Brexit Deal Fails in Parliament

The Brexit promise is something nobody can deliver on. It was a lie, you cannot force the EU to accept an unfavorable trade deal. If only for the reason that it would set an exceptionally bad precedent and everybody would want their own deal, to pick and choose the parts of EU membership that are favorable to them, leading the EU to implode.<p>Somebody needs to own up to that lie and accept that a &quot;no deal&quot; outcome, which is clearly bad, is still the best thing brexiters can actually deliver. Instead, they are trying to camouflage that reality with a bad deal that keeps Britain shackled to the EU for a number of years while losing all of the (substantial) influence it had over the way EU works. That&#x27;s an anti-Brexit, the exact opposite of the independence and prosperity promised by brexiters. It was a bad deal and it&#x27;s good that it failed.

The issue with the referendum since the beginning was leave was such a nebulous cloud for the entire range of Brexit from barely-there-Brexit to Britian-stands-alone(-get-those-people-out)-Brexit while remain had a very definite meaning. Because of that everyone could pour all their displeasure at anything wrong into leave and think the deal would take care of it. That&#x27;s why I&#x27;m always annoyed at the &#x27;another referendum would tarnish democracy&#x27; line, it wouldn&#x27;t be another nebulous question it would be a direct vote on an actual deal giving people the chance to make an actual choice on the future of the UK.<p>&gt; Instead, they are trying to camouflage that reality with a bad deal that keeps Britain shackled to the EU for a number of years while losing any say it had over the way EU works.<p>I don&#x27;t think Brexit as it was formulated was ever possible if the EU was wanting to be extremely generous because one of the main gripes was all the regulations on products coming from the EU parliament. Ultimately if the UK was going to have access to the EU market at all pretty much all of those regulations would still apply because to sell into that market they&#x27;d have to comply with the regulations of the EU market!

I&#x27;ll be the first to admit: I&#x27;m an American. I fundamentally do not understand Brexit.<p>I understand the following timeline:<p>1. A largely disseminated, nation-wide vote occurs, bolstered by nationalist sentiment, that the EU is bad for the UK. This vote results in a conclusion that UK should leave the EU.<p>2. This is controversial, due to the majority of the populace in general not desiring to leave the EU, but not voting as such individually. Some portions of the UK, itself a Union, are strongly aganst this voting result.<p>3. May, a woman of great importance in the UK government, chooses to try and make a deal with the EU for favorable leaving conditions for UK.<p>4. Nothing May is presenting is considered acceptable by anyone.<p>On its face, this makes no sense to me. Why is May being held responsible for this? Where are the people who initially brought in Brexit- why are they not supporting May? What is preventing the referendum from being declared stupid and that the UK gov&#x27;t is not going to do it?<p>EDIT: Thank you all for your excellent responses. I&#x27;m now under the impression this is like when a significant portion of a dev team with (actual, hypotehtical) equal or flat hierarchy believe that code needs to be refactored to a serious degree, but no majority of devs can decide on what the refactored code will look like. (Extremely simplified!). If this is largely incorrect please let me know.

One of the effects of Brexit that is overlooked by people outside of the UK is the effect that it will have on the Union itself. In 2014 during the Scottish independence referendum those favouring remaining in the UK prevailed by about 11%. One of the strongest arguments made by those who favoured remaining was that an independent Scotland would not accede to the EU automatically, according to the EU itself, but would have to apply as a new member (in part the fear was that other regions of Europe such as Catalonia would follow Scotland&#x27;s example). Now in 2019 the Scots who favoured remaining in the UK so as to maintain EU membership are being told they&#x27;ll have a hard exit. If there&#x27;s a replay of the 2014 referendum in the future there&#x27;s no assurance that Scots will choose to remain, with Brexit increasing the possibility of a disintegration of the Union with only England, Wales and Northern Ireland remaining. Over the horizon it&#x27;s even possible that Northern Ireland (given the appropriate demographic changes) will peel off and join up with the Irish Republic.

I voted remain but I spend a lot of time with group of people who voted leave. Some of them have realised the leave campaigners basically had no evidence to back up their claims and so feel lied to but, sadly, the others are just angry - and I mean really angry.<p>They want out at all costs because the “EU is telling us what to do”. Revoking article 50 would be a bad idea for civil stability but going through with it seems to me, to be economic suicide (ask any small business owner or retailer how it’s going at the moment and they’d say the process has already started). A bad deal (like this) really did seem the best of an awful situation to me - it reflected the vote, 48&#x2F;52. Half the country (probably more since a million or so people have now become old enough to vote who couldnt before) didn’t want to do this so perhaps it should be an awkward compromise that gives both sides a bit of what they want.

