
UK parliament to get binding vote on final Brexit deal - mattcollins
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41975277
======
conatus
The OP is a bit misleading. At the New Statesman George Eaton is reporting
that the vote will be "take or leave it". Important.

[https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/11/david-
davis...](https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/11/david-davis-still-
denying-mps-meaningful-vote-brexit)

~~~
ealexhudson
Not just that, but Davis confirmed no deal == no vote. Indeed, it's difficult
to see how they could have a sensible vote in the absence of a deal to vote
on, but since this is the most likely outcome as we stand (the UK Govt have no
solution to the Irish border issue, and there's a substantial rebellion in the
Tory party against paying the EU any money) then the most likely outcome is
still no vote :(

~~~
laingc
Actually, the UK government has a very good solution to the Irish border
issue, which the Irish are in favour of. It is the EU that will not allow it.

~~~
pwtweet
Can you provide a link? Considering I work in the Irish Government, Dept of
Foreign Affairs, I would appreciate you providing what it is that HMG has
offered, that we the Irish Government have accepted and that you claim the EU
will not allow. Please I'll wait. (For those of you not aware the commentator
is talking complete bollox.)

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alex_duf
I feel like this makes the situation even worse as we either get access to
what Europe and UK negotiated or we leave without a deal...

It looks like a disguised way of putting at least some of the responsibility
back into the parliament as a way to say "not my fault"

~~~
eertami
>as a way to say "not my fault"

This has been standard operating procedure for the last 7 years. It looks that
way because it is.

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matthewrudy
This is only useful if the binding vote is to decide whether to accept the
deal or revert Article 50.

~~~
Nursie
The idea that Article 50 is unilaterally reversible is an odd one. I know that
one of the people that helped write it says it was written with that intent,
but the wording gives no indication or mechanism to reverse it.

And if it is unilaterally reversible, surely that's a really bad thing? There
are two reasons I can think of for that. Firstly, countries might start to use
it as a form of leverage and brinkmanship in order to extract concessions or
exert their will over the EU. And secondly, if the EU doesn't want a country
to leave for whatever reason, it's a huge incentive to stall and mess up any
sort of talks or prospective trading relationship in order to scare them or
force their hands. Basically it allows for a lot more "playing politics" and
makes for a far less honest exit process.

A retraction of A 50 followed by a multilateral vote to accept or reject that
reversion, I can see that working.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
Practically speaking, if the United Kingdom on January 1st, 2019 declares its
previous Article 50 declaration was unlawfully issued, I have a hard time
seeing the EU gathering the stomach to essentially enforce sanctions against
the United Kingdom. This could all end up being a weird "did you know Britain
isn't technically in the EU?" factoid in a hundred years.

~~~
Nursie
>> Practically speaking, if the United Kingdom on January 1st, 2019 declares
its previous Article 50 declaration was unlawfully issued

I'm not quite sure how that would work, given article 50 was issued after an
act of parliament.

~~~
blibble
the Act in question:

[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2017/9/pdfs/ukpga_201700...](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2017/9/pdfs/ukpga_20170009_en.pdf)

very simple and unambiguous

saying that, the UK parliament can declare things to be unlawful
retroactively, so it's possible

just at "bernie can still win" levels of possibility

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mike-cardwell
This is a goal for the Tories. Now the deal is going to be approved by
parliament, so they can share around the full blame if it doesn't work out
well. And if parliament votes against the bill, well the proceeding
clusterfuck wont be the Tories fault, it will be everybody elses.

------
blibble
not really sure why this is that interesting, the UK will still drop out of
the EU in March 2019 even if Parliament rejects the deal

so it's not a case of "Parliament rejects, UK stays in"

~~~
untog
It's interesting because it will allow debate, something that has been in very
short supply during this whole process.

The British people deserve to know what is going to happen to them in 2019,
even if it's irreversible. The current government has made it quite clear they
don't agree with that, so they'll have to be forced into it.

~~~
sverige
> It's interesting because it will allow debate, something that has been in
> very short supply during this whole process.

Are you referring to Parliamentary debate about whether some deal can be cut
with the EU? I recall a lot of public debate before the vote itself, and a lot
since, if that's what you're referring to.

~~~
johannes1234321
The debates before the referendum were imprecise and overloaded (politically)
with other items (i.e. whether David Cameron can convince the people and lead
the party) a debate on a Brexit law is on a precise working law.

~~~
sverige
Well, sure, the b.s. was flying on both sides during the referendum, and of
course it was political. That sort of debate is the very definition of
politics. I don't see how the current debate is going to be any different in
that regard. It's really just an extension of the referendum debate.

------
mbroncano
It saddens me to no extent witnessing a formerly great country falling deep in
the abyss of irrelevance, propelled and fueled by a remarkable societal and
intellectual isolationism improper in this time and age. Not to mention the
implicit bigotry, racism and xenophobia of the whole Brexit deal.

Interesting times indeed. In a sense, social media et al. are fulfilling the
place that widespread newspapers first, and later radio, played in the marxist
and national socialist revolutions already a century and change ago.

It seems to me more true that ever that societies that forget the History of
Europe (that's of course my own take on the old adagio) are condemned to
repeat it. What only remains to be determined now is if Brexit is the drama or
the farçe.

