At the time No Deal appeared achievable.
What do you mean achievable? You only achieve NO DEAL by failing to get a DEAL. OK, maybe such a level of incompetence takes some doing, perhaps it would be an achievement.
29th Dec '' It suits me fine if she loses the vote, we'll just come out with no deal at the end of March ''
17th Dec '' When I voted Leave I assumed it meant a No Deal type exit.''
That’s because they voted for BREXIT thinking the country would be 350 million a week better off, and it would all happen the day after the vote.
I haven't changed my mind on the original question that was on the ballot paper. Leaving with a deal is still Leave.
May I remind you what May’s deal is – it is a withdrawal agreement. It is not a settled position. After the 31
st of march under May’s deal we are no longer members of the EU. However we will continue to have single market access to allow us to trade seamlessly with the EU whilst we negotiate our future position – ie a trade deal with the EU. That means we will follow the rules of the market, but we will no longer be involved in setting the rules. Effectively on the first of April 2019 under May’s deal we cease to be a truly sovereign state as we are right now today.
Now if it took us two years to get into this mess just trying to draw up a withdrawal agreement – ie the easy bit, how long do you think it will take us to renegotiate agriculture, fisheries and food, business and competition, customs and tax etc etc. It will never happen, not within two years. And you will not be able to do a trade deal with any other country until that lot and 100 other wee matters are sorted out.
So you end up in the backstop, held in a customs union, run by the EU. Taking EU rules. The backstop is there as we all know to protect the peace in Ireland and the UK. You cannot leave the customs union until the EU is satisfied that you have satisfactorily negotiated your way out of all the EU treaties we spent the last 45 years negotiating our way into.
Meanwhile the UK will haemorrhage business nervous of loosing EU access and trade, the pound will continue to slide, inflation will rise, nobody will invest in the UK as they will have no idea of what our long-term trading strategy is. Therefore, mass unemployment will follow.