BrexitWatch, May 18, Matthew Patten
WE ARE IN A 6-WEEK dogfight over the Brexit Transition Period. I am sure we will win, but we cannot be certain. In a desperate last stand, the last of the last-ditch Remainers have rebranded and gone under cover as ‘Oh-So-Reasonable-Delayers’ and recruited the Covid-19 virus to their cause.
At issue is when the Transition Period should end. Under the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement with the European Union, the government has until 31st June to decide whether it terminates in December as scheduled or goes for an extension of up to 2 years.
Delayers want extension, arguing the health crisis makes it impossible to agree a UK-EU trade agreement by the end of 2020, and that failure to secure an agreement would bring about a catastrophic economic shock. Not for them the democratic imperatives that have seen the British public vote to leave the European Union in five national elections over the past five years, or that we formally left in January, or even that Parliament has enshrined in law the end of the Transition Period on 31st December 2020. Rather, they are hoping that a Brexit delayed will ultimately result in Brexit being denied.
But these are old arguments, echoes of the shambolic Parliamentary debates during Mrs May’s premiership, which do not reflect the new reality. A major new report, ‘Brexit Delayed is Brexit Denied’, published this weekend by cross-party thinktank, the Centre for Brexit Policy, argues that ending the Transition Period on time is critical to the UK’s economic recovery post-Covid-19 and may enhance agreeing a deal. A national poll by Savanta-ComRes indicates that the British public opposes extension by 44 per cent to 40 per cent. Among Conservative voters, 61 per cent want to leave on time at the end of this year or even earlier.
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Click here to read the report.