Independence Day or Groundhog May?

On 29 March 2019, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland cast off its shackles, and set course for a new, independent life outside of the European Union. Right?

err… not quite.

One wouldn’t be blamed for losing track of just what was amended, debated, amended again, voted on and ultimately rejected this month. Theresa May presented a second Withdrawal Agreement after the historic defeat of the first, which was also defeated, and then presented a markedly similar third Withdrawal Agreement which suffered the same fate (I’m sensing a pattern here). The long and short of the situation is that the UK now has until 12 April 2019 to pass an agreement in the House of Commons to determine what the UK’s future trading relationship with the EU will look like. If they don’t, the UK leaves the EU without a deal – a scenario BAB has made clear across the past two years will be extremely challenging for business.

The silver lining (better understood as that last bit of aluminium foil that’s impossible to get off the cardboard roll) is that in a previous wave of indicative votes, MPs narrowly (312-308) voted to reject a no-deal Brexit under any circumstance, which BAB welcomed with caution. The down side? This vote wasn’t only extremely narrow, it was also legally non-binding, so the legal default is to leave on 12 April without a deal in place with the EU.

So where does this leave us? Well, yesterday evening the House of Commons again voted on 4 alternatives to Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement (currently at its 3rd draft, and rumoured to be approaching a 4th) to gauge where the support in Parliament lies. To anyone who’s been hiding under a rock these past few weeks (room for one more?) and somehow didn’t see last night’s results it can best be summarised as ‘nothing has changed’. No amendment received a majority in the house, but not without some close defeats:

Motion C: Committing the government to negotiating “a permanent and comprehensive UK-wide customs union with the EU” as part of any Brexit deal. – Defeated by just 4 votes.

Motion D: Referred to as Common Market 2.0, it would mean joining the European Free Trade Association and European Economic Area. – Defeated by 21 votes.

Motion E: Which would see a confirmatory public vote on any Brexit deal passed by Parliament. – Defeated by 13 votes, but received the highest number of Ayes, with 292.

So, Independence Day? No, at least, not yet. The past month, and indeed two years has felt a lot more like Harold Ramis’ Groundhog Day, in which weatherman Phil Connors (played by Bill Murray) finds himself living the same day over and over again. After spending days indulging himself with drinking, dangerous driving and other debauchery, Murray eventually puts aside his selfishness and uses the opportunity to better himself and the lives of others, impressing the girl of his dreams with his new approach to life, breaking the loop and living happily ever after in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.

While it’s easy to sit here and make comparisons between a family movie from 1993 and one of the most significant political events of the 21st Century, one nonetheless cannot help but feel there are lessons to be learned from Bill Murray’s fictional experience. We have now passed the 29 March deadline originally set out by triggering Article 50 to leave the European Union, and yet the UK A.Hasn’t left, and B. Doesn’t have an agreed plan for what it’ll do when it does leave.

The UK has enjoyed two years of little-to-no noteworthy progress to bring it to this point, so it’s now time to take a leaf out of Phil Connors’ book, leave the self-interest and party politics at the door and work across party lines to agree upon a deal because unlike Phil, the UK’s Groundhog Day willend on 12 April, but I don’t know if it will be happily ever after.

If you thought our plate wasn’t full enough, March has been non-stop for BAB in both London and New York. We’ve enjoyed discussions and meetings with everyone from the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, to the French Ambassador to the UK, alongside some excellent panel discussions with our colleagues across our membership. You can find out just about everything we got up to this month below.

Introduction by: Dominic Parker, Communications Manager, BritishAmerican Business London

Read full BAB Policy & Trade Update I March 2019