United Kingdom – Brexit for UK Residents
As London and Brussels head into the home stretch of Brexit negotiations, the prickly issue of what to do with regard the avoidance of a hard-Irish border remains. Talks seemed to reach a breakthrough in October – with reports emerging that 95% of the deal had been agreed – but British Prime Minister Theresa May has been unable to forge an agreement within her cabinet with regard to a “backstop” that would be put into place, if a UK-EU trade accord is not reached by the time the divorce takes place on March 29, 2019. Whilst some in her Conservative Party seem happy with the option of temporarily remaining within the EU’s customs union, the leave campaigners in the House of Commons fear it will hamper Britain’s ability to forge its own foreign trade deals, particularly with its Commonwealth trading partners. Regardless, May has kept a busy schedule and continues her meetings with European heads-of-state, with the continental bloc apparently looking for an end to the Irish border impasse the second week of November so that a deal can be enforced by the end of the month. Still, previous interim deadlines have been missed, and the EU summit late this month had to be cancelled because of the delays. What further complicates matters is the insistence, by some Tory Eurosceptics as well as the Northern Irish DUP party – which props up May’s minority government – that any legal advice on the proposed border agreement, be made entirely public before a vote. The uncertainty has also been reflected in the British pound’s erratic movements coupled with recent European Commission forecasts showing that the UK will join Italy next year as the slowest-growing economy in the EU, even if a “soft” Brexit is reached. At the same time, a call for a new referendum by a grouping of British heads of business threatens to polarize the country even further.
The full article is available on H Fusion Media Group
Written by Roberto Pucciano for H Edition Magazine