Theresa May. But the hard-faced negotiators must know this for sure: if they don't agree, May will probably fall and before you know where you are you will be dealing with Jeremy Corbyn. Good luck with that, and God help us all.

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