Dominic Cummings has said that his decision to travel north to self-isolate near his parents' house was the right thing to do.  I do not know enough about all the circumstances to say whether this is correct, but the implication is that it is down to each and every one of us individually to decide what is right when we take actions relating to the Coronavirus crisis.  This makes a complete nonsense of having any rules regarding lock-down, and it all just becomes advice and guidance from the Government, which people can choose to take or leave as they see fit.  This would mean that the police should have no powers to stop people doing what they think is the "right thing".  However, this is certainly not the case, as there have been a significant number of charges made for breaking the lock-down rules.  So perhaps it is just advice and guidance for those in senior positions, and more enforceable rules for the rest of us, who aren't as smart or as privileged as Dominic Cummings to know what is the right thing to do. I am still advocating follow the rules, do as they say, not as they do; but it gets harder and harder to do this with each example of poor behaviour from our Government, each bad decision, each misrepresentation of the truth, each lie.

What these senior people need to realise is that they have to stick to the rules just as much as the rest of us, or we start to think "Well, if it is OK for them to do it, it must be OK for us."  It's called "leading by example", and many great leaders in the past have done this. Unfortunately we seem to have a pretty ineffectual bunch trying to lead at the moment, and they are just not up to dealing with the biggest crisis to hit the UK for a long, long time. We can only hope that it will open the eyes of many of those people who voted them in last year.

Gerontios

I am not going to spend much time (now) criticising the UK Government's handling of the Coronavirus crisis.  That will be looked at in detail by many people after it is all over. There have undoubtedly been serious mistakes made resulting in a higher number of deaths than would otherwise have happened - the UK Government had been prioritising businesses and the economy over people, and only reluctantly carried out the steps needed to save lives.  It is easy to criticise after the event, and it must be clear from my previous blog entries that I am not a fan of Boris Johnson, his government or the Conservative Party, but I would not like to be in their shoes at this time and so will try to support them to the best of my capabilities.  I do believe that there is still a need for effective opposition during a crisis, it should not just be the case that the Government can do what it likes without any oversight or questions being asked, and I am hopeful that the Labour Party under Sir Keir Starmer will now provide that.  He has certainly got off to a good start.  I will leave my detailed thoughts on the performance of Boris Johnson's Government until another day.

My main thoughts on the Corona virus crisis are about what lessons will we learn, and what will change in our society as a result of this?  There is a lot of talk about more working from home after this is all over; and though that would certainly have some benefits (if done properly), I am more concerned about the bigger issues.

• Will we now move towards a fairer and more equal society, where there is not such a huge difference in the salaries of the lowest and highest paid?  Just remember, in this crisis it is the lower paid people that we have relied upon and that have saved us, not the vastly overpaid heads of multi-national companies, hedge fund managers, and the like.  In fact, some of these higher paid (though not all) have behaved abysmally and treated their staff terribly, and I hope they get their just rewards in the longer term when they need those staff again to continue their businesses.
• Will we all remember to continue to look out for our families, friends and neighbours, and any other people we come into contact with who may not be as able to look after themselves?  It has been wonderful to see people helping each other.  There are still those trying to maximise their own rewards in this crisis, both legally and illegally, but the good behaviours I have seen do give me hope for the human race in the future.
• Will we learn the lesson that this crisis has shown us, that we are having a significant impact on the environment and that we can still make a difference?  The cleaner air resulting from the reduced travel after just a month has been incredible, and should prove to those people who say there is nothing we can do that they are wrong and it is not too late to do something.  

I hope that our society will change as a result of this crisis.  Let's see what happens when it is all over, and we are back to normal.  I hope that will be a new, improved "normal".

Gerontios

Since 11pm (UK time) on 31st January 2020, the United Kingdom is no longer a member of the European Union and Prime Minister Boris Johnson is keen to say that Brexit is now done.  To prove this, he has closed down the Department for Exiting the European Union (the Brexit Department) and does not allow the term Brexit to be used any more - it has happened and is now history.  For the duration of the transition period (currently ending on the 31st December 2020), we are still a member of the EU Single Market and Customs Union, bound by EU regulations and laws, while we negotiate the detailed terms of our exit; but after that we will truly be "out" of the European Union.  So why are people on both sides of the argument still acting so unreasonably?

To some degree, I can understand why the Remainers are unhappy.  I myself think the UK was wrong to leave the EU, but have long felt that we needed to follow the result of the EU Referendum.  I disagreed with the rush to leave without a deal, which was thankfully prevented by the UK Parliament after Boris Johnson became Prime Minister in 2019; but I did think that we had to leave, only in a controlled manner with a reasonable agreement in place.  Now we have given up our EU membership (I won't say left the EU yet), Remainers need to accept it and make the best of the position we have been forced into.  For instance, I find it very petty for people to say they will refuse to accept the Brexit 50p coins - I don't like them, and think it was a waste of money to have them, but they are just 50p coins, and perfectly legal tender.

What I can't understand is why the Leavers are still so unhappy and unreasonable.  Haven't they now got what they wanted, and voted for?  I was particularly embarrassed by the behaviour of our Brexit Party MEPs, and found Nigel Farage's final speech at the European Parliament to be especially ungracious, even for him.  It seems to me that the EU representatives have handled Brexit far better than those from the UK, and are even now continuing to talk positively about the way forward, unlike those in the UK who just want to sound tough.  The Prime Minister's statement yesterday is no doubt intended to strengthen his negotiating position for the forthcoming talks on trade agreements, etc. but it just backs us into a corner we really don't want to be in.  We could still have no deal at the end of the transition period and leave with all of the complications that would cause - it is possible that the Government is actually working to that end, though we will find out more about this as the negotiations progress.

I have noticed that at each step we seem to get a little further away from the position that was sold to us by the Leave campaigners in the run up to the EU Referendum.  I don't know if this has been a long term plan - if it has it has been very well architected and co-ordinated, so I find it hard to believe that any of them could have managed this.  More amazingly, many of the Leave supporters seem happy to go along with this, and in fact talk as if this was always what was proposed.  It reminds me of George Orwell's 1984 where history is rewritten to support the present day - I am waiting for the Government to announce the setting up of a new Department called the Ministry of Truth.

Gerontios

Boris Johnson's Conservatives have been returned to government with a big majority (80 seats), and the Labour Party has achieved its worst general election results since before the Second World War.  This is a very disappointing outcome, but we now have to move forward and see what this new government will bring.  It may be that Boris Johnson will actually keep to his word and be a "One Nation" Conservative, bring the country back together again and do what is best for all of the people in the United Kingdom - not forgetting those people who did not vote for the Conservatives (which was actually the majority of people).  I am not very optimistic about this, but still hold out a little hope that I am wrong and may yet be pleasantly surprised.  It seems more likely to me that the consequences of this terrible result will be as follows:

