After months of “Brexit means Brexit” and talk of “the best possible deal for Britain” etc, the UK Prime Minister finally put a little anorexic flesh on the bones of the UK’s post Brexit relationship with the EU. The headline is that she intends to go for the hardest Brexit possible, but rather hopes that our close friends in Europe will grant a kind of de facto membership of the Single Market after the fact.
Mrs May set out a 12 point agenda which specifically called for leaving the single market, the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, the Customs Union and end the current contributions to the EU (but be willing to contribute for specific items). She wanted to partially embrace the Customs Union and find a “new, comprehensive, bold and ambitious free trade agreement” with the EU – all of which sounds rather like the “Cherry Picking” that the EU has already specifically ruled out.
The Government stated that parliament would be given a vote on whether to endorse the final deal (always assuming there is one) or not, but hastened to add that the choice would be between rubber stamping the deal or rejecting it to have no deal on leaving the EU – in other words, it explicitly ruled out a return to the status quo ante.
The PM reiterated the veiled threat to seek to become an ultra-low corporate tax haven should the EU be foolish enough to turn down her demands, claiming that, ultimately, she would prefer to take no deal than a bad deal – a particularly well thought out tautology.
The government still hopes to trigger Article 50 notification under Royal Prerogative and has appealed a decision of the High Court that said such notification required the support of parliament. The decision of the Supreme Court is pending, but it is widely anticipated that it will confirm the decision of the lower court. Should this be the decision, the only say of MPs would be in granting authority (or not) to notify the EU of the UK’s intention to leave it, triggering the 2 year withdrawal negotiations.