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[Sheb]

I'm starting to think the Brexiteers that are/were Cabinets are dragging everything to a crash so they get a no-deal clusterfuck rather than joining the custom union or something.

That way, they get their Brexit, and they won't even be held responsible for any negative consequences of ripping Britain away from the EU! (Which make sense, after all, declinging responsability has been an ongoing theme of the whole clusterfuck).

[smjjames]

Nope, Jeremy Hunt, whoever that is.... https://www.axios.com/jeremy-hunt-replaces-boris-johnson-as-foreign-secretary-a9c5833d-b5cc-4e51-a79c-7268737c674f.html

edit: The long running health secretary apparently, go me speedreading. Seems like a fast patch bandaid to put in a loyalist for the position regardless of experience.

Wow
Theresa May just replaced Boris Johnson with perhaps the 4th least popular politician in the entire country
Jeremy Hunt is infamous for having used his time as health secretary to say he wasn't all about privatising the NHS (even though he wrote a book about privatising the NHS) and spent his whole time as health secretary awarding commercial contracts to private companies to provide Healthcare... Theresa May is made out of NEOLIBS

I wouldn't say it makes her neoliberal, just trying to patch a leaking ship, so to speak, especially since that position is an important one. The fact that she stuck in a loyalist with no qualifications does say quite a lot. Then again, what qualifications did Boris Johnson have?

I'm starting to think the Brexiteers that are/were Cabinets are dragging everything to a crash so they get a no-deal clusterfuck rather than joining the custom union or something.

That way, they get their Brexit, and they won't even be held responsible for any negative consequences of ripping Britain away from the EU! (Which make sense, after all, declinging responsability has been an ongoing theme of the whole clusterfuck).

Try the entire government, it's not just the Cabinet, even members of Parliament can't figure out how to get a deal done which doesn't result in a no-deal clusterfuck.

I've read in a few places that December is the last chance to get a deal signed. Or at least that's the last chance they can get something signed AND get it set up in time before the deadline. Not sure if a deal can still be made between then and the deadline or if that is the actual deadline to get a deal done.

[hector13]

Well the various EU member states need to ratify the deal, so December is probably the deadline for the EU states to begin to prepare votes and referenda on it.

Since the UK government still don’t seem to know what they actually want in the deal... it’s anyone’s guess if they’ll even have something to propose by then, never mind something everyone has agreed on is the best thing they can produce.

[da_nang]

Article 50, ironically written by a Brit, was in hindsight clearly written as an afterthought. Really, the Art 50 process should involve a time-unlimited negotiations phase, where the presumed exiting member can make conditional trade deals and exit deals, and a transition phase of suitable length for market adjustments, with an option to cancel Art 50 during the negotiations phase. Both parties get to negotiate in good faith and with all the time they need to come up with all the deals needed. Once the transition phase is over, the deals come into effect.

Combining the negotiations phase and transition phase just leads to big, chaotic, unfriendly mess.

[hector13]

Combining the negotiations phase and transition phase just leads to big, chaotic, unfriendly mess.

Wouldn't be surprised if that was intentional to dissuade people from leaving.

I think the general thing of Article 50 is to achieve that. 2 years to sort yourself out and get everyone else to agree with how you want to leave is a big ask.

[Dorsidwarf]

Combining the negotiations phase and transition phase just leads to big, chaotic, unfriendly mess.

Wouldn't be surprised if that was intentional to dissuade people from leaving.

More like the opposite, really, since according to John Kerr the intent was largely to provide a mechanism for letting the austrians leave with minimal fuss in case they elected a fascist government which would have demanded to exit, which was apparently considered a real possibility at the time.

[Loud Whispers]

When have Austrians ever elected fascists

[MetalSlimeHunt]

technically speaking

[Sheb]

There is also the fact that if you allow significantly longer negotiation time, you run into issues of governments having to go through several elections during the negotiations and all that jazz, which complexify the entire thing. (Of course, the Brits chose to have an election anyway).