• Boris Johnson will now proceed to take the UK out of the EU with little governance over how he does that.  We are now dependent on there being enough reasonable people amongst the Conservative MPs so that the back-benchers can stop any outrageous behaviours by the Government, e.g. prevent them crashing the UK out of the EU without a deal (I still would not be surprised to see this attempted).  The opposition will be unable to stop them on their own.  Even if the Government sticks to the Withdrawal Agreement and has an Implementation/Migration period to 31st December 2020, it is unlikely that we would have trade deals in place by then, so could well still end up with chaos in January 2021, unless that migration period is extended - something Boris Johnson says he is not prepared to do.
• Once he has "got Brexit done" - and let's take that to mean the exit from the EU by the 31st January 2020, rather than the negotiation of all the trade agreements in the years following - and before the opposition has had time to reorganise and recover from the mauling received in the General Election, Boris Johnson will proceed to carry out a number of policies that will make it easier for the Conservatives to win the next election.  This is what was titled "Protect Our Democracy" in the Conservative Party Manifesto, and includes the following: getting rid of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act so Boris Johnson can call an election whenever he feels it is advantageous to the Conservatives; rearranging the constituency boundaries in the Conservative Party's favour; removing some controls over the Press (who are mostly Conservative supporters); making more use of people's data in governing (sounds sinister); reviewing the relationship between Government, Parliament and the Judiciary (I take this to mean giving more power to Government and taking power away from Parliament and the Judiciary, but let's see what is proposed); updating the Human Rights Act (again, could be sinister, but let's see what is proposed - could also conflict with the Good Friday Agreement).  The Conservative Manifesto also stated they would not change the First Past the Post system of elections (it is too favourable to them) or reduce the voting age (younger voters have less tendency to vote Conservative).  Again, let's hope some reasonable Conservative MPs will stand against the Government if it goes too far.
• Labour will elect a new leader, but will the party stick with its more extreme socialism, or drift back towards the "centre" in order to try and attract more voters? It does seem that the more extreme socialism is unelectable in the UK at the moment, and I will look further at this in a future blog entry.
• The Scottish Nationalists will push heavily for another Scottish Independence vote.  If Boris Johnson can claim he has a mandate for Brexit, and all his other policies, when he received significantly less than 50% of the vote, Nicola Sturgeon can certainly claim she has a mandate for Scottish Independence.  The reason I would support another vote for independence is that one of the key arguments last time for Scotland to stay in the UK was that it would keep it in the EU - leaving the UK would have meant Scotland would have left the EU.  This is no longer a valid argument, so they should be allowed to rerun the Independence Referendum.
• Northern Ireland will realise what the latest Withdrawal Agreement does to its trade with the rest of the UK, and this will push it further towards reunification with the Republic of Ireland.  The Good Friday Agreement says that when there is a majority in Northern Ireland supporting the reunification there ought to be a Referendum to decide if it happens, so this is not something that Boris Johnson can just refuse (like he says he will do for the Scottish Independence Referendum).

This is not a very happy picture for the United Kingdom, so I hope I am wrong.  Only time will tell, though I think it will not need a long time - we should see what this Government is about in the next few months.  

Gerontios

With the Brexit Party not standing in Conservative held constituencies, it seems that the right-wing parties are working together to ensure that Boris Johnson's Conservatives are returned to power in tomorrow's General Election.  The centre/left-wing parties have not worked together in the same way and so will have candidates standing against each other potentially splitting the anti-right-wing vote.  So it is down to the anti-right-wing voters themselves to even out this inequality by voting tactically.   In seats held by the Conservatives, if there is a centre/left party clear in second place, then vote for that party, to maximise the chance of taking that seat away from the Conservatives.  In seats held by a centre/left party, vote for that centre/left party to minimise the chance of the Conservatives taking it.  This may result, for example, in Labour supporters voting for the Liberal Democrats, and vice versa, but unless we do this, we could end up with a Conservative majority government, which would have disastrous consequences for the United Kingdom, and most of the people within it.

The Conservatives, and especially Boris Johnson, have lied from start to finish in this election campaign, and I think they do not deserve to be elected to form another government that will most likely not even try to deliver on many of its promises.  They have consistently failed to do so for the last 9 years, and I wouldn't expect them to change now.   The only issue that seems to matter to them is Brexit, and I would still not be surprised to see Boris Johnson crash us out of Europe before the end of 2019 in order to avoid having to implement the EU Anti-Tax Avoidance Legislation on 1st January 2020.  Public services, and especially the National Health Service, have been seriously harmed by the Conservatives.  Their beliefs that (1) everything should make someone (generally one of them) a profit, and (2) taxes are bad because it is a sign of too much state control, are no longer appropriate for the modern age, and are never going to end up with a fair distribution of wealth.  With the Conservatives the rich continue to get richer and the poor get poorer, and this does not seem to bother them.  I am reminded of a quote from the brilliant Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and wonder if this is how the Conservatives see the world: “Many men of course became extremely rich, but this was perfectly natural and nothing to be ashamed of because no one was really poor - at least no one worth speaking of.”

It is important that there is a good turnout for this General Election, perhaps more than any election we have had for a long time.  So whichever way you are planning to vote, please just make sure you go out and do it tomorrow.  We are privileged to have the vote, and I hope that we continue to have this freedom with a democracy we can be proud of for a long, long time.

Gerontios

I was originally planning to publish a short summary of the various parties' positions with some brief comments from me to pick out key issues.  However, I now feel this would just be a waste of time and effort as, for me, there is one issue that overrides all others - and it is not Brexit.  As we get close to the day of the General Election, and the campaigning period comes to an end, it seems that we have to accept that this has not been the election where honest and accurate information has been provided to the voters to help them make their decisions.  It seems that, once again, misinformation, inaccuracies, and lies have been widely used to help misrepresent the facts - to make things seem better for the misrepresenting party, or worse for the opponents.  It appears to me that the Conservatives have been much worse than the other parties, and though I am biased against the Conservatives (remember, we are all biased one way or another) a report on the BBC website published by the "Coalition for Reform in Political Advertising" seems to agree with me.  It looked at every paid-for Facebook advertisement from the three main UK-wide parties run over the first four days of December, and found that 88% of the Conservative ads featured claims that were not correct or not entirely correct, whereas it could not find any misleading claims in Labour's ads.  Nevertheless, this is not just a Conservative Party issue - the fact checking services have certainly found errors in all the parties' adverts, answers to questions, statements, manifestos, and other communications.  It is a real shame that such an important decision will now be decided without most people having the correct information - this is frighteningly similar to what happened with the Brexit Referendum.  How can we vote for the candidates if we can't trust what they are saying?

If the polls can be trusted, it is still looking like the Conservatives are going to win this Thursday's General Election, and probably do so with a significant majority of seats in the House of Commons.  Unfortunately, this would mean that they will be able to proceed with the implementation of their proposed policies without any real checks and balances from the House of Commons, so we would have to hope that the House of Lords takes its duties seriously and ensures that the Government does not get away with too much.  One of the most worrying parts of the Conservative Manifesto is the section titled "Protect our Democracy".  Following on from Boris Johnson's persistent claims that Parliament has been undemocratic in restricting his attempts to implement Brexit, he is now going to use this to justify changes to the UK constitution to give more power to Government, and restrict the power of Parliament.  Firstly, Boris Johnson is wrong - this is not undemocratic, this is how our Parliament has always worked, and what he wants is getting close to dictatorship.  Secondly, I have always felt that it is a very bad sign when the party in power starts to make changes to the constitution that serve to keep it in power longer.  I surely do not need to give examples.  Time will tell if the changes proposed by the Conservatives are of such a nature; but it is interesting that they have also included in their manifesto statements about sticking with "First Past the Post" and not extending the vote to 16- and 17-year olds, two things that are not being changed so had no real need to be in the manifesto, both of which if they were changed would probably lessen the Conservative hold on government.