The deal was the worst of all worlds and deliberately designed to fail. The whole project since the referendum has been to work towards the palatable introduction of a second referendum whilst spending the intervening time demonstrating the impossibility of a good deal and the awfulness of no deal.<p>We will now proceed to run down the clock towards the no deal &#x27;cliff edge&#x27; and as the precipice looms go to the EU asking for an extension. The EU will say you can only have an extension for a second referendum, which we will hold and remain will win.

I guess one thing that many people are missing is why the &quot;leave&quot; vote won in the first place.<p>If Europe is so great why did some people had the desire to leave it?<p>Surely they were not all brainwashed or lobotomized?<p>The EU is now trying to make the UK pay an extraordinary price in order to warn the other countries that leaving the EU is not a choice to be taken lightly.<p>This kind of technique is known as bullying and that&#x27;s as simple as it gets.<p>If the EU leaders were smart they would have used this opportunity to try to reform the EU and make it into what they promised their citizens.<p>There was a time when politicians said that the EU was going to bring prosperity, safety and so on and so forth?<p>Where are all those promises now?<p>The EU has had low economic growth for the last 15 years, high unemployment, flooded by migrants, non-stop terrorist attack, an ever smaller middle class, and ever-increasing taxes that are used to pay the salaries of technocrats like Juncker who was one of the guys who organized fiscal evasion on a scale never imagined.<p>Who is this guy by the way? He is not even fucking elected yet somehow he represents Europe?<p>Europe is not the democratic utopia that was sold to the people.<p>It certainly has not delivered on its promises and now it faces a backlash from its citizens.<p>I hope Brexit happens because if it succeeds it will show that another way is possible.<p>European technocrats can eat my shorts!

Here&#x27;s what happens next:<p>- A motion of no confidence has been tabled and will be debated and voted on tomorrow<p>- If the motion carries (i.e. the Government loses):<p>1. Theresa May must resign as Prime Minister<p>2. There can be a 14 day window in which a new government is formed, which must be approved by a motion of confidence. This is likely to be waived<p>3. There will be a general election. Theresa May will remain leader of the Tories. The Tories will lose<p>4. Corbyn will then seek a deal that retains customs union. This is likely to take time, so he will likely seek a delay from Parliament on Article 50 for such a deal to be agreed<p>5. We leave with a customs union probably in Autumn of 2019<p>- Most Tories know this, so will support the PM in a vote of no confidence, and the Government may win it. In that scenario:<p>1. Theresa May stays Prime Minister<p>2. She will go back to the EU and demand a new deal, likely with a hard time limit on the NI backstop, the main issue that caused tonight&#x27;s defeat<p>3. At the same time, she will ask &quot;senior Parliamentarians&quot; what they would need if that were not possible<p>4. The only thing that will carry a vote in Parliament right now other than a customs union deal (which she has personally refused to engage with), is a second referendum<p>5. If the backstop isn&#x27;t removed, it&#x27;s therefore quite likely Article 50 is rescinded and a new referendum happens this Summer. It&#x27;s likely such a referendum will have two questions: Do you wish to leave or remain?; and, in the event of a vote towards leave, would you accept the backstop or would you prefer &quot;No Deal&quot;.<p>6. This will either result in a Remain vote and possibly a civil war (no, seriously), or a Leave vote that risks breaking up the UK with the NI needing to align with the Republic and, so, a civil war but contained to NI, or a Leave deal with support for &quot;No Deal&quot; and a default position of WTO rules<p>All outcomes have downsides. There is no winning here, and there is no situation in which we get to revoke Article 50 and the UK remains in the EU and all is well. It will leave 17m people in an absolute rage, and they have already murdered one MP. It&#x27;ll get worse.

&quot;The people have voted to shoot themselves in the foot. Parliament rejects proposal to shoot themselves in the right foot, but proposal to shoot themselves in the left foot also seems destined for failure.&quot;

Article 50 exists. The UK can leave on WTO terms and the EU cannot stop it. The EU has some incentives (money) to give the UK some other deal than WTO terms, and it has some incentives (avoiding a rush to the exits) to give the UK nothing more than WTO terms. As it happens the UK is wealthier than other EU countries that might head for the exits if they thought they could get as good a deal as the UK, but no one thinks that Poland can get the same terms as the UK, so fear of a rush to exit is not a reason to give the UK nothing. It&#x27;s not at all clear that May tried to get a better deal than the one she presented to Parliament -- the brexiteers in her previous cabinet were sidelined and ignored, and no attempt was made to make clear that the EU would not yield (if that was the problem).