More seriously, two years is short, but not that short. The issue is that May activated article 50 before having a negotiating position, and then spent more time negotiating with her party and cabinet than with the EU. A lot of time has been wasted here.

The more I think about it, the more I think that what the UK should have done is to immediately go for membership of the EEA, and then once that is done, use the time to negotiate something else and set up the infrastructure needed to replace what the EU did. In effect, use the EEA as the halfway-point.

It would also have had the advantage that people could have had more say on what was the exact goal of Brexit at subsequent elections. You know, vote UKIP or Tory if you want to exit the EEA, Labour if you want to stay in and LibDem if you want to go back in the EU or something depending on the position the various parties take. Because well, the referendum was about leaving the EU, the Brexiters didn't offer an alternative and there were claims all over the place.

[martinuzz]

When have Austrians ever elected fascists

Well, there was Jörg Haider

[askovdk]

Article 50, ironically written by a Brit, was in hindsight clearly written as an afterthought. Really, the Art 50 process should involve a time-unlimited negotiations phase, where the presumed exiting member can make conditional trade deals and exit deals, and a transition phase of suitable length for market adjustments, with an option to cancel Art 50 during the negotiations phase. Both parties get to negotiate in good faith and with all the time they need to come up with all the deals needed. Once the transition phase is over, the deals come into effect.

Combining the negotiations phase and transition phase just leads to big, chaotic, unfriendly mess.

I love your faith in humanity, but there is little of that in international politics. If there were no time limit or consequence of an ongoing negotiation, then I see every country continuously threatening to leave unless they get their special interest meet. I.e. it would become a political tool to muddy any real work needed.
So the 2 years from start to finish is an excellent way of ensuring that only a limited and predictable amount of EU public money is spent on a country leaving.

That is also why canceling can’t be an option, unless the state activating article 50 is ready to pay the EU an amount equal to what the EU has spent on the case. 

[smjjames]

Yeah, two years seems like a reasonable amount of time, but that assumes the exit is well thought out and they had a plan for what they wanted. The whole Brexit thing was basically a kneejerk reaction and kneejerk reactions tend to not work out well.

[da_nang]

If there were no time limit or consequence of an ongoing negotiation, then I see every country continuously threatening to leave unless they get their special interest meet. I.e. it would become a political tool to muddy any real work needed.

And that wasn't the case before? Isn't that why Cameron marched on over to Brussels to get his special deal with the Brexit referendum looming on the horizon?

Point is, they can threaten to leave all they want during the negotiation phase, but they can't change anything nor will they get anything until they agree upon a deal. It's nothing but hot air and a loss of time.

Which is far less costly than the current mess, both for the countries and also for the people.

[smjjames]

https://www.axios.com/trump-gives-interview-attacking-may-ahead-of-meeting-d5350276-6606-4d4a-a59a-9774ecd57b38.html

Ouch, even Trump thinks May is doing a soft Brexit, though at this rate it’s going to be a no-deal Brexit. Also, so much for the ‘special relationship’. Brexit is going to end up feeling pretty lonely with the way Trump is acting.

Funny thing though, The Sun newspaper is owned by Rupert Murdoch.

[Sheb]

Oh, yeah, I was going to post this too.

May's White Paper is a softish Brexit and Trump has been anti-EU (remember when Trump offered Macron a trade deal if France left the EU?). I can see why, in his mind international relations are zero-sum, bilateral deals. Small countries outside the EU can be bullied around in the way that an Union of 28 countries cannot. Likewise, a UK after a hard Brexit will be desperate for a trade deal, and he can take advantage of it.

Anyway, so much for Trump's promise that the US would stand by the UK after Brexit, but hey, at this point anyone who believe anything that dude says has only himself to blame.

Oh, he also said that BoJo would made a great Prime Minister. I'm sure May is thrilled to have invited him over. Frankly, it seems that unless you're a bloody autocrat, you won't get Trump to say anything nice about you.

Edit: I gotta love this FT's take:

"At the Nato news conference, however, Mr Trump said, “I think they like me a lot in the UK.” A recent YouGov poll found that Mr Trump’s favourability rating in the UK was minus 60."