[patrickaljord]

> Well, once that's done as far as I understand it there is no way back

The UK has 2 year to retract as article 50 allows that. 2 years is a long period in UK politics during which a vote of no-confidence could happen, calling for new elections that could retract article 50. Even if the 2 years pass, the EU already said that they would fast track the UK back in if a future government wants to come back. This is not over.

[rmc]

It's unclear if A50 can actually be revoked. There is a court case (starting in Ireland, with the goal of getting to the CJEU in Luxembourg ASAP) which is trying to answer that question.

If the CJEU says that A50 cannot be revoked, then the Houses of Parliament can do whatever they want, they're leaving.

They would be free to rejoin. Euro, schengen, and metricification are mandatory now though.

[dragonwriter]

> They would be free to rejoin. Euro, schengen, and metricification are mandatory now though.

Well, in principle they could get unanimous consent on concessions again, they just don't come pre-baked.

[jacquesm]

There has been a lot of fuss about those concessions in the past, I really wonder to what extent the poorer EU countries that had no say in this when those concessions were given would be willing to give the UK something they themselves had to give up to join. That might not go over well and there are a lot of those countries now. That's a dangerous game of roulette.

[rmc]

It's not only a case of "we didn't get these deals". The UK got them, it wasn't good enough so they left. If they want to rejoin they are admitting they made a huge mistake and can they pretty please come back?

Imagine you have a job, with a few perks other employees don't have, and you want more perks. And you don't get it, so you quit, complaining about how crap your employer is. A while later you ask for your old job back. What are the odds of you getting exactly the old perks back? ;)

[jamiethompson]

It is unclear whether it can be revoked, yes. It is also unclear whether it cannot be revoked. It's simply unclear.

[rmc]

Exactly. Once that court case winds its way to the CJEU we will have a clear answer on that question.

[jacquesm]

I don't think you are correct, or at least, the UK supreme court thinks that you are not correct:

https://www.businessinsider.nl/uk-supreme-court-article-50-n...

[pknight]

You're misrepresenting the realities of A50 throughout this thread Jacques. The court case in question operated under the premise of the Government's position that A50 is irrevocable. Whether it is or not was not judged, it was just presumed to be irrevocable for the purpose of the case. That's a very important distinction.

A50 is revocable unless a court says it is not and even if questioned, the courts would more than likely rule that it can be revoked. The official position of the European Parliament is that is revocable (1), subject to some conditions that are set out (the UK can't use it as a negotiating tool essentially) and this is also the position of many important EU officials. Piet Eeckhout (EU law professor) recently remarked that it would be unconstitutional to deny the UK a right to revoke A50 should it wish to exercise that option.

It's also a mistake to judge A50 purely in legal terms, political reality is more important in this case. A point made abundantly clear by lawyers reporting on Brexit.

If there's a will on both sides to abandon Brexit, it will be done. For that to happen the political landscape and mood will have to reshape itself. Such a thing is not impossible given that confidence in the economy is trending down and people are becoming more pessimistic (2) and because the many complications that lie ahead will be coming to the foreground. If the choice before Parliament is between a disorderly exit without a deal in 2019 with very clear negative repercussions, it would be unthinkable if they do not intervene.

1) https://www.scribd.com/document/343381933/Draft-Resolution 2) https://www.markiteconomics.com/Survey/PressRelease.mvc/c36c...

[jacquesm]

Time will tell. The situation in the UK has worsened rather than improved over the past 9 months, if you feel that the 'realities' of article 50 are that you can submit and withdraw it willy-nilly than that goes against what the rest of EU media and politicians are saying. There are some new developments but those are fairly tenuous at this stage, maybe they will solidify in a way that would give the UK an 'out' but for now it looks like the UK will in fact use such an out to bolster their currently non-existing negotiation position (and I don't blame them).

The UK is a very divided place, as much as I don't like brexit (I think it is an exceptionally stupid move) I don't see the UK healing itself in time for this to be averted and the unanimous condition attached to any kind of revocation of Article 50 leaves very little room for hope.

