Last week, MPs voted in principal of the A50 bill 498 for, 114 against. Today, the bill goes to the committee stage in the House of Commons, where amendments (142 pages of which have been tabled) will be debated. Amendments are more likely to be put forward in the House of Lords stage of the process, which will then be ping-ponged back and forth between the Lords and the Commons. The Independent is reporting that 27 Tory MPs are preparing to work with the opposition parties to back key amendments. The one most likely to receive a decent backing will be the one to make the Parliamentary vote on the final deal more "meaningful", potentially halting the process if the deal is seen by MPs to be unsatisfactory. This stage will last until Wednesday, where a vote will be held to push the bill through to the next stage. Even if no amendments are passed, what happens in the Commons will affect what happens in the Lords.
We also had the Brexit White Paper released on Thursday, which was ambitious in its attempt to buy time and reveal nothing new of substance across 77 pages. The paper is essentially just an expanded version of May's "Plan for Britain" Speech with lots of added graphs and statistics. The paper at least demonstrates that the government has some grasp over the sheer number and complexity of the issues we may face. However, the government seems to be going out of its way to avoid properly discussing either the EEA or EFTA as part of the strategy. Use of the EFTA court is straight-up not mentioned in the dispute resolution mechanism section which is just bizarre. David Davis said soon after that membership of EFTA is not being considered because it leaves us within the reach of “European courts”. This is despite the fact that we can join EFTA essentially as a trade deal, which would expose us to no such thing (without doing this we must negotiate new trade deals with Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Lichtenstein individually, as I understand it). Similarly, whilst many arguments can be made against EEA membership the fact remains that as a transitional platform it would render most of the issues raised in the paper moot for the foreseeable future. Yet the arguments for and against are simply not made, which is really just odd at this point. It also doesn’t square particularly with this bit:
We also had the Brexit White Paper released on Thursday, which was ambitious in its attempt to buy time and reveal nothing new of substance across 77 pages. The paper is essentially just an expanded version of May's "Plan for Britain" Speech with lots of added graphs and statistics. The paper at least demonstrates that the government has some grasp over the sheer number and complexity of the issues we may face. However, the government seems to be going out of its way to avoid properly discussing either the EEA or EFTA as part of the strategy. Use of the EFTA court is straight-up not mentioned in the dispute resolution mechanism section which is just bizarre. David Davis said soon after that membership of EFTA is not being considered because it leaves us within the reach of “European courts”. This is despite the fact that we can join EFTA essentially as a trade deal, which would expose us to no such thing (without doing this we must negotiate new trade deals with Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Lichtenstein individually, as I understand it). Similarly, whilst many arguments can be made against EEA membership the fact remains that as a transitional platform it would render most of the issues raised in the paper moot for the foreseeable future. Yet the arguments for and against are simply not made, which is really just odd at this point. It also doesn’t square particularly with this bit:
Or this bit:
Why this phased implementation process should absolutely not incorporate the EEA of EFTA in any way, or why they are apparently not even being considered, I do not know. It makes no sense to start from scratch, and exploring these options would certainly be in our mutual interests, as the paper says itself. The paper also ends by reiterating the "No deal is better than a bad deal" line, which whilst understandably a negotiating tool does not feel compatible with the admissions of the previous 70-odd pages.
Finally, the legal case over Article 127 of the EEA agreement, and whether A50 can pull us out of the single market, was thrown out of the High Court in little over an hour on Friday. The case was thrown out for being "premature", which I don't really understand, but the group can now appeal and have suggested that "unless the Government gives business and the country the certainty it needs and deserves, it is highly likely we will be here again".
alex.davies@gmchamber.co.uk
@GMCC_Alex
Finally, the legal case over Article 127 of the EEA agreement, and whether A50 can pull us out of the single market, was thrown out of the High Court in little over an hour on Friday. The case was thrown out for being "premature", which I don't really understand, but the group can now appeal and have suggested that "unless the Government gives business and the country the certainty it needs and deserves, it is highly likely we will be here again".
alex.davies@gmchamber.co.uk
@GMCC_Alex
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