If you are voting Conservative in order to "get Brexit done", please make sure you are happy with all of the other policies they are proposing in their manifesto.  If they are given the opportunity to implement their proposed constitution changes, it will be too late then for you to change your mind.  Our only saving grace may be that the Conservatives have a terrible record of delivering on their manifesto promises.

Gerontios

The campaigning for the General Election in the UK on 12th December 2019 is well under way. It is quite clear that Brexit is one of the key issues. I still think that using a General Election to determine how we move forward with Brexit is the wrong thing to do; and also that having one key factor (Brexit) as the reason for choosing a government is an incredibly dangerous approach.  Even though Boris Johnson would like to make Brexit the only issue - his answer to every question seems to be "get Brexit done" - the good news is that some others are coming to the fore.  This will be bad for the Conservatives because they have such a terrible record on pretty much everything over the last 9 years; but will these other issues have enough weight to stop this being a one issue election?

The problems with having a General Election mainly based on the one issue of Brexit are as follows:

• Whichever party gets into power will claim that this gives them a "mandate from the people" to execute their Brexit strategy.  This is very unlikely to be the case.  Even if that party had more than 50% of the vote, which has not happened since before the Second World War, they cannot be sure that people were voting for them because of Brexit.  For example, there will still be Remain supporters voting for the Conservatives and Leave supporters voting for Labour or the Liberal Democrats because of their other policies.  In the more likely case that the winning party has less than 50% of the vote, trying to claim that they have majority support for any individual policy would just be nonsense.

• People voting for a party based on just one issue could result in a majority government that then moves forward with a whole program of works that actually has little support from anyone.  General Elections need to be based on the "whole package" and not just one high-profile issue that masks other important factors in the party's manifesto.

The current "first past the post" electoral system that is used in the UK does not help with any of this.  This system usually results in the party having the largest share of the vote gaining a majority of seats in the House of Commons, and so being able to implement its policies with little resistance from the opposition. Normally, that share of the vote is less than 50% - as mentioned above, the last time the winning party had more than 50% of the vote was before the Second World War.  It is even possible for the winning party not to have the largest percentage of votes, and still get the most seats, which would make an even bigger mockery of any claims to have a mandate for anything.  I think we need to move to a more representative electoral system where the numbers of MPs in the House of Commons more closely matches the percentages of votes given to each party.  I know this would frequently result in "hung" parliaments, i.e. no one party has the majority of MPs, but we would then have to get parties working together to progress policies more acceptable to the majority of voters.  It would avoid wild swings from one extreme to another as the party in government changes.  Currently, 40% of the vote could result in a party getting 60% of the seats and being given the power to freely implement policies not supported by the majority of voters.

In his recent campaigning, Boris Johnson has been using the word "democratic" to imply that MPs voting against him and his Brexit policies have been acting undemocratically.  This is just not the case - it is not the job of all MPs to represent the opinion of the "winning" side, whether that is after a General Election or after a Referendum.  Those voters on the "losing" side should also still be represented in Parliament.  He either does not understand how our system of democracy works, or he is just name-calling in a feeble attempt to wind up the electorate against his opponents.  Boris Johnson also says that he is only holding this election to clear the way for Brexit.  This is again clearly not true.  He was starting to make progress with his own Withdrawal Agreement (which is mostly the same as Theresa May's Withdrawal Agreement) but decided to put that on hold in an attempt to win a majority in Parliament to allow him to force through the Brexit that he wants, not necessarily the Brexit that the people want.

One very positive thing is that there does seem to be a lot more attention to whether the statements made by the parties are actually true - there is a lot more "fact checking" going on.  This is badly needed, though there has already been one case of the Conservatives making their Twitter feed look like a fact checking service in order to discredit Jeremy Corbyn during one of the televised question and answer sessions.  There were no apologies from the Conservatives for this, they seem to think it was perfectly OK to try and misrepresent their own biased views as a fact checking service.  However, Twitter have said if they do such a thing again, then they will take action.  The service that I use the most for this is Full Fact.  I take the view that anything said by a campaigning politician should be treated with suspicion until it has been checked against such a service.  

I will do one more post before the election to summarise the position as I see it.  My hope for this election is that the Conservatives are not returned with a majority.  If they are, that would allow them to continue unfettered on their path of destroying the United Kingdom.  Their record over the previous 9 years was bad enough, but since Boris Johnson became Prime Minister and appointed his cronies to ministerial posts, things have got significantly worse.  This is now a party that will do what is best for the rich, for big business and for themselves - not what is best for the whole of the United Kingdom.  They talk about "One Nation" Conservatism, but that is not what they are practicing.  My ideal result would be that the Conservatives are not in government after 12th December, but unfortunately I can't see this happening at the moment.  Maybe things will change over the next two weeks.  I certainly hope so.

Gerontios

On 14th November 2018, Prime Minister Theresa May announced that her cabinet had approved a draft Withdrawal Agreement and a draft Political Declaration setting out the framework for the future relationship between the EU and the UK.  This was endorsed by the leaders of the other 27 EU countries on 25th November 2018, and everything seemed to be progressing towards the UK exiting the EU on the 29th March 2019.

Under the terms of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, the outcome of the negotiations with the EU needed to be approved by the UK Parliament.  Prime Minister Theresa May made three attempts at getting approval by the House of Commons:

• The first was originally going to be on 11th December 2018, but Theresa May postponed it when it became clear the Government was going to be defeated.   It was eventually put forward on 15th January 2019, and was then defeated by 432 against to 202 for - this was the largest Government defeat in history.  118 Conservative MPs (including Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and Dominic Raab) and all 10 DUP MPs voted against the deal.  Note this moment - this was where the Brexit supporting MPs, including Boris Johnson, voted against Brexit and prevented it from happening.  Their reason given for voting against the Withdrawal Agreement was that they could not accept the Backstop - a temporary setup that would only be implemented if we had no adequate solution to the Irish border in place at the end of the transition period.  However, it is now obvious that this was just something they picked on to justify them blocking the "people's will" - the recently revised Withdrawal Agreement, negotiated under Boris Johnson's premiership, has an even worse setup for Northern Ireland which could actually be permanent!
• The Withdrawal Agreement was put forward a second time on 12th March 2019, incorporating a few concessions from the EU, but was again defeated 391 against to 242 for.  This time it was opposed by only 75 Conservative MPs (still including Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and Dominic Raab) and all 10 DUP MPs.
• Theresa May was planning another attempt on 19th March 2019, but the Speaker would not let her put it forward because not enough had changed from the last time.  So the Government left out the Political Declaration and resubmitted.  Also, Theresa May promised to resign as Prime Minister if the agreement was passed.  It was allowed to be put forward on 29th March 2019, the date the UK was supposed to exiting the EU!  It was defeated for the third time by 344 against to 286 for.  Now only 34 Conservative MPs voted against it (and all 10 DUP MPs).  This time Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and Dominic Raab voted for it, even though it still included the backstop.  Maybe they were just more interested in the chance to fight for the leadership of the Conservative Party if it passed and Theresa May resigned.