May is on the record as saying that if there is no 'good deal' then there will be 'no deal', which is absolutely terrible for the UK, it's a game of continental chicken which will have only losers.

If the UK attempts to withdraw before negotations start then I give that some chance but if they first try to go through two years of negotiations and then attempt to withdraw as the deadline looms chances are very slim that they would be allowed to remain without serious concessions.

[pknight]

I'm curious now

> against what the rest of EU media and politicians are saying

I've been paying a very close eye to this so I'm confused, what sources are authoritatively stating that A50 can't be revoked? Your Supreme Court piece does not cover it. In the UK, the only reason why some politicians say A50 can't be revoked is out of a concern for how it could play into negotiations. It's not a commentary on whether A50 is revokable or not. If the EU say it's not, it isn't. And the European Parliament's official stated position is that it is revokable. And even if it wasn't the stated position, the UK would still be able to argue it on legal grounds.

> I don't see the UK healing itself in time for this to be averted

I don't think healing would be the needed element, rather it would be the overriding desire to avoid further division and pain. More division and pain are on the menu. Given how far positions have changed in a year, it would be terribly unwise to underestimate the degree to which the landscape can change in the next 2 years.

Pre-referendum leave voters were optimistic about the economic future. That's trending down.

Pre-referendum nobody was factoring in a Trump presidency and how it might affect the UK's place in the world.

Pre-referendum the vast majority of MPs in Parliament were pro-remain, something which was not reflected in post-referendum votes in Parliament (which is to say attitudes shifted and can shift again).

To me the most significant repercussion of A50 having now been initiated is the fact that all those MPs that felt bound to submit to a plebiscite vote now may feel free again to act with the national interest in mind, given that they can say that they have dutifully observed the will of the electorate. In other words, the power of the referendum vote diminishes by the day.

Imagine if one or two major factories close down in leave areas, or if investment is shrunk down in light of Brexit with major job losses as a result. This could easily swing public opinion. With the cost of living going up, this next 2 years is going to be a true pressure cooker for the Government.

[jacquesm]

> I've been paying a very close eye to this so I'm confused, what sources are authoritatively stating that A50 can't be revoked?

So have I. The only thing that has changed as far as I can see is that in the last couple of hours (and that's something I wasn't aware of when this thread came up) a number of politicians have said that they will propose a way for article 50 to be formally withdrawable. Up to now the status is that once article 50 has been triggered after 2 years, deal or no deal the separation is a fact and that there is no way back from that.

Any kind of suggestion that things are different ignores the actual text of article 50. The waters have been muddied a bit by the original author saying (but the bill not stating) that he meant for it to be withdrawable but I find that claim dubious, the only reason article 50 was drawn up in the first place was to allow for a way to exit the EU that nobody ever figured would be triggered at all.

Brexit took a lot of people (including the 'leave' camp) by surprise.

> And the European Parliament's official stated position is that it is revokable. And even if it wasn't the stated position, the UK would still be able to argue it on legal grounds.

Yes, they say that now. But that wasn't their position so far and these things have been made fairly clear. Again, my suspicion is that the impression so far was that the UK would not go so far as to actually trigger article 50, now that that has been done there is a substantial moving of the goalposts in order to allow the UK a way out. How they use that will be a big factor in whether or not the unanimous vote required to allow the UK to do so will be cast.

> I don't think healing would be the needed element, rather it would be the overriding desire to avoid further division and pain.

Judging by the comment sections of the various UK publications that desire is a long way off.

> Given how far positions have changed in a year, it would be terribly unwise to underestimate the degree to which the landscape can change in the next 2 years.

But they've gotten worse, not better, if this trend continues there is no way things will work out in favor of remain.

> Pre-referendum leave voters were optimistic about the economic future. That's trending down.

This is not my impression. My impression is that leave voters tend to downplay the economical impact of this and somehow believe that the UK as an independent entity will do a lot better because of 'all the money that goes to the EU'. Check out the comment threads under some of the articles linked here.

