Friday 4 January 2019

The only option now is to revoke Article 50.

The disastrous implication of a No-Deal Brexit becoming clearer

On top of emergency no-deal Brexit contingency plans  being  implemented across government, cabinet ministers have agreed, including reserving ferry space for supplies and putting 3,500 armed forces personnel on standby to deal with any disruption. comes the news that


Almost 1,000 police officers from England and Scotland are to begin training for deployment in Northern Ireland in case of disorder from a no-deal Brexit, the Guardian has leaned.

They say,
The plans were put in place after Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) chiefs asked for reinforcements to deal with any trouble that arises from a hard border. The training for officers from English forces and Police Scotland is expected to begin this month.
The news came on a day of growing concern that a no-deal Brexit is becoming a distinct possibility, on which:


The prospect of large numbers of English and Scottish officers being deployed on the streets of Northern Ireland after 29 March could anger republicans and complicate efforts to restore the power-sharing executive at Stormont, which collapsed in 2017.
The option of reinforcements is deemed necessary to cover the possibility of civil disorder arising from disquiet about border arrangements that could be put in place after a hard Brexit.
The disasterous 
The police training will require officers to be pulled from their regular duties. It is needed because some of the equipment and tactics used in Northern Ireland vary from those used in the rest of the UK.
The PSNI request was made under mutual aid arrangements, which are in place to enable local police forces to help each other in times of heightened demands.
A team at the National Police Chiefs’ Council are planning for a no-deal Brexit which will also see extra demands on policing across the UK. Demands for reinforcements for Northern Ireland in the event of no deal come as forces with major ports in their jurisdiction prepare for chaos, especially at Dover in Kent.
Plans for a national mobilisation of police, which were devised after the 2011 riots across England, are being revised and adapted for the tensions thrown up by a no-deal Brexit.
The size of PSNI’s request for reinforcements from the rest of the UK because of Brexit is roughly double those it has made in recent years for the province’s marching season, when extra officers are needed to police tensions between Protestant and Catholic communities.
if this is just a case of precaution or gamesmanship by Primr Minister  Theressa May then it's a very dangerous game.

She appears to be banking on MPs backing her deal over no-deal including Labour members.

But the Guardian also reports that 

More than half of Conservative party members want Theresa May’s Brexitdeal to be rejected in favour of leaving the EU with no deal, according to a survey.
The poll, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), found a majority of the Tory rank and file are convinced that leaving the EU without a deal is better than the prime minister’s Brexit plan.
In a three-way referendum, with the options of leaving without a deal, staying in the EU or leaving with May’s deal, 57% preferred leaving without a deal. Only 23% of members said they would vote for May’s deal in a three-way referendum.
The findings were released on Friday by the ESRC-funded party membersproject, run from Queen Mary University of London and Sussex University.
The prospect of a No-Deal seems to be increasingly likely , and the option of backing the Prime Minister  option does not look any better.

Though the option of a second referendum does have strong support clearly as March 29 approaches the window of opportunity of organising it has probably closed.

The only real option is to revoke Article 50 and either set a new date or cal a second referendum within say six months.

The European Union’s top court has found that the EU treaties do allow the UK unilaterally to change its mind and to withdraw its Article 50 application to leave the European Union.
The Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union delivered an unusually “expedited” decision on a question forwarded by a Scottish court at the request of a number of MSPs, MPs and MEPs. They sought to challenge the idea that the Article 50 application by the UK was irrevocable unless supported by all the remaining member states.
Last months judgment, the full court has ruled that when a member state has notified the European Council of its intention to withdraw from the European Union, that member state is free to revoke unilaterally that notification.
This looks to me to be the only real solution to prevent utter chaos and the very real posibility of UK police on the Northern Ireland taking us back to before the God Friday Agreement.

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