Ed's Brexit round-up - on hold

For a week that had a lot of significant things going on – not much really has happened in the grand scheme of things.

Anyone will be shocked to hear that we aren’t actually any further in the Brexit process and even more shockingly, next Friday is unlikely to hail the UK’s exit from the EU.

Well the week started with the Commons’ Speaker, John Bercow, stating the Government couldn’t bring back the same motion for a third vote and any new vote would need to be different. Cue lots of anger about him being too interventionist and trying to frustrate Brexit etc.

The PM then (in light of this minor setback) wrote to Donald Tusk (head of the EU Council aka the EU’s heads of state group) to ask for a short ‘technical’ extension of Article 50. The EU allowed this, but added that the new Brexit day would be May 22 but only if the PM’s Withdrawal Agreement is passed next week.

If it doesn’t pass next week then the EU have set the UK leave date for April 12 to at least come up with another plan on what to do next and show some kind of roadmap to getting somewhere. This could be having a final public vote on the deal, revoking A50, General Election or perhaps more likely, a series of ‘indicative’ votes that may allow Parliament to steer towards what kind of thing it wants (Norway style, Canada style etc).

No one really knows if the deal will go through next week. At Shropshire pig discussion group this week I was asked why an MP would vote a third time if they had not done so the first two times. An excellent question that has no easy answer. All eyes on DUP and other conservatives next week (if a third vote takes place that is). See what happens!

Oh and if you haven’t done so – be sure to have a look at our no deal analysis – that takes into account the recent tariff announcement from the Government on pork