And if there is no deal ..................

Author Furfur
Licence Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 4.0 International

Jane Lambert

Art 50 (3) of the Treaty of European Union requires the treaties upon which the European Union is founded and their legal superstructure to cease to apply to the UK from the date of the withdrawal agreement that the remaining member states are required by art 50 (2) to negotiate with the UK or the 29 March 2019, whichever occurs first.  A draft of such a withdrawal agreement was published at the end of February and about 80% of its text is said to have been agreed but there are a number of differences to resolve not the least of which is the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.  If those differences cannot be resolved before 29 March 2019 many of the laws under which the UK has done business with its 27 neighbours will disappear.

It goes without saying that that will have substantial economic and social consequences for businesses and individuals in both the UK and the remaining member states.  It also goes without saying that it is the responsibility of government to help British citizens and businesses prepare for those eventualities.  The government has now accepted that responsibility in a speech by the Rt Hon Dominic Raab MP, Secretary for State on Exiting the European Union on no deal planning and the publication of the first batch of guidance documents on how to prepare for Brexit if the event of no deal on 23 Aug 2018,

Those guidance documents cover the following topics:

• Overview
• Applying for EU-funded programmes
• Civil nuclear and nuclear research
• Farming
• Importing and exporting
• Labelling products and making them safe
• Money and tax
• Regulating medicines and medical equipment
• State aid
• Studying in the UK or EU and
• Workplace rights.

One of the most interesting and in some ways alarming of those documents is the Guidance Banking, insurance and other financial services if there’s no Brexit deal 23 Aug 2018.  That document considers the consequences of the loss of passporting rights and acknowledges that at least some British institutions are setting up subsidiaries in the EU to continue their business after Brexit.

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