Is Boris Johnson’s deal with the EU BRexit In Name Only? What kind of exit from the EU will a Tory party with an overall majority deliver? Important questions for anyone struggling to decide whether to vote Conservative to just leave already, or vote Brexit Party to send a message that we want as much Brexit as possible.
Martin Howe is a Queen’s Counsel and so likely to understand the deal as well as anyone. He was against Theresa May’s deal because it bound the UK into a transition period (backstop) until the EU decided otherwise. He is in favour of Boris Johnson’s deal.
According to him, the deal looks a lot better than I had previously thought:
it foreshadows a Free Trade Agreement under which the UK will be able to operate its independent trade policy, instead of the UK being locked into the EU’s external customs tariffs…references in the PD to the UK aligning its rules to EU rules have been deleted…commitment to shadow the EU rules on competition and state aids in Theresa May’s WA has been replaced with a more open ended commitment not to distort competition [similar to that seen in most FTAs, according to the Telegraph version of the article]…explicitly making clear the right of the UK to determine how it would respond to any invitation by the EU to participate in joint action in the defence field
None of these things you would learn from reading comments on Guido…
Howe is honest enough to detail the bad stuff.
the long term subjection of the UK to rulings by the ECJ…the so-called transition period [during which] the UK would be subject to all EU laws, both those that exist now and those that are brought in during that period…financial obligations on the UK which go well beyond the UK’s obligations under international law
Overall, Howe thinks this is much better than Theresa May’s unacceptable deal, is not BRINO, but is worse than leaving with no deal. The question then becomes: is it still possible to leave with no deal?