ABHI Brexit Update: Do Not Waste the Flextension
If you are reading this on catch-up, SPOILER ALERT. We have not left the European Union. Yes, I know. Again. On top of that, it has been a long, long week folks. I cannot pretend that trying to explain what FLL’s EU Withdrawal (No 5) Act is all about to someone in a South Wales night club on Monday, was necessarily a great way to start it off.
I now have at least a sense of what professional sportspeople, who repeatedly take their bodies to the brink in the team’s interest, might actually feel like much of the time. The long Easter weekend and some cool, clean Cornish air cannot come quick enough for this particular body. Just our daughter’s 10th Birthday to negotiate first.
Mind you, if I had tried to deliver my explanation in a more fitting environment, I am not sure it would have made any more sense. The whole thing had an air of pointlessness about it. As we discussed last week, long before the Bill achieved Royal Assent at 11pm on Monday, the PM had already written to the EU requesting another extension to Article 50. The Bill is belt and braces, forcing the PM to have the length of an extension approved by Parliament. It prevents us leaving without a deal and some future Tory leader wreaking havoc. It’s as belt and braces as far as it can be. Whatever deal our Parliament ratifies, whenever that is and, if and how we actually get there, peoples’ votes, general elections or whatever, also has to be confirmed by the European Parliament. As you may have noticed, some of those that sit in there are pretty miffed with us.
Now I know I keep telling you that speculation is foolish and that punditry is best left to those whose profession demands it. But a lot of you are rather annoyingly asking me what I “think.” Well, I think that this week has panned out pretty much as I thought it might. The PM’s appeal for a 30th June extension was rejected by the EU in favour of the “Flextension” everyone had been talking about. One of the many things that Mrs. May has misjudged is the importance of the EU elections to the Union. There is no way that Brussels believes she can agree a deal by the end of June, which is, you will remember, her rather desperate attempt to avoid meaningful UK participation in May’s elections. And to be fair to the EU, she has a 100% failure rate so far. If the UK has not left and does not send MEPs when a new look Brussels / Strasbourg sits again on 2nd July, many of the Union’s institutions will not be properly constituted. This kind of thing matters to world’s greatest concentration of lawyers.
The advantage of the flexible option is that it automatically creates the time for us to do whatever it is we need to do to get the deal ratified, without having to go through the rigmarole of returning to Brussels to seek another extension, or indeed extensions. A general election can be done and dusted in around 6 weeks. I do still maintain that this is a highly unlikely outcome, not least because there is no guarantee that it will produce a decisive result. Even if it does, it is simply not the right vehicle to resolve a single, discrete issue of such importance for the future of our country. You might be forgiven for thinking that is what we elect our MPs for. A second referendum, which seems to be increasingly likely as I read it, on the other hand, takes considerably longer, 22 weeks once we press the button. The shorter than expected extension until 31st October, leaves it tight on time but it is not impossible, and, significantly, Donald Tusk pointedly did not rule out a further extension if one were to be required. As far as I can see, the Flextension is far from a gift horse. It is basically saying “Leave when you want, 20th June is fine, earlier if you can manage it, but there is no rush.” It could be this is the best deal we have seen so far. The other benefit of a longer wait is that it will take some of the heat out of discussions in a bitterly divided Parliament.
Next, the Government and Her Majesty’s opposition will need to hammer out a deal that enough of their MPs can support. That is going to involve compromise, which itself will be something that looks like a Customs Union. Staying in something that looks like a Customs Union is not Brexit as the majority of Leavers envisioned it. That will lead to a confirmatory, second referendum, basically asking “What is the point.” Where is your money?
That, arguably less the second referendum bit, is the PM’s Plan A. The obvious risk is that no compromise can be reached between the two Party leaders, because any such compromise would not be acceptable to their parties. What happens then is anyone’s guess, but there is already talk of the Pink Post It Note game getting another run out. Mrs. May is keen to avoid having to take part in the European Parliament elections, so will be gunning for a resolution before May and will, doubtless be keen to heed the advice of Donald Tusk, who warned his friends in the UK not to waste this time. The other factor is that if we do not take part in the European Parliament elections we will, under the terms of the flextension, leave on 1st June. The immediate challenge is that nothing much can actually happen now for a couple of weeks. Parliament has entered its Easter recess until 23rd April and the week after that it is the local elections. I think, therefore, we can all draw breath until after the May Day holiday, so in the absence of anything important to tell you before then, I will take a break.
Apologies if you were hoping for gags about Black Holes or Halloween, but I would not want to be too predictable. I should say though that seven years of eating Ferrero Rocher does not seem to have done Heritage Bandersnatch much good. So, let’s be careful out there with those chocolate eggs.