There have been statements made that it was the other parties that stopped Brexit - and as you can see I have not included the figures for how Labour, the Liberal Democrats, etc. voted.  However, they are not there to implement Government policy.  It is part of their role to oppose what the Government is putting forward - that is why the largest party not in power is called the Opposition.  This is how Parliament maintains the required "checks and balances" that are part of our constitution.  The responsibility for delivery of policies is firmly in the hands of the Government.  As we have seen previously, the Government's White Paper "The Process for Withdrawing from the European Union" said "The Government would have a democratic duty to give effect to the electorate’s decision."  This is the Government, not Parliament.  Of course, this will not prevent Boris Johnson blaming everyone else but himself.

There were various other Brexit-related votes during March and April.  The UK's exit date was extended to 31st October 2019 to give the UK more time to approve the Withdrawal Agreement; and various options for the model for Brexit were proposed and all rejected - there was no form of Brexit that had the support of the majority of MPs.

On 24th May 2019, Theresa May announced that she would resign as Conservative Party leader on 7th June.  She continued to serve as Prime Minister while her replacement was selected, resigning to the Queen on 24th July 2019 to be replaced by Boris Johnson.

Until recently, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has had a pretty torrid time in Parliament, losing vote after vote in the House of Commons.  After becoming Prime Minister, he made the statement that the UK would leave the EU on the 31st October 2019, with or without a deal. Before Parliament returned from its summer recess, he advised the Queen to prorogue Parliament from the 2nd week of September until 14th October 2019 - allegedly to prepare for the Queen's Speech to launch his Government's new programme of work.  However, most people saw this as an attempt to reduce the time Parliament had to scrutinise the Government's Brexit plans.  When Parliament resumed from the Summer recess on 3rd September 2019, a bill was put forward by opposition and backbench MPs to force the Prime Minister to ask the EU for an extension to Article 50 if Parliament had not approved a Withdrawal Agreement or approved departure without a deal by 19th October 2019.  This passed through Parliament and was given Royal Assent on 9th September 2019, becoming the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019, more commonly referred to as the Benn Act.  Boris Johnson referred to it as the "Surrender Act" as he claimed it weakened his negotiating position with the EU.  He also famously said he would rather be "dead in a ditch than ask the EU for an extension".  He attempted to call a General Election before the Brexit deadline of 31st October, but failed as under the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act he needed two thirds of MPs to vote for it, and Labour MPs mostly abstained preventing him from achieving this.

Parliament was prorogued on 10th September 2019, but this was being challenged in court and it eventually came before the Supreme Court, which ruled on 24th September that Boris Johnson’s advice to the Queen that parliament should be prorogued for five weeks at the height of the Brexit crisis was unlawful.  The proroguing was to be treated as if it never happened, and Parliament was resumed.  Boris Johnson did not resign over this, or even make an apology.  Parliament was eventually legally prorogued on 8th October 2019 until 14th October for the Queen's Speech for the new session of Parliament.

Progress on Prime Minister Boris Johnson's renegotiation of the Withdrawal Agreement had been very slow, but after he could no longer crash the UK out of the EU without a deal, he seemed to make more effort to achieve an agreement with the EU, and was successful in revising the terms relating to the Irish border such that he could say the backstop had been removed.  He replaced the temporary setup in Theresa May's Withdrawal Agreement, which would have meant that the whole of the UK remained in the Customs Union until a proper border solution was found, with a potentially permanent solution where Northern Ireland would remain subject to the EU customs regime, even if officially not in the Customs Union.  Many regard this as no better than Theresa May's agreement, maybe even worse, and it was totally unacceptable to the DUP as it would mean some sort of customs border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK; but it was agreed with the EU on 17th October 2019.  The revised Withdrawal Agreement was put before Parliament on 19th October 2019 for approval.  However, an amendment was added which meant it would not be approved until the legislation required to implement it was also approved in Parliament, so preventing any possibility of a no-deal exit on 31st October 2019.  This meant that the Prime Minister had to send the letter to the EU asking for an extension of the exit date to 31st January 2020, though we would still be able to exit on 31st October if the implementation legislation was approved in time.  So Boris Johnson grudgingly sent the letter to the EU on 19th October, unsigned, and followed by another letter from him saying the first letter was from Parliament and he still wanted to exit on 31st October.

On 21st October 2019 the Government put forward the legislation to implement the Withdrawal Agreement: the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill.  This had a very aggressive timetable for approval of only 3 days, with the objective of still meeting the Brexit deadline of 31st October.  It achieved a successful second reading on 22nd October, but then the subsequent Programme Motion was not passed, meaning its aggressive timetable was rejected as MPs felt that they needed much more time to review such important legislation.  So there was no chance it would make the 31st October 2019 deadline, but potentially could still have made it through Parliament during November, achieving Brexit with a deal in place.  However, at this point, Boris Johnson decided to once again push for a General Election, and raised a bill in Parliament to hold one on 12th December 2019.  This required only a simple majority vote, rather than the two-thirds of MPs required if he had followed the process in the Fixed-term Parliaments Act.   There were attempts to raise amendments to this bill, extending the mandate to 16- and 17-year olds, but the Speaker would not allow them to be considered.  The main opposition parties decided to support the bill, and so it was passed, and Parliament will be dissolved on 6th November so that we can have a General Election on 12th December 2019.  The EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill has been cast aside, so it appears that Boris Johnson did not even want the Withdrawal Agreement he had negotiated.

The consequence of this is that Brexit is now mixed up with all the other differences between the parties that are usual considerations for a General Election.  Whoever "wins" will claim it is a mandate for whatever Brexit offering they put forward during their election campaigns.  This seems likely to be: Conservative = exit in any way possible (so probably still a no deal exit), Labour = second referendum (including option to remain), Liberal Democrats = stop Brexit immediately and remain in the EU, Brexit Party = no deal exit.  Though Brexit is a key issue, people should be voting on so much more in a General Election.  If we wanted a people's vote on Brexit, it should have been another Referendum, not a General Election.  However, this is what we now have, so let us see what happens during the forthcoming campaigns.  Hopefully, we will have much better information than we did for the Referendum; and hopefully the date the result will be announced (Friday the 13th) will not be significant.

Gerontios

On 23rd June 2016, the "will of the people" in the UK, as decided in the Referendum, was that the United Kingdom should leave the European Union.  David Cameron resigned as Prime Minister on 24th June 2016, and after the ensuing Conservative Party leadership election campaign, Theresa May was appointed party leader on 11th July 2016, and Prime Minister on 13th July.  It would be her responsibility to implement the withdrawal of the UK from the EU.  She had been a supporter of Remain, and in her new cabinet, she gave two key posts to high profile Leave supporters: Boris Johnson was made Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Foreign Secretary), and David Davis Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union.  

It took some time to initiate the process to withdraw the UK from the EU.  There was a question over whether the Government could just go ahead and notify the EU that the UK was leaving, or whether that needed to be approved by Parliament.  The withdrawal clause (article 50) in the Treaty on European Union had been introduced in the 2009 Treaty of Lisbon and did not help as it said "Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements".  A legal case went to the UK courts (R.Miller versus Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union) eventually making it to the Supreme Court which decided on 24th January 2017 that the Government could not initiate the process to leave the EU without an Act of Parliament approving this.  So on 26th January 2017, the Government put forward the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill, which just said "The Prime Minister may notify, under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, the United Kingdom’s intention to withdraw from the EU."  This was approved and given Royal Assent on 16th March 2017, becoming the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017.  Prime Minister Theresa May signed a letter which was handed to the President of the European Council Donald Tusk on 29th March 2017 which invoked Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union and started the withdrawal process.  This meant that the UK was due to leave the EU before midnight on 29 March 2019, UK time, when the two-year period for Brexit negotiations expired.

