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Economy | Europe

A EU – UK Brexit Deal Agreed But It's Not Quite Over Yet

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-->A EU - UK Brexit Deal Agreed But Its Not Quite Over Yet      

  • The EU – UK reach a new deal that is supposed to ensure Britain leaves the EU in an orderly way and removes the Irish backstop. But an equally difficult hurdle remains – the UK parliament voting on the deal on October 19th.

 

What’s new?

  • Northern Ireland (NI) remains in the UK's customs territory, but all EU rules to apply to goods arriving in NI. This may mean no customs checks on the entire island of Ireland, instead in ports on mainland UK.
  • For goods crossing from UK to Northern Ireland that are deemed to be staying there, EU tariffs may not apply. And as long as the goods do not cross to Ireland and the EU's single market, only UK customs tariffs apply.
  • The NI assembly (Parliament) has to give consent for the region's continued alignment with the EU regulatory regime every four years. There may be no executive veto option by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), as originally envisaged. Instead, it may require a simple majority agreement. 

 

What’s next? UK Parliament Vote – A difficult hurdle but not impossible             

  • The UK parliament votes on PM Johnson’s deal this Saturday (October 19th).
  • For the new Brexit deal to pass the UK parliament, PM Boris Johnson needs 320 votes in favor.
  • Currently, the Conservative Party holds 287 seats and it is assumed all members within the party (including the hard Brexiteers called the European Research group) will vote for the deal.
  • The DUP with 10 members (a traditional ally of the hard Brexiteers and Tories coalition partner) who was earlier thought to be in favour of the deal, has now indicated it may not support the deal as it has no executive veto option on remaining in the EU regulatory regime under the new deal. The Labor Party/ LibDems and SNP have also indicated they may not vote for the deal (308 members in total).
  • This means Boris Johnson needs the vote of Independents (currently 36 members including 21 ex-Conservatives sacked earlier by PM Johnson but who have now been given a pathway to re-join the Conservatives if they back the Brexit deal), possibly the Greens (1 member) and Plaid Cymru (4 members).           

 

UK Parliament Vote

Scenario 1:

If the Brexit deal is passed this Saturday, then the UK withdraws from the EU in an orderly way.

 

Scenario 2:

If the Brexit deal fails to pass in its original form then could be 2 options –

  • Deal is still passed but with a conditional confirmatory referendum vote required, that is, a deal is passed subject to it being put back to a UK referendum vote. 
  • An unconditional rejection of the deal on the other hand (the least likely option) is likely to play into the “No Deal” scenario. This may see a fall in confidence in UK assets.  

 

 

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