It feels like the country is roughly divided into 3 equal bits:<p>* Leave EU quickly, at any cost<p>* Don’t really mind either way, as long as economy is stable<p>* Stay in EU<p>The one in the middle doesn’t trust either of the others. So nobody can get a majority, whether we have another referendum or a general election. So this shitstorm will just go on and on.

To be honest this is just a repeat of two years ago, apart from now it&#x27;s May not getting her way instead of Cameron. The whole thing is such a colossal failure that they need to just to give up and stop acting like this is the &#x27;will of the people&#x27; - as if people don&#x27;t change their mind when presented with the facts or something.

The best position on Brexit that I&#x27;ve heard coming out of a British politician. Well worth the listen.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=1XEj64IFzQ8" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=1XEj64IFzQ8</a>

Are there British politicians brave enough and capable of becoming PM ... and willing to say &quot;This is a bad idea and I won&#x27;t do it?&quot;

At this point a no deal Brexit looks substantially different from the possible-Brexit that was voted upon. Shouldn&#x27;t there be a new referendum of basically a new question of a no deal Brexit vs Remain? I know very little of British politics, is there some other dynamic at work that pushes to what seems like a strongly economically destructive no deal Brexit?

Perhaps now there will be a reckoning with the blatant illegality (in addition to the ordinary level of rampant political dishonesty) of the Leave campaign. A pragmatic recognition that the UK cannot haul anchor and sail off to some other latitude would not hurt either.

Ahhhh fudge ...<p>People’s vote ... it might just happen.<p>May now has to chat with the opposition, understand what it’d take to vote yes , take that to Europe, bring back a compromise ... vote again, get that accepted.<p>People’s vote is starting to look like the more likely outcome... had she lost by say 50 or 100 votes ... ok but 432 vs 202 ?! 230 votes to claw back somehow .

Don&#x27;t fully understand UK government structure but is it possible for the labor party to take over leadership and revoke article 50 before the deadline?

The best thing for Britain would be to just give up, accept that there will be no deal, and spend the remaining time making as many preparations as possible, and piecemeal deals on smaller subjects.

There&#x27;s not much time left. Brexit happens March 29th. The EU countries are hiring more customs inspectors. Shippers are planning new shipping routes to avoid transit through the UK. The UK&#x27;s financial services sector takes a huge hit. UK financial services have already moved US$1 trillion in assets out of the UK, and that&#x27;s picking up as the deadline approaches.<p>The City of London will be much less important soon.

The New York Times also had an article yesterday [1] looking at some of the regular pro-Brexit people who just plain do not believe any warnings about no-deal. One quote though really jumped out at me since it was related to one of the earliest projects I ever did, working on a small bit of the Y2K problem, and I think it really serves as an example of a fundamental difficulty when dealing with public facing threats:<p>&gt;<i>Mr. Ridley compared the anticipation mounting before the Brexit deadline to the run-up to forestall the Millennium Bug, also known as Y2K, in which companies worldwide scrambled to avert technical breakdowns when digital systems switched from 1999 to 2000.</i><p>&gt;<i>“It’ll be like Y2K,” he said. “Remember that one? They were like panic, panic, panic, the world’s going to end, the electric grid’s going to go down,” Mr. Ridley said. “None of it is going to happen.”</i><p>I knew that this was the impression left with the general public after that, but it&#x27;s really unfortunate because in my recollection Y2K is quite possibly one of the most unified, successful responses to a serious tech problem our industry has ever managed to pull off. Yeah, it didn&#x27;t amount to much... after hundreds of thousands to millions of man YEARS of work. I know people who had gone full time digging through ancient code bases back by 1998 or so, wouldn&#x27;t be surprised if some had started in 97. Initial issues began bubbling up well before 00 after all, stuff like credit card expiration dates that were a few years in the future. Enormous amounts of resources were sunk into working on it, sometimes for clean fixes and sometimes for hacks [2], and overall it worked. But of course then we ended up with &quot;well what was the point of all the hype or effort, everything was fine!&quot; and the public taking literally the opposite lesson.<p>I can&#x27;t remember if there is a technical term for this class of problem (beyond &quot;life in ops&quot;), where it&#x27;s like air, the general &quot;success&quot; state is &quot;nobody even thinks about it most of the time&quot; but the failure state is catastrophic. It&#x27;s an issue with security too of course. Ops and security are non-revenue generating, but their absence can certainly be revenue destroying. It&#x27;s hard to get budget support there.<p>It seems like a really hard problem, particularly when future testing isn&#x27;t available and results are irreversible.<p>----<p>1: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2019&#x2F;01&#x2F;14&#x2F;world&#x2F;europe&#x2F;no-deal-brexit-britain-uk.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2019&#x2F;01&#x2F;14&#x2F;world&#x2F;europe&#x2F;no-deal-brex...</a><p>2: Old systems are still in service that are still using 2-digit dates, but just were patches so that 00 to 30 were assumed to be 2000s while &gt;30 were 1900s, so there is actually still lurking remnants of Y2K that will come up again if not dealt with by 2030 or so. And of course there is the 32-bit unix time issue for 2038, examples of which have also cropped up a few times already too.