On 2nd February 2017, the Government published the White Paper "The United Kingdom’s exit from and new partnership with the European Union" which set out the basis for the following 12 principles to guide the negotiations for the withdrawal from the EU:

1. Providing certainty and clarity - We will provide certainty wherever we can as we approach the negotiations.
2. Taking control of our own laws - We will take control of our own statute book and bring an end to the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the UK.
3. Strengthening the Union - We will secure a deal that works for the entire UK - for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and all parts of England. We remain fully committed to the Belfast Agreement and its successors.
4. Protecting our strong and historic ties with Ireland and maintaining the Common Travel Area - We will work to deliver a practical solution that allows for the maintenance of the Common Travel Area, whilst protecting the integrity of our immigration system and which protects our strong ties with Ireland.
5. Controlling immigration - We will have control over the number of EU nationals coming to the UK.
6. Securing rights for EU nationals in the UK, and UK nationals in the EU - We want to secure the status of EU citizens who are already living in the UK, and that of UK nationals in other Member States, as early as we can.
7. Protecting workers’ rights - We will protect and enhance existing workers’ rights.
8. Ensuring free trade with European markets - We will forge a new strategic partnership with the EU, including a wide reaching, bold and ambitious free trade agreement, and will seek a mutually beneficial new customs agreement with the EU.
9. Securing new trade agreements with other countries - We will forge ambitious free trade relationships across the world.
10. Ensuring the UK remains the best place for science and innovation - We will remain at the vanguard of science and innovation and will seek continued close collaboration with our European partners.
11. Cooperating in the fight against crime and terrorism - We will continue to work with the EU to preserve European security, to fight terrorism, and to uphold justice across Europe.
12. Delivering a smooth, orderly exit from the EU - We will seek a phased process of implementation, in which both the UK and the EU institutions and the remaining EU Member States prepare for the new arrangements that will exist between us.

Section 8 quite clearly stated that the Government would not be seeking to remain in the Single Market: "The Government will prioritise securing the freest and most frictionless trade possible in goods and services between the UK and the EU. We will not be seeking membership of the Single Market, but will pursue instead a new strategic partnership with the EU, including an ambitious and comprehensive Free Trade Agreement and a new customs agreement."  The White Paper ended with a conclusions section, which opened with the following paragraph: "The Government has made clear that we will honour the choice that the people of the UK made on 23 June 2016; the UK will leave the EU. We will seek an ambitious future relationship with the EU which works for all the people of the UK and which allows the UK to fulfill its aspirations for a truly global UK."

On the 18th April 2017, Prime Minister Theresa May announced that she would be seeking a General Election on 8th June 2017, one of the reasons being that she needed a majority for the Brexit negotiations.  She did have an existing small majority, but was hoping to be returned to power with a larger one.  Under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, she needed a two-thirds majority vote in Parliament to allow this, and a House of Commons motion was passed on 19th April with a massive majority (522 for, 13 against).  Parliament was dissolved on the 3rd May so that the campaigning could take place.  Despite regular predictions that the Conservatives would win with an increased majority, the result was that, although they were still the largest single party, the Conservatives were short of a majority.  Theresa May continued as leader and formed a minority government with the support of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) giving them a "majority" on votes in the House of Commons.

Withdrawal negotiations with the EU formally started on 19th June 2017 when David Davis went to Brussels to meet with Michel Barnier, the Chief Negotiator appointed by the European Commission.  They began the process of developing and agreeing the Withdrawal Agreement, including the terms for a transitional period, and the Political Declaration setting out the framework for the future relationship between the UK and the EU.  This would continue until November 2018.

In order to leave the EU, the UK would have to repeal the European Communities Act 1972, so the Government published the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill on 13th July 2017.  This was given Royal Assent on 26th June 2018 becoming the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.  It is worth looking at some of the main points in the Act:

• The European Communities Act 1972 will be repealed on exit day, removing the supremacy of EU law over UK law.
• Existing EU laws will be carried over into UK law on exit day (Retained EU laws), corrected where necessary to be consistent with the UK not being in the EU.
• The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights is an exception to this and will not be carried over into UK law.
• EU laws passed on or after exit day will not apply in the UK.
• UK courts will not be bound by principles laid down or decisions made by the European Court on or after exit day.
• Ministers must act in a way compatible with the terms of the Northern Ireland Act 1998.
• This does not authorise regulations which (i) diminish North-South cooperation provided for by the Belfast Agreement 1998, or (ii) create a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
• The Withdrawal Agreement negotiated with the EU must be approved by the UK Parliament.
• Further Acts of Parliament will then be required to implement the approved Withdrawal Agreement.

So to avoid having holes in its laws, the UK is carrying over all relevant EU laws into UK law on exit day, and then will execute future legislation to modify those laws as required.  However, it is not carrying over the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights into UK law.  I can see no reasonable argument for why this would be excluded?  I have suspicions that the Conservative Government might think it better for businesses if the UK does not have such a charter enshrined in law as there are sections on rights of workers.  This would actually contradict with principle 7 in the Government's White Paper "The United Kingdom’s exit from and new partnership with the European Union", but they would probably argue its omission is part of the exercise to "get rid of red tape".

It is also worth noting that further legislation would be needed to implement an approved Withdrawal Agreement. This is significant to the current situation where the UK Parliament has passed an Act to try and avoid a no-deal exit.  It would be possible for Prime Minister Boris Johnson to get a Withdrawal Agreement approved by Parliament by 19th October 2019, so avoiding having to write to the EU asking for an extension, but then not enact the subsequent legislation needed to implement the Withdrawal Agreement, which would result in us crashing out of the EU without a deal on 31st October 2019.  If he was to do this, and it would require some underhand voting in Parliament to achieve it, then it would surely prove that he never really had any intention of negotiating a new deal and has always been trying to achieve the no-deal exit.  Later, we will look further at why anyone would want this.

For the previous two sessions of Parliament, there had been a Commons Select Committee "Exiting the European Union Committee".  Its membership for the 2017 Parliament was confirmed on 12th September 2017.  It was chaired by Hilary Benn MP, its role was "to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the Department for Exiting the European Union and matters falling within the responsibilities of associated public bodies", and it published regular reports on the progress of the withdrawal negotiations.  If interested, these can be reviewed to follow in detail how the negotiations progressed but we will only look at a few key points here.  

Negotiations continued through 2018.  On 29th January 2018, the European Council adopted and published further negotiating directives, stating that the rights and obligations binding EU member states would continue to apply to the UK during the proposed transition period, and that the UK would remain in the customs union and single market for that period, while no longer participating in EU decision-making.  Since the transition period was believed to be at least two years, this did not go down well with the Leave supporters.  During March 2018, despite issues with respect to the Irish border, the Withdrawal Agreement was believed to be about "75% agreed".

