Friday 18 October 2019

IS THIS BREXIT OR JUST ANOTHER FALSE DAWN ?

So we have a Brexit deal - again.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised he would get a new deal with the European Union and would get rid of the hated 'Irish Backstop'; he seems to have achieved both ambitions. However, following the assorted shenanigans of the House of Commons, he now has to get this deal approved by Members of Parliament, which seems problematic at best.

Unsurprisingly, the Labour Party has now moved to a 100% 'remain' position and will not support the new deal, pretty much whatever it actually includes, although a few Labour MPs may still support it. The Scottish Nationalists have always opposed Brexit anyway and will also vote against any deal, as will the Liberal un-Democrats. Prime Minister Johnson has previously expelled some 21 of his own MPs from the Conservative Party following their opposition in previous votes and there are an assortment of others who have left one party or another during the last year or so. As something of a body-blow to the government, the Democratic Unionists of Northern Ireland have also said that they will not support the deal, having previously indicated that they would support a deal.

Parliament will sit on Saturday, a very rare occurrence, and Prime Minister Johnson will be hoping that he can persuade enough of his fellow parliamentarians to vote with him although his chances of success appear to be slim. If Parliament votes against the deal, the Prime Minister will have to obey the law passed a couple of weeks ago and ask the EU for more time although he's repeatedly said that the UK will leave the European Union on 31st October come what may. 

What is going to happen ? European Union representatives have been clear that they want this deal to be approved but less than clear about what they would do if it is not. While they may allow a further extension beyond the end of October, that is far from certain and any further delay would almost certainly be dependent on the UK holding a second referendum or a general election as soon as possible, neither of which is likely to provide any real resolution to the deep rooted problems of the UK's democratic process.

No one wants to see this issue drag on any longer, but the opposing factions seem to be utterly intransigent. The loss of its parliamentary majority has rendered the UK government impotent in the face of the vested interests of opposition parties. Labour want power but are terrified of a general election while Jeremy Corbyn is their leader; they are also terrified that  Boris Johnson would be unbeatable anyway if he finally gets a deal approved by parliament, and so they oppose everything while proposing nothing. The Scottish Nationalists link everything to another referendum on their own pet project, independence for Scotland, and the Liberal un-Democrats can see a chance of getting a share of power by being seen as the "Party of Remain". The Democratic Unionists see everything through the prism of their own insular and sectarian interests and will not vote for anything which they think will weaken their current hold over Northern Ireland.

Prime Minister Johnson has a problem, in fact he has several. Will he achieve a feat that would even have challenged the great Harry Houdini ? Come Saturday afternoon, we'll know, one way or the other.

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