I’ve heard a lot of people make the point that it’d be political suicide if the government declares brexit a bad idea and then backtracks, ignoring the referendum and thus remain in the EU after all, that it’d feed into the hand of the nationalists – but I’ve got hard time understanding why? Doesn’t this assume that people are just dumb? That hey believe the government has been sitting on their hands in trying to get a deal done, and not really, I mean really tried?<p>Isn’t there an argument to be made that they did try, and here are the results, and because of that they’ve concluded that it’s a bad idea? Is it really so hard to believe that a majority of the UK voters wouldn’t accept this, when it was such a contested referendum result in the first place?<p>Especially so when the referendum question was only discussing leaving the EU, rather than promising any particular outcomes?<p>I’m having a hard time believing that a majority of people in the UK are so entrenched that they can’t possibly change their minds given the light of new facts, hat everyone will turn to nationalistic agendas, and that the referendum result of two and a half years ago is still a valid gauge of popular sentiment.

The problem with referendums is you can&#x27;t have just one.<p>The losers will always want another referendum, and they will always be able to point out problems with the previous one and&#x2F;or argue that significant things have changed since it was held. The results of the previous referendum will never seem legitimate unless it was passed by an overwhelming majority of voters.<p>Just don&#x27;t have referendums. They open a wound that will never heal.

The whole thing seems like a slow motion train wreck, except with the potentially and arguably happy outcome of them remaining in the EU.

A good take on how the negotiation was squandered, and why the EU has run out of patience:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.independent.co.uk&#x2F;voices&#x2F;brexit-vote-deal-theresa-may-withdrawal-agreement-eu-negotiations-a8728771.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.independent.co.uk&#x2F;voices&#x2F;brexit-vote-deal-theres...</a>

You can be for or against Brexit. The saddest thing is the gulf between the governing class and Britons. The former cannot effectuate a strong existential roar from the people they represent.<p>That’s worse than this vote, and worse than the original vote for Brexit. (If you even think that was bad.)

Everyone has a plan right now in the UK parliament. Probably over half of parliament is hoping to push the UK into a &#x27;cancel Brexit&#x27; scenario, despite claiming they respect the referendum result. Possibly a third of parliament have given up on the prospect of a reasonable deal with the EU and are holding out for a no-deal WTO exit. A minority are still seeking a last-minute deal that everyone can agree on.<p>It has always been my belief that a good trade deal between the UK and the EU is only possible if the UK is actually willing to go no-deal WTO first. Simply because the EU <i>never</i> concedes anything in good faith when it comes to negotiations.

The UK was the sick man of Europe. Then, basically around the same time:<p>1. Thatcher made economic reforms<p>2. Oil was found in the sea (UK oil production correlates a lot with the rising UK economy)<p>3. The UK joined the EU (EC)<p>The Oil is gone and they want to leave the EU. Let&#x27;s see how it goes.

This will kill the high end of the housing market in the U.K. as the cost of everything will go up. It will also help shore up some jobs that were exported to cheaper labor in the EU.<p>That&#x27;s my take on it anyways.

IMO the UK has very little negotiating leverage with the EU.<p>For its preservation, the EU leaders know they must make an example of the UK.<p>A new referendum will take time - if it ever happens.<p>And if it does, the country may remain as divided as ever.<p>They need to secure an extension from the EU. With no extension, a disruptive, hard Brexit will happen in just 10 weeks and the UK is not at all prepared.<p>I just don’t understand what the UK MPs are thinking, and I don’t understand why David Cameron opened this Pandora’s Box in the first place.

It bewilders me that people, including elected MPs, don&#x27;t want to understand how electoral&#x2F;representative democracies should work. The will of the People, yeah, right. It&#x27;s like pub talk on a Friday. Grab a lukewarm ale and a bag of crisps, and cry about how great the empire once was. MPs should represent the best interest, not the lunatic dreams of their voters.