The Government published the Chequers Plan on 12th July 2018, which laid out the type of future relationship between UK and EU that the UK sought to achieve.  Brexit Secretary, David Davis, and Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, resigned in opposition to the plan.  Dominic Raab was appointed as the new Secretary for Exiting the European Union, replacing David Davis.  The Chequers Plan was rejected by the EU in September 2018 because the UK wanted to have the benefits of the Single Market without actually being in it with the ensuing obligations - free movement of people, etc.

From July to October 2018, further discussions took place trying to resolve the UK-EU trade deal and the issue with the Irish border.  The two key Irish border requirements, to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, and to protect the EU Single Market from the UK once it had left, were incapable of both being met by any known solution.  As an interim solution, which would only come into play if there was no satisfactory border solution in place by the end of the transition period (so called the Backstop), it was proposed that Northern Ireland would stay in the Single Market and Customs Union,  However, the DUP were not happy with this as it would mean Northern Ireland being treated differently from the rest of the UK, with a customs border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, and they saw that as the first step towards a united Ireland.  So the solution was modified to be the whole of the UK would stay in the EU Customs Union, and Northern Ireland would stay in some aspects of the Single Market until the solution was found to prevent a hard border. This later became a major sticking point that would prevent approval of the Withdrawal Agreement by the UK Parliament.

On 14th November 2018, Prime Minister Theresa May announced that her cabinet had approved a draft Withdrawal Agreement with the EU.  They also had a draft Political Declaration setting out the framework for the future relationship between the EU and the UK, and the Withdrawal Agreement would not be signed without an agreed Political Declaration (the principle that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed).  This was endorsed by the leaders of the other 27 EU countries on 25th November 2018. Let us now look at the key points in the Withdrawal Agreement and the Political Declaration. There is an “Explainer” document for each, published by the Government, which attempts to give an easily-understandable explanation of each document: the "Explainer for the agreement on the withdrawal of the UK from the EU" and the "Explainer for the Political Declaration setting out the framework for the future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union" are both worth reading and can be found here along with the documents they explain.

To give it its full title, the "Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community, as endorsed by leaders at a special meeting of the European Council on 25 November 2018" provides for the following:

• a deal on citizens’ rights that protects the rights of EU citizens in the UK and UK nationals in the EU, ensuring they can continue to live their lives broadly as now;
• separation provisions that wind down certain arrangements (for example cooperation on civil court cases still ongoing at the end of the implementation period) under the current EU legal order to ensure an orderly withdrawal and smooth transition to the future relationship, noting that the majority of these provisions could be superseded by the agreement on the future relationship;
• a time-limited implementation period (ending on 31st December 2020) during which nothing changes with respect to trade and laws, providing certainty to businesses and individuals and ensuring they only have to adjust to one set of changes in line with the future relationship with the EU;
• arrangements on the financial settlement that represent a fair settlement of the UK’s rights and obligations as a departing Member State, in accordance with its legal commitments and in the spirit of the UK’s continuing partnership with the EU;
• governance arrangements that provide legal certainty and clarity to citizens, businesses and organisations and respect the autonomy and integrity of both the UK’s and the EU’s laws;
• the unique circumstances in Northern Ireland, including the continuation of the Common Travel Area arrangements, the ongoing protection of rights of individuals in Northern Ireland, and guarantees that, even in the unlikely event that our future relationship with the EU is not in place by the end of the implementation period, there will be no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland or a splitting of the UK customs territory (the "backstop");
• maintaining the UK’s international commitments in respect of the Sovereign Base Areas (SBAs), protecting the interests of Cypriots living and working in the SBAs and ensuring the continued effective operation of the SBAs for military purposes;
• a Protocol on Gibraltar which will form part of a wider package of agreements that address issues of importance to citizens and businesses in Spain and Gibraltar and reflect the parties’ desire to work together in support of the shared prosperity and security of the area.

As previously stated, once approved in Parliament, the Withdrawal Agreement will require further legislation to implement.  In November 2017, the Government announced its intention to introduce the EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill. The White Paper published in July 2018 on “Legislating for the Withdrawal Agreement between the UK and the EU” described how legislation would be taken forward.  The Bill will only be introduced once Parliament has approved the final deal under the terms of the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018.

The "Political Declaration Setting out the Framework for the Future Relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom" does not actually provide full details of the future relationship - it sets the terms for legal agreements to be finalised by the end of the implementation period, and I list the areas covered here to show the scale of what is still to be achieved:

• The future relationship should be based on the shared values and principles that the UK and the EU project and defend - respecting human rights, democracy, the rule of law, working together globally, and the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.  This includes the UK’s commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the EU’s and its Member States’ continued commitment to the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights.
• The UK and the EU share a commitment to high personal data protection standards. They will also agree terms for potential UK participation in EU programmes in areas of shared interest such as science and innovation, youth, culture and education, development, defence capabilities, civil protection and space, as well as provisions for dialogue.
• A free trade area for goods that provides for no tariffs or quotas, and ensures a trading relationship that is as close as possible, combining deep regulatory and customs cooperation. The extent of the UK’s commitments, including alignment of rules, will be taken into account in the application of checks and controls. The UK and the EU will draw on all available technologies and facilitative arrangements as they develop these new customs arrangements, and establish alternative arrangements to permanently ensure no hard border on the island of Ireland and avoid the need for the backstop to ever be used.
• Ambitious arrangements for services and investment that go well beyond World Trade Organization (WTO) commitments and build on recent EU Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), including new arrangements on financial services, alongside timely equivalence decisions under existing frameworks.
• New and specific arrangements on digital, covering a wide-range of areas, including e-commerce, telecoms and emerging technologies, reflecting the growth and prominence of global digital trade.
• Temporary entry arrangements for people travelling for business, as well as visa-free travel for short-term visits, consistent with the UK’s commitment to end the free movement of people.
• A Comprehensive Air Transport Agreement, and arrangements that allow comparable market access for freight and passenger road operators.
• Mechanisms for efficient electricity and gas trade over the infrastructure linking UK and EU markets, along with a wide-ranging Nuclear Cooperation Agreement.
• A new fisheries agreement covering, amongst other things, access to waters and quota shares, which the UK will negotiate as an independent coastal state.
• Commitments to open and fair competition - proportionate to the overall economic relationship - covering state aid, competition, social and employment standards, environmental standards, climate change, and relevant tax matters.
• An ambitious and comprehensive future security relationship covering law enforcement and criminal justice and foreign policy, security and defence in addition to a range of thematic security issues including illegal migration and cyber security, reflecting the breadth and depth of shared interests and values.
• Comprehensive and close reciprocal law enforcement and judicial cooperation in criminal matters, that ensure criminals are brought swiftly to justice. Amongst other things, it will include establishing arrangements for effective and efficient exchanges of Passenger Name Record (PNR) data, of DNA, fingerprints and vehicle registration data, alongside swift and effective extradition arrangements, so that suspected criminals can be quickly extradited back to the requesting country. In addition, it will include data-sharing arrangements for wanted and missing persons, and the exchange of criminal records and cooperation between the UK and Europol and Eurojust.
• Arrangements on foreign policy, security and defence, which provide for close, flexible and scalable cooperation that allow UK and EU efforts to be combined, when it is in both their interests. This includes UK participation in EU missions on a case by case basis, consideration of how best the UK and the EU might cooperate on international development, consultation on sanctions, and the voluntary and timely exchange of intelligence. The deal ensures that cooperation can be scaled up in the event of a crisis.
• Additional thematic cooperation in other areas, including close collaboration on cyber security, illegal migration and health security.
• The future relationship will be based on an overarching institutional framework. This will be underpinned by mechanisms for dialogue, and robust arrangements for setting the direction and implementing the future relationship as well as resolving disputes, based on the dispute resolution mechanism in the Withdrawal Agreement.
• Preparatory organisational work for the formal negotiations on the future relationship will begin as soon as the Withdrawal Agreement is concluded, and before the UK leaves the EU, focusing on key issues such as the development of alternative arrangements for ensuring the absence of a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland on a permanent footing. Negotiations to conclude the legal agreements will begin as soon as the UK becomes a third country. Both parties have committed to best endeavours to ensure the future relationship can come into force by the end of the implementation period.

