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Britons need a second chance to vote on Brexit
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IANS | 20 Nov, 2018
Divorces are always messy, but none have so much at stake as the separation of Britain from the European Union (EU).
Almost
two-and-a-half years after 52 percent of Britons who voted in favour of
a Brexit, Prime Minister Theresa May has managed to draft a deal that
aims to withdraw the country from the EU before the cut-off date of
March 29, 2019. Even though the deal has been begrudgingly passed by
May's cabinet, there are virtually no supporters for it on either side
of the Brexit debate.
Britain has four ways to go about Brexit: A
hard Brexit; a softer Brexit; a sketchy middle ground where May has
ended up with the current deal; or simply, no deal, where Britain drops
out of the EU after the cut-off date and ends up reverting to standard
international trading rules. The last case is simply catastrophic where
tariff and border checks would immediately be put in place and movement
of people would become restricted.
A hard Brexit would also imply
the UK making a definitive split from the EU, ending its membership in
the single market, customs unions and the court of justice. This would
give UK more freedom to set its own rules and regulations. A softer
Brexit would imply lesser change from the status quo. A really soft
Brexit could even involve the possibility of UK staying on in the single
market or customs union.
The major complication in coming to an
agreement arises from the case of Northern Ireland. The region, which is
a part of the UK, could spiral into sectarian violence if it is
separated from Ireland through physical barriers or checkpoints or, in
other words, a hard border, as it would limit the flow of people and
goods between the two regions.
The Ireland-Northern Ireland
border has been open since 1998 after the Good Friday Agreement was
ratified to bring peace to the region after decades of violence.
However, a clean Brexit would require imposition of hard borders between
the UK and the EU, which implies a hard border between Northern Ireland
and Ireland as the latter is a part of EU. Such a scenario would
eventually end in rising tensions, which everyone wants to avoid at all
costs.
So, the Brexit dilemma lies in coming to an agreement that
retains the integrity of the UK and the Good Friday Agreement. May's
deal tries to circumvent this by letting the UK stay within the EU's
customs area, which would imply staying in the EU single market and
avoiding hard borders, while allowing UK to make independent trade deals
with other countries. As such a deal would not include the imposition
of any hard borders, the free flow of goods and people between Ireland
and Northern Ireland would remain unchanged.
However, it is
obvious why such a deal has appeased no one. The pro-Brexit camp feels
that the terms of the draft deal violate the very meaning of Brexit,
which was to let UK regain control of its own policies. May's plan
forfeits the influential role that the UK played in the EU while making
it a mere rule-taker of the union. The ability to negotiate its own
trade deals would recover only a fraction of the cost of Brexit by the
government's own calculations.
Meanwhile, for the Remain camp,
the deal is far worse than the status quo for almost similar reasons.
The two factions have unanimously united over their dislike for the
draft deal.
Such reactions should have been expected. It was
evident that no one would have been satisfied with the final outcome of
such a divisive issue. The very fact that no party is satisfied makes it
the least unreasonable compromise. But at this stage, there is a strong
case for a referendum on the exit deal. The Brexit votes were won by a
very narrow margin at a time when the terms and the cost of the move
were not known to the voters. There was a clear democratic deficit,
which needs to be filled.
The idea of Brexit that was sold to the
masses at the time was that the country would somehow manage to seize
control of its policies and achieve higher prosperity in the process
without incurring any significant economic costs for itself. The deal
that has been chalked out in these two-plus years is nothing close to
these promises of the "Leave" campaign. It is highly likely that the
deal will not pass through the British Parliament itself but now that
the extent of economic pain and long-term repercussions of Brexit are
becoming clearer, it is vital to get a sense of the public opinion about
the matter before the only option of a no-deal remains.
The
latter outcome would be catastrophic for the both the British and the
world economy; a prospect that is completely avoidable.
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Customs Exchange Rates |
Currency |
Import |
Export |
US Dollar
|
66.20
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64.50 |
UK Pound
|
87.50
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84.65 |
Euro
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78.25
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75.65 |
Japanese
Yen |
58.85 |
56.85 |
As on 13 Aug, 2022 |
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