I see the headlines are trumpeting how sterling rose (0.05% !!) after the results (hinting that the result is good news), but this looks like a clear case of short-covering to me - short speculation earlier in the day (possibly anticipating a decline if the vote passed), covered when the actual results came out.

&gt; The environment secretary, Michael Gove, was equally dramatic in a morning radio interview, warning lawmakers that “if we don’t vote for this deal tonight, in the words of Jon Snow, winter is coming,” a reference to “Game of Thrones.”<p>Err, that was Ned Stark who said that, not Jon Snow.

UK is staring at supply chain and financial disruptions post Brexit. In the multi polar world - UK is not a heavy weight any more. Without the collective bargaining power of EU - UK would have tough time rebuilding economy in an uber competitive global economic context.

Other thread: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=18914290" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=18914290</a>.

Why was a simple majority used for the brexit decision? Are there issues in the U.K. that require a bigger passing percentage?

So what is the worst-case scenario if the UK comes up with no clear legal plan for Brexit on their end before the EU deadline?

I’m cautiously optimistic. Brexit is about national sovereignty. You need look no further than the US to see that mega-states don’t work. The EU was supposed to be a trade confederacy, but is beginning to co-opt the sovereignty of the constituent states. That, as the US experience has shown, may lead to economic success, but also leads to people who feel disenfranchised and dissatisfied with a distant, ever-expanding government.

i m under the impression that the UK elites are in favor of brexit. Or rather that the elites are not in favor of remain, and they are not going to mobilize for that. The UK people, despite apparent polarization, does not expect major changes in their lives any way.

Stewart Lee on Brexit, very funny:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=Ek9_GQa1lgc" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=Ek9_GQa1lgc</a>

Teresa May was a &#x27;remain&#x27;.<p>Subjective, but...<p>It was never a question in my mind, that May would sabotage the negotiations to the point that the skeptics of the exit, would proclaim &#x27;I told you so&#x27;.<p>Never believed that she could perform her duty honestly. What a stain she is, on the fabric of trust of the British people.

Jacob Rees-Morgan:<p>&quot;Chaos is a ladder.&quot;

I loved the comparison to a submarine made of cheese: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;hugorifkind&#x2F;status&#x2F;1072222230791229440?lang=en" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;hugorifkind&#x2F;status&#x2F;1072222230791229440?l...</a>

Who want to stay in this EU is beyond me.

Most countries in the world exist outside of the EU, Britian will figure it out

So, will they now re-evaluate the whole Brexit? It&#x27;s clear it was a failed idea to begin with.

The main issue is that the majority of parliament are remainers and so don&#x27;t really represent the 52 percent, further signyfing why the public feel parliament are out of touch with them. Britain is further teetering towards a no deal, meaning an even harder Brexit.

All I can think of is, why? I don&#x27;t know what were the main points against the deal, but the only reason I can think of that the deal is rejected is that Corbin, or whoever else would come out of this kerfuffle victorious, wants to re-issue vote on leaving the EU in order to stay..?<p>This is insanely puzzling to me, and very much unexpected. Can someone ELI5..? Or maybe ELI15 would be enough.

Imagine if all the great minds thinking, discussing, reporting and debating brexit spent their time on solving real problems facing the human race instead.

Of course it &quot;failed&quot;. The government did everything it could to sabotage it and arrive at as unfavorable a set of exit conditions as possible. Even if she did want to get a good deal, May doesn&#x27;t strike me as a cutthroat negotiator. Couple this with her unwillingness to abide by the will of the people (the size of the voting margin is somewhat irrelevant in a properly functioning democracy), and you get this. This was 100% predictable right from the start.<p>Like elections, referenda have consequences. You don&#x27;t get a re-do just because you didn&#x27;t like the outcome. To say otherwise opens you up to the same kind of bullshit when things turn out the way you like and the _other_ side doesn&#x27;t like the result.

What I find curious through this whole affair is the silence on the topic by the U.S. For two countries that share a &quot;Special Relationship&quot; I had expected to hear the State Dept. say something. After all, major changes in governance by a close ally is bound to have secondary effects. And, please don&#x27;t tell me that the Special Relationship is just a put-on show. It is set in numerous treaties between the U.S. and U.K. for centuries. There have been no announcements of rescinding any of those well-hidden treaties. Also consider that the U.S. has three of the most sophisticated econometric models of all other countries, probably better than the U.K.&#x27;s.<p>That leads me to believe this is a fait accompli and the U.S. may have actually suggested the referrendum as the best way forward. The brute fact is the the U.S. is going through it&#x27;s own Brexit from earlier trade relationships that were set many years ago and which could be improved upon. You think I&#x27;m harbouring a conspiracy theory? Who told you that?