I suspect that thinking that people will come to their senses is one of the reasons the brexit vote happened the way it did in the first place.

> Pre-referendum nobody was factoring in a Trump presidency and how it might affect the UK's place in the world.

This seems to have emboldened the leave camp rather than weakened it.

In fact, there is something to say for Trump thanking his presidency to a similar emboldening of the pro Trump camp on the other side of the Atlantic. If brexit can happen anything can happen.

> Pre-referendum the vast majority of MPs in Parliament were pro-remain, something which was not reflected in post-referendum votes in Parliament (which is to say attitudes shifted and can shift again).

That's why there was a referendum in the first place. If it had been up to the MPs this would have never happened, they could see the economic impact a lot clearer than what you might be able to write on the side of a bus.

> To me the most significant repercussion of A50 having now been initiated is the fact that all those MPs that felt bound to submit to a plebiscite vote now may feel free again to act with the national interest in mind, given that they can say that they have dutifully observed the will of the electorate. In other words, the power of the referendum vote diminishes by the day.

That's wishful thinking. The referendum should never have been kept in the first place, now that it has been kept and a prime minister has made steps to withdraw the UK out of the EU they should start planning on how to run the country as an entity independently from the EU, anything less would be (another instance of) dereliction of duty. They were free to observe and to ignore the will of electorate in the past. That they did not do so has nothing to do with what's good for the UK or for their electorate, it only has to do with their own re-election.

The question then becomes: how fast will the economic situation deteriorate prior to an actual withdrawal, the more the better to illustrate what is to come after and maybe that will get people to realize this isn't all fun and games. But for now the 'wait-and-see' approach to this probably means that even though everybody will have a play-book on how to deal with the post brexit situation the majority of the parties will wait until very late in the process to move their assets and operations out of the UK, which will go a long way towards masking any of the real effects.

Of course the 'brexit' camp will paint that as fearmongering.

> Imagine if one or two major factories close down in leave areas, or if investment is shrunk down in light of Brexit with major job losses as a result.

Yes, it will. But until things are looking un-avoidable this will not happen. And by the time it is un-avoidable it is by definition too late. And when they do move it won't be just two major factories, it will be a whole slew of them in the space of a few months at the end of 2018 or thereabouts, for those that can move in two years. For others it may be later but at significantly higher costs (Nissan and BMW for instance).

> This could easily swing public opinion.

Public opinion is a dangerous thing to count on, that much should be clear from this whole exercise.

> With the cost of living going up, this next 2 years is going to be a true pressure cooker for the Government.

Yes. The problem I have with all this is that this triggering of article 50 should not have happened. That's a dangerous line to cross which puts the direction of the play in the hands of others. It is the beginning of the slide down and where that slide will end is anybody's guess. It's a bit like the Trump administration (forgive me, the UK has a much better functioning government than the United States at the moment but I think there are some parallels): making bold moves looks impressive because there is a lot of action, but longer term effects are far more important than the short term impression. Triggering article 50 to pander to the 'brexit' camp ('the will of the electorate') puts the UK in a very awkward position, if not followed through it allows the other side of the negotiation table to strengthen their position by simply waiting.

It also raises the expectations in the leave camp that brexit will actually happen.

Taking that away again could get ugly very quickly.

In order of preference: don't do that referendum, don't trigger article 50, don't exit the EU.

So we're one step closer to an actual exit, not one step closer to having this mess resolved in a way where all parties involved understand which side their bread is buttered on.

Added afterwards: In my opinion the whole brexit thing is powered by a yearning for things past, the time when the UK was an independent world power. So now a bunch of politicians (Johnson, Farage and others) have decided that they would rather be a big fish in a small pond than a medium sized fish in a much bigger pond. What they don't seem to realize is that on the world stage the UK really doesn't move the needle any more and that the strength of the EU lies in its unity and that the UK already had one of the best deals possible. These politicians will end up getting what they want and the 'leave' voters won't know how bad things really are until it is too late, but until then will be stuck in their convictions.