~~~
neilwilson
Time to read up on some British History. The last time this happened was
during the reign of George II when the UK rejected Europe and Hanover and
turned its eyes to the world.

The tune "Rule Britannia" was the marching song for the 'patriots' who pushed
for an independent UK based policy.

The result was the industrial revolution and the UK becoming the pre-eminent
power on Earth.

So we've sort of done this before.

~~~
mbroncano
Thanks for the advise (as well as the down voting, certainly supporting my
point) but it hardly seems relevant to this situation. Comparing the sad,
utter mess that the UK currently seems to be, to the 18th century booming
empire can at best provoke a discreet laugh. Allow me to express my sincere
gratitude for that, smiling is quite underrated these days.

The biggest problem seems to be lack of acknowledgement of the UK role in the
world, at best dwindled ever since they lost both WW, the only colonial
territory worth mentioning (i.e. India) and recently becoming CHAV land. The
rest of the involved parties (such as Germany and France, but also including
the most of western Europe) took notice of how the world was, and did their
best to ensure their position in the coming years. To some remarkable success
I must say, the EU (even when discounting the 28th member) is still the
biggest economic zone in the world, and after the final departure of the UK it
will certainly develop a tighter union including a common military, new
federal institutions and so on.

All of which seems to escape the 'Rule Britannia' crowd such as you.
Congratulations on your Darwin price! Maybe is time for you to read up on some
science ...

------
cletus
So I've been watching (and shaking my head) at this whole Brexit fiasco with
both some personal interest (UK and thus current EU citizen) and more general
interest in that the Leave vote was basically a protest vote against
immigration that seemed to basically get out of hand.

We can peg a lot of the blame for this on David Cameron who initiated a
referendum (I assume he thought would never pass) without any plan to move
forward nor any clarity on whether the Commons needed to vote on Article 50
(so add a few months of uncertainty while that got litigated).

May of course isn't short on blame either with her ridiculous snap election
that weakened her position.

So now we go to the negotiating stances of each party, most of which was
obvious beforehand and it just makes the whole Leave campaign even more ill-
conceived.

For one, UK voters seem to primarily limit EU immigration, particularly from
the poorer Eastern European states (Poland tends to get singled out here).
While the EU (or EC or EEC or whatever it was at the time you want to talk
about) was a collection of rich states, you didn't have a lot of problems that
became problems once you had member states with a vast disparity in per-capita
GDP. The net effect was a lot of poorer EU citizens did go to the UK to
essentially go on welfare because it was more than they could reasonably earn
(if they could even get jobs) in their home countries. And that situation is
untenable.

The EU however is committed to freedom of movement as a core principle so this
was difficult to negotiate but I'm actually sure over time a solution could've
been found to ameliorate anti-immigration sentient to some degree.

See while the UK was in the EU they always had the threat of leaving as a
negotiating tactic. The problem with pulling the trigger is you can no longer
hang that threat over their heads.

Anyway, the UK at the same time wants to limit immigration but retain freedom
of movement and not hand over wads of money to the EU. Oh and let's have free
trade while we're at it.

If that sounds familiar it's exactly like the current (in the EU) situation
except for limiting immigration.

It's clear that the EU could never and would never agree to that. Nor would
the UK get the Switzerland/Norway EFTA treatment either since the EU wants to
discourage anyone else taking the UK's lead.

So now the EU doesn't want any discussions on trade and other issues until the
UK agrees to a "divorce settlement". The problems with this tactic are that
the UK handing over huge sums of cash to the EU was second to immigration as a
reason for people to vote Leave and, more importantly, how can you agree on a
price for something and then go on to negotiate what you've bought?

It doesn't make any sense. Like, would you buy a car for me when we first
negotiate a binding agreement for you to pay me $50,000 and then we negotiate
what you get for that?

The EU actually needs the money from the UK to balance their own budget so the
EU has got a lot to lose here.

From the outside looking in however, it really looks like the UK's best option
at this point is a "hard exit" since any deal at this point will probably be
worse than staying in the EU would've been.

I do wonder if it's possible for the UK and EU to back down and have a do-over
on Article 50. I suspect it is possible but probably politically untenable in
the UK.

What a mess.

~~~
tom_mellior
> a lot of poorer EU citizens did go to the UK to essentially go on welfare

Do you have actual sources to back this up? As in, where it actually happened,
as opposed to everyone talking about it supposedly happening? EU law makes it
very clear that the freedom of movement does _not_ hold in such cases. EU
citizens who never worked in the UK would _not_ be entitled to welfare and be
subject to repatriation. (Or, I should say, if the UK _did_ grant such welfare
rights, that would be based on its own decision, not on any EU requirements.)

