It’s a date!

Brexit date is officially announced

Source: RTÉ.ie

29th March 2019, 23h. This is the date chosen by Prime Minister Theresa May as the official deadline for Brexit. This could be a move to re-assert her authority over the Parliament and to avoid internal turmoil in the party about the “exit day” strategy. She has her will in an amendment to the “Withdrawal bill” in order to avoid any “attempts from any quarter to use the process of amendments to this bill as a mechanism to try to block the democratic wishes of the British people by attempting to slow down or stop our departure from the European Union”. This way, any pro-EU MP who wishes to stop the procedure must publicly declare his opposition to it by March 2019.

She goes on by saying that this date will be put on the “front page” of the bill to show just how determined Westminster is to leave the Union. The opposition who aims at a soft-Brexit threatened to “filibuster” the bill by presenting hundreds of amendments. The PM was clear on this point as well and said that she is opened to discussion but won’t allow obstructionism or other form of protest which would stop the democratic process started with the referendum.

The government coalition is heavily influenced by recent scandals as well as by a profound division on how the negotiations should be conducted. This fragility worries Brussels which is now preparing for every possible outcome, including an hard Brexit or no Brexit at all. The EU Chief negotiator Michel Barnier spoke in Rome about his worries on regulations in the UK market and said “the United Kingdom has chosen to leave the European Union. Will it also want to move away from the European model? That’s another question”.

The negotiations continue and Brussels still confirms its will to resolve the financial settlement before proceeding with trade talks, but many other issues loom on the horizon for London. From a growing impatience of US investors over the uncertainty of the situation, to the Irish border and a possible new general election which could bring the Labour party to power. Nevertheless at least now we have a date, how well will this deadline serve the British Government is yet to be seen but, at the very least, we now have something concrete to look forward to, as ambiguous as it can be.