One thing you can be 100% sure of: any effects of brexit felt prior to the actual thing will in that camp be determined to be the fault of the EU, never the fault of the brexit voters.

[pknight]

Appreciate the comments here, some points:

- the draft resolution confirming that the EU endorses the possibility of revocation is consistent with noises made by EU politicians well in advance of the A50 notification. Tusk said it very clearly back in October (1). At the same time there are no EU sources that I know of that have suggested otherwise.

- The 'deal or no deal' rhetoric underlines the disadvantage of the UK in coming to a deal in a fixed time frame. It is not underlining the impossibility of aborting the withdrawal. This is more about how the UK will not be able to draw out exit negotiations in its favour while holding the EU hostage. Revocation is an advantage to the EU because at the end of the day, keeping the UK in the EU is still going to be a better than any other scenario on the table - money talks and without the UK EU members have a lot of unwanted budgeting pressures to sort out.

> But they've gotten worse, not better, if this trend continues there is no way things will work out in favor of remain.

I think evaluating the comment sections of publications is a very poor way to assess public opinion for a variety of reasons. This is why we have properly conducted surveys and surveys show that pre-referendum attitudes have shifted.

In the aggregate people are more pessimistic about the economic future, even leave voters. In my prior link you will find that its trending very steadily in one direction. Remember that leave voters pre-referendum by and large were working under the premise that Brexit would not have any personal cost attached to it. Surveys taken before the referendum have illustrated this. Another attitude highlighted in surveys that show that when leave voters are prompted how much money they would be willing to surrender in order to accomplish Brexit's stated goals, most leave voters balk (2). True public support for hard brexit (under no deal or under no customs union + no single market membership) is not strong at all and projected to get weaker as pressure builds around the economy and continued cuts and public service failures.

> Public opinion is a dangerous thing to count on, that much should be clear from this whole exercise.

Which is exactly the point. A government is helped having public opinion on its side, I'm saying shifts in attitude are already undermining future support for the way the UK pursues Brexit. None of the stated benefits of Brexit are due to unfold in the next 5 years and that realisation is not going unnoticed. We know there's no additional 350 million for the NHS being budgeted. We know there will be no trade deal in 2 years. We know that immigration is not going to be artificially cut. Deals with India and the US are a very long way of and if they transpire, they likely won't be good deals.

And I would argue that public support for the Brexit pursued by the UK currently never was very strong, even at its peak. The 'leave' vote got a majority because it was able to group public support for incompatible goals. Now the public finds out that most of those goals, if any at all, will come to pass or turn out to be an illusion (such as the supposed increase in sovereignty) public opinion only has one way to go.

I'm more bullish on the odds of Brexit being aborted now than at any point before. I still think the odds are low, but they are much better than they were before. I know the British press is going to interpret A50 as being the nail in the coffin for EU membership, but it's not a difficult analysis to come to the contrary position:

The only thing that has been predictable so far is the government doing a poor job at preparation, execution and thinking steps ahead. Every step of the way it's making strategic, tactical mistakes and fumbling on policy. It's the one thing we can count on. The odds of a deal being done in 24 months are slim in part because of this. And if there is no deal in time, 650 MPs will have to think hard a simple choice: it can green light a national disaster brought onto it by itself, or it can intervene.

It was politically tough to oppose the A50 notification because it will be regarded as subverting a democratic result. Inside of 2 years time, it will be at least as politically damaging to not intervene in a national disaster. And MPs that have blessed the notification now can credibly oppose government performance on Brexit while being inoculated against the charge that they are subverting the will of an electorate.

What are the odds that the government negotiates a good deal or any deal at all? They are not that good at all, just given all the things that are outside the control of the UK. The momentous act of revoking the withdrawal - while unthinkable now - will look like the better option down the line. EU's history is full of members changing their minds. All it takes is for the UK government to be consistent with past performance and do a poor job at what is the toughest project it has ever undertaken since WW2. There are other plausible outcomes, but Brexit is nowhere near as avoidable as most think.

