UK reaches draft agreement with EU over transitional period

BREXIT has an update and after a week of Russia, this is a light relief. But this is important as David Davis and his team have struck a deal with their EU counterparts over the Transitional Period. There has been little movement on Brexit thus far because the government largely haven’t been able to decide what they wanted and throughout the first stage faced the same problems, first, it was the fee, then it was EU citizens rights and lastly, the Good Friday Agreement.

The government however, did announce yesterday that they have come to an agreement.

The problem is, is that the deal they have struck means they have capitulated on every single promise they made.

The devil is in the detail

The transitional period will last from 29 March 2019 (official leaving date) to 31 December 2020, during that period any EU citizens who arrive in the UK between these dates will receive the same rights and guarantees as those who arrived before Brexit. This will also apply to UK expats on the continent. During this period the UK will be able to negotiate, sign and then ratify its own trade deals to be implemented after 31st December 2020. The UK will still be party to existing EU trade deals with other countries.

The UK will also remain part of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) until the leave date but will have no say in any rule changes. northern ireland will effectively stay in parts of the single market and the customs union in the absence of other solutions to avoid a hard border with the Republic of Ireland.

A panel of three judges led by Scotland’s most senior judge, Lord Carloway, the lord president, said the cross-party group of politicians behind the case had raised a point “of great importance” which had to be fully heard. Appeal judges have ruled that a Scottish court has to properly examine claims that the UK should be able to unilaterally abandon Brexit, without permission from other EU member states.

Furthermore, Scottish Conservative MPs are set to meet the PM to discuss the UK's agreement to keep EU fishing policies during the Brexit transition period. The meeting, expected to take place at Number 10, follows criticism from Scotland's fishing industry over the deal struck in Brussels.

Northern Ireland is an important aspect and they look set to have further clashes with the EU. This comes following every time the DUP vetoed any plan put forward, the EU got fed up and called on Theresa May to come up with a solution. Alas, this has not happened as of yet and the solution mentioned above isn’t a permanent solution but one that will remain unless May can come up with a better solution that will also appease the DUP, as they hold the power over May’s government.

Under a joint withdrawal deal published on Monday, of which 75% is agreed, the UK will retain the benefits of the single market and customs union for “near enough to the two years we asked for”, Davis said, albeit while losing its role in any decision-making institutions.

There is one lesser talked about issue with the agreement. There is no mechanism in place to extend the transitional period beyond 2020 if it were needed. This presents a multitude of problems for the government because you will get those from one side rightly complaining that there is no protection should there be no trade deals in place by the time Britain officially leaves. However, if there were such a mechanism, the hard-line Brexit supporters will claim that Britain will never leave the EU. Yet, it is unlikely that there will be any trade deals implemented by that time because the time period that they do have is only sufficient to get a broad outline in place.