So there are very many details to be negotiated and agreed during the implementation/transition period.  This is why during that time common rules will remain in place with EU law continuing to apply in the UK subject to the terms set out in the Withdrawal Agreement. This will mean that businesses will be able to trade on the same terms as they do now, giving citizens and businesses in both the UK and the EU the time and confidence they need to plan for the UK’s future relationship with the EU.  

If we crash out of the EU without a deal, we will not get such an implementation/transition period, we will just be out with no alternative mechanisms and agreements in place, other than those provided by the World Trade Organisation (WTO - see report "What would trading on WTO terms mean?" by the organisation “UK in a Changing Europe”), and it is this that has led many people to have serious concerns about the no-deal exit.  It is why Parliament has been so keen to prevent a no-deal exit, and we will look further at this in my next blog posting as we review what has happened since the Withdrawal Agreement was endorsed by the leaders of the other 27 EU countries on 25th November 2018. At that stage it seemed to me that we were nearly there and we were on schedule to exit on the 29th March 2019 - I could not have been more wrong!

Gerontios

In their manifesto for the 2015 UK General Election, held on 7th May 2015, the Conservatives, led by David Cameron, promised the electorate a referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union.  Despite many predictions saying it was likely we would have another hung parliament, the Conservatives were returned to power with a majority of 12. The European Union Referendum Bill was introduced to the House of Commons by Philip Hammond (then Foreign Secretary) on 28th May 2015 and was given Royal Assent on 17th December 2015, becoming the European Union Referendum Act 2015.  This made legal provision for a pre-legislative (i.e. not legally binding) referendum to be held in the UK and Gibraltar on whether it should remain a member state of the European Union or leave it.

It is worth picking out some key points from the European Union Referendum Act 2015:

• It stated "A referendum is to be held on whether the United Kingdom should remain a member of the European Union."
• The Secretary of State had to pick a date for the referendum no later than 31st December 2017, and not 5th May 2016 or 4th May 2017.
• The question to be asked was "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?".
• The alternative answers were "Remain a member of the European Union" or "Leave the European Union".
• There was also a Welsh version of the question and answers.
• It defined who was entitled to vote.
• It added further provisions to those defined in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, and to extend the scope to Gibraltar as well as the UK.
• It set obligations on the Secretary of State as follows: (i) to publish a report, prior to 10 weeks before the referendum, showing what had been agreed by EU member states relating to the UK's request to address concerns over its membership, and the UK Government's opinion on that; (ii) to publish a report, prior to 10 weeks before the referendum, giving information about rights and obligations arising from EU law as a result of the UK's membership of the EU, and examples of countries that were not members of the EU that had other arrangements with the EU.
• It did not authorise any future actions.  Any further legislation following on from the referendum would have to go through normal Parliamentary processes.

In February 2016, Prime Minister David Cameron announced that, following the renegotiation of terms of its EU membership, the UK Government would recommend to the British people that the UK should remain a member of the EU, and that the referendum would be held on 23rd June 2016.  Rather unusually, ministers of the UK Government were then free to campaign on either side of the argument.

Also in February 2016, the Government published the White Paper "The Process for Withdrawing from the European Union". This set out the process that would follow a vote to leave the EU, and the prospects for negotiations.  Its executive summary started with the statement: "The result of the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union will be final. The Government would have a democratic duty to give effect to the electorate’s decision."  This implies there should not be a second referendum to decide membership, as has been proposed recently by the Remainers, though, to me, it does not rule out another referendum on the details of the exit; and although the referendum was not legally binding, this white paper did put a moral and democratic obligation on the Government to implement its result.

In order to discharge the obligations set upon it by the European Union Referendum Act 2015, the Government published a further three White Papers between February and April 2016:

• "The best of both worlds: the United Kingdom’s special status in a reformed European Union": This paper describes the changes made to the UK's EU membership following renegotiation carried out from May 2015 to February 2016, changes which gave the UK special status in the EU.
• "Alternatives to membership: possible models for the United Kingdom outside the European Union": This paper looks at the potential models for the UK's relationship with the EU if there were to be a vote to leave. It covered three main models of relationship, in decreasing levels of obligation to the EU: (i) the Norway model, where we would be in the European Economic Area (EEA) but not in the EU; (ii) a negotiated bilateral agreement, such as between the EU and Canada, and the EU and Switzerland; (iii) World Trade Organisation (WTO) membership, which would come into play if we had no withdrawal agreement in place.  The paper reviews each of these models as well as looking at key issues such as Northern Ireland, the UK economy, Financial Services (and Passporting), negotiation of trade deals outside the EU, and impact of withdrawal on car manufacturing.  It concludes that whatever alternative the UK follows will not come close to providing the same balance of advantage and influence that we get from the UK's special status in the EU, though this conclusion was challenged by those advocating the UK leave the EU.
• "Rights and obligations of European Union membership": This paper provides a balanced overview of the most important rights and obligations arising from the UK's membership of the EU.  It describes how the EU works, and includes explanations of many of its key features, such as the Single Market.

These White Papers provide a lot of valuable information about the EU, the UK's membership of the EU, and potential alternative relationships with the EU should we choose to leave.  They are quite easy to read and understand, though being Government documents had a bias towards the Government's recommended approach of remaining in the EU.  They were all published at least 10 weeks prior to the referendum as specified by the obligations from the European Union Referendum Act 2015.  I assume this was to allow voters enough time to digest the information to help with their decision making process.  Unfortunately, I am not aware that the voters even knew of their existence - I don't remember being made aware of them at the time.  As I said in my Brexit introduction blog entry, these white papers would have contributed enormously towards helping people come to a much better-informed decision, so it is a real shame that they weren't better publicised.  They are still worth reading, even today.

Let us now briefly look at the campaigning that was carried out by the various interested groups prior to the referendum, including how Brexit was presented in the media. This is where we find much use of misinformation and lies, with each side making false claims, and then false claims about the other side's false claims - see the FullFact.org analysis "False claims, forecasts, and the EU Referendum".