But let there be no mistake, this whole is a gigantic mess no matter how it unfolds.

1) http://blogs.ft.com/david-allen-green/2016/10/18/can-an-arti... 2) http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/hard-brexit-only-if...

[blowski]

It's possible they could extend negotiations. As long as the EU and UK parliaments both agree to do that, they can do whatever they like, as they can just change the law to support whatever they're trying to do.

Whether there will be enough public support to do that is another matter entirely. Perhaps there will be another general election or referendum which will muddy the waters.

If the last year has taught us anything, it's that the world is a very uncertain place right now, and all predictions are worthless.

[jacquesm]

Well, that may be how the UK sees it but I can pretty much guarantee that that is not how the rest of the EU will see things. The automatic end to the negotiations and finalization after two years is currently the law, it would probably be best to go on the assumption that that's exactly how it will play out. There is some sense on the UK side that the UK will come out of the negotiations in a better position than what they have right now in the EU, but the European side is adamant that no matter what the UK will not come out of this better than when they were a part of the EU, and this makes good sense (otherwise, why would any nation remain part of the bloc).

Also, the UK has just handed the EU all their strong cards in the negotiations, and if the Scots exit the union that position will get weaker still.

Keep in mind that the exceptional situation the UK has (had?) in the EU was always an annoyance to other member states but was tolerated in order to keep the UK in the EU. If the UK falls apart and Scotland re-joins (or even remains) then the UK negotiation position with respect to those exceptions has evaporated, something that would definitely be appreciated in other EU countries.

Other general elections of referenda will not muddy the waters from an EU perspective, the deed is done, any regret will now take the form of a re-application, which will likely include the UK giving up their own currency, becoming a part of the Schengen area and getting rid of all the exceptions that were made for the UK.

This was a dumb move if there ever was one, such major decisions should require a supermajority, not a simple majority and May did a huge dis-service to the UK just now. But by the time the chickens come home to roost she'll be enjoying her pension sitting under banner reading 'I gave the people of England what they asked for, not what they needed'.

[dragonwriter]

> As long as the EU and UK parliaments both agree to do that

Under Article 50(3), extensions can only be granted by unanimity in the Council. The EP and Council both need to agree to a final agreement, but the EP doesn't seem to be involved in extensions at all.

http://www.lisbon-treaty.org/wcm/the-lisbon-treaty/treaty-on...

[brango]

They'll only let us back in the club if they choose to from now on [1].

Basically, they've left the door open for us to vote in a pro-EU party in the next general election and abandon the whole thing. That's why they won't agree a trade deal in the next 2 years.

They're hoping, like me, that things will get sufficiently bad in the next 2 years the public gives a mandate to a pro-EU party, and the whole sorry mess can be averted, and then we can try Johnson, Farage and the other scumbag liars for treason.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/29/first-eu-re...

[cabalamat]

> They'll only let us back in the club if they choose to from now on

I think this is basically correct. I also think that if, before the 2 years are up, the UK changes its mind about Brexit, the EU would be very likely to allow its membership to continue.

[CaptainZapp]

I very much hope this to be the case. I just don't see it happening in the current political climate in England.

England probably would have to be prepared to lose a number of privileges should that happen.

It would certainly be the best outcome of a very bad situation.

[patrickaljord]

> and then we can try Johnson, Farage and the other scumbag liars for treason.

I hope you're kidding here. Trying people who won the previous election for treason is the mark of the worst dictatorships. Please don't.

[jamiethompson]

Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage never won any election ;)

[fnord123]

>and then we can try Johnson, Farage and the other scumbag liars for treason.

And/or a serious rethink about the value of a free press that is allowed to act as News Corp. (The Sun, The Times) and Daily Mail and General Trust (Daily Mail, Metro, and previously the Evening Standard) have.