Kirsty Hughes, Director, Scottish Centre on European Relations, and Tobias Lock is a Lecturer in EU Law at the University of Edinburgh
THE Brexit timetable already looked incredibly tight with the two year countdown triggered by Theresa May on March 29.
Now, with a hung parliament, will the Brexit process descend into chaos?
A lot would have to go right for Brexit to keep to timetable. For the UK-EU27 talks, an exit deal must be done on EU citizens in the UK, a soft Northern Ireland border and the thorny question of the UK’s ‘Brexit bill’.
Then there needs to be a framework outline of a future UK-EU27 trade deal (probably a Canada-style, ‘hard Brexit’ deal) after which transition arrangements can be negotiated. All this by autumn 2018, so the deal can be ratified before March 2019.
That is enough to create several headaches for a government with even a strong majority. Yet in parallel, the UK must bring EU laws back to the UK through the Great Repeal bill. It must establish a new migration policy, trade and customs policy, agriculture, fisheries and more. And it has to get all this through Westminster.
The Bill will also require the legislative consent of Holyrood (and other devolved legislatures) as may some of the other new bills. What happens when this consent is refused?
It seems unlikely that the Tories’ own backbenchers and the DUP MPs will stick to the government through thick and thin through all these messy challenges. And Labour, despite voting for Article 50, has no need now to back a Tory/DUP Brexit.
To add to the confusion, there are tricky interdependencies between the UK-EU27 talks and the UK’s new domestic policy and regulatory set-up.
For example, the UK cannot negotiate a new trade deal on agriculture with the EU if it hasn’t set its own agriculture policy back home, including agreeing which EU powers will go back to Scotland and the other devolved administrations. How long that takes will determine when – before autumn 2018 – the UK and EU can talk agriculture (or fisheries, or environment, or security).
Equally, the UK can’t agree a transition deal if it doesn’t know what new regulatory structures it will set up and when. Trying to re-engineer the UK’s regulatory, legal and policy structures within 21 months looked quixotic before the election. Now it is surely implausible. And if a Tory leadership election or second general election intrudes, then the wheels will certainly come off.
So will the pressure be on for a softer Brexit? The EU27 remain clear: either the UK respects the ‘four freedoms’ including free movement of people – in which case it could ask to stay in the European Economic Area (EEA) with Norway, or it can have a hard, Canada-style trade deal. There is nothing else on offer – no softer ‘in-between’ Brexit. But would Tory MPs back an EEA soft Brexit? While many Labour MPs would, what about Corbyn – happy enough to be outside EU restrictions on interventionist industrial policies?
Even with a soft, EEA Brexit, Westminster – and devolved assemblies – will have their work cut out. New agriculture, fisheries, justice and home affairs and trade policies will need to be agreed. And the exit deal – EU citizens, money, Northern Ireland – will still need to be struck. On this timetable, a weak government with a wafer-thin unreliable majority will surely come unstuck rapidly and repeatedly. Brexit chaos awaits.
Kirsty Hughes, Director, Scottish Centre on European Relations, and Tobias Lock, Co-Director, Europa Institute, University of Edinburgh
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