The two main Leave groups were Vote Leave (supported by the Conservative Party Eurosceptics including Boris Johnson) and Leave.EU (supported by most of UKIP including Nigel Farage), though there were many others.  Vote Leave was designated by the Electoral Commission as the official campaign in favour of leaving the EU.  They argued that being a member of the EU undermined national sovereignty, and that leaving would allow us to better control our borders, control immigration, save £350m per week (that could be spent on the Health Service), make our own laws, free the UK from needless and costly bureaucracy and regulations, and make trade deals with the whole world.  Their message was a positive one, highlighting good things about leaving the EU before the bad things about remaining.  (This was not so much the case with the Leave.EU campaign, especially Nigel Farage's "Breaking Point" poster which was reported to the police for inciting racial hatred, as well as being a misrepresentation of the facts - the queue of people shown in the poster were not queuing to come to the UK.)  The Vote Leave campaign did include the following statement:  "There is a free trade zone stretching all the way from Iceland to the Russian border.  We will still be part of it after we Vote Leave."  This is significant because it strongly suggests that we would be exiting with a Withdrawal Agreement, i.e. NOT a no-deal exit.  Any statement by the Remain supporters pointing out potential issues after leaving the EU were described by the Leave supporters as "Project Fear" - in a similar way to Donald Trump describing anything published against him as "Fake News".  Most proponents of leaving said that any negative effects of leaving the EU would be minimal and short-lived.

The main Remain group was Britain Stronger in Europe, and was designated by the Electoral Commission as the official campaign in favour of remaining in the EU.  They argued that any loss of sovereignty was more than made up for by the benefits of membership, and that leaving would risk UK businesses and prosperity, result in job losses and delays in investment, reduce the UK's influence over world affairs, jeopardise national security, and result in trade barriers between the UK and the EU.  They also predicted that there would be an immediate recession if the country voted to leave, necessitating a "punishment budget" (which was subsequently disproven).  Their message was actually more of a negative one, highlighting the bad things about leaving the EU, rather than the good things about remaining.  This was probably a consequence of the success the Government had with doom-mongering at the preceding 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum and the 2015 General Election.  Unhelpfully, this has conditioned Leave voters to be less disposed to believe any of the warnings about the reality of the UK's situation during the withdrawal process.

It was difficult to know who to believe, as they were giving wildly contradictory messages and "facts".  I have found some seemingly more independent articles that do throw light on some of the issues raised:

• For the sovereignty and law-making issues, see the Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs) report "Britain, the EU and the Sovereignty Myth".  This suggests that successive British governments have chosen to pool aspects of the country’s sovereign power in the EU in order to achieve national objectives that they could not have achieved on their own.  In their view the loss of sovereign power is more than made up for by the benefits of being in the EU, and that loss is actually very minor - the British government still determines the vast majority of policy over issues of greatest concern to British voters, and still controls over 98 percent of its public expenditure.
• For the financial issue, see the FullFact.org analysis "£350 million EU claim "a clear misuse of official statistics"".  Most people now know that the £350m per week saved for the NHS was at best a misrepresentation of the facts, and there is not £350m to be saved even if we ignore the losses incurred by leaving the EU. Yet we still had voters asking 2 weeks after the referendum why hadn't the £350m per week started making its way through to the NHS yet.
• For the trade deal issue, see the Institute for Government report "Trade after Brexit"  which focuses on options for UK-EU trade after Brexit, and Baker McKenzie's report "The realities of trade after Brexit", which focuses on trade specifically after a no-deal Brexit.  It is now generally accepted that it could take many years to negotiate new trade deals to replace those that we will lose when we leave the EU, and that we can't really start to negotiate them until after we have left.

The coverage by the UK Press in the run up to the referendum was very heavily biased towards Leave.  Oxford University's Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism carried out an examination of the  press coverage of the EU referendum in the UK, "UK Press Coverage of the EU Referendum" and found that 41% of the articles published were pro Leave, as against 27% pro Remain.  After factoring in the reach of the different newspapers, the pro Leave bias is further accentuated, with 48% of articles being pro Leave, and just 22% Remain.  6 out of 9 newspapers had a dominance of pro Leave articles, and pro Leave campaigners were cited in 74% of articles as against just 26% pro Remain.  One of the key conclusions of this report was that, in what was a very complex decision, the detailed issues were underplayed and when they were covered this was done in a highly partisan way, reflecting the position of each paper and often following the lead of each campaign.  The FT published an interesting academic study recently which concluded that Liverpool's high Remain vote was partly a consequence of The Sun's low readership there ever since residents started boycotting it in response to the Hillsborough coverage 30 years ago, suggesting a direct correlation between press sentiment and Eurosceptic tendencies in the long term.

Despite all the lies in the campaigns, and the bias in the press, I still expected common sense to win out, and that the people in the UK and Gibraltar would vote to Remain.  However, this was not to be the case.  With a relatively high turnout of 72% of the eligible population, 51.9% voted in favour of leaving the EU, and 48.1% voted to stay.  It was interesting to look at the breakdown by country: England 53.4% leave, Wales 52.5% leave, Scotland 62.0% remain, Northern Ireland 55.8% remain.  Gibraltar figures were included in the South-West England region, but taking them on their own did actually vote 95.9% to remain.  Greater London was the only other region to vote to remain, by 59.9% to 40.1%.  Every other region voted to leave.  The Scottish Nationalists immediately started to use these figures to justify a second Scottish Independence referendum, so that Scotland could stay in the EU whatever the remnants of the UK did, and this issue is still ongoing and will be looked at further in a later blog post.

So, on 23rd June 2016, the "will of the people" was that we should leave the EU.  This being at odds with the recommendation of David Cameron's government, he felt obliged to resign as Prime Minister, which he did on 24th June 2016.  After the ensuing Conservative Party leadership election campaign, Theresa May was appointed party leader on 11th July 2016, and Prime Minister on 13th July.  It would be her responsibility to implement the withdrawal of the UK from the EU, and we will look at this in my next blog post.

What did the Electoral Commission make of the referendum? Its public opinion research highlighted the following points:

• People were very happy with the overall running of the referendum, the process of registering to vote, and the procedures for actually voting.
• The majority of people felt they had enough information to make an informed decision on how to vote - 62% agreed versus 28% who disagreed.
• There were over 1,000 complaints from the public about the content of campaign material.
• When asked whether they thought that the conduct of the referendum campaigns was fair and balanced, 52% of people disagreed versus 34% who agreed.  The main reasons given for thinking the conduct of the campaign was not fair and balanced were that it was one-sided/unbalanced/biased/partial, and that the information was inaccurate and misleading.

Full information can be found in the following reports:

"Report: 23 June 2016 referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union"

"Report: The regulation of campaigners at the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union held on 23 June 2016"

"Report: The costs of delivering the June 2016 referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union"

More recently, the Electoral Commission investigated Vote Leave as there were claims that it had broken electoral law during its campaign, by exceeding the spending limit.  Vote Leave has now been fined £61,000 for this breach, though this has no effect on the result of the referendum itself.  There are claims of another breach by Vote Leave, but the Electoral Commission does not think this in the public interest to pursue.

In the review "Lessons from the EU Referendum", the Electoral Reform Society was not as positive about the referendum as the Electoral Commission had been.  It compares the EU Referendum with the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum and the 2011 Alternative Vote Referendum, and criticises the EU Referendum on timing and lack of good information, plus it thinks there was a missed opportunity to extend the franchise to 16 and 17 year olds as had been done in the Scottish Independence Referendum. Given that younger people tended to vote Remain, this may have made quite a difference to the result.

Gerontios