UK to accept EU rules automatically after Brexit

[BlasterBates]

It's all up in the air really.

Theresa May’s Brexit deal ‘hard to reconcile’ with UK leaving the single market and customs union, EU says | The Independent

The most likely solution will be somewhat similar to Switzerland, i.e. an FTA similar to being in the EU which basically includes a "poison pill" that it automatically expires if the UK diverges its regulations from the EU.

[meridian]

Paragraphs 49 and 50 of the announcement this morning.

No new regulatory divergence between NI and EU; (= NI remains in SM+CU?)

No divergence between rUK and NI (= rUK remains in SM+CU?)

No divergence between rUK and NI unless agreed by the Northern Ireland Assembly (= NI now dictate rUK trade talks and direction...)

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/f...mpression=true

What we’ve actually ended up with is much firmer and clearer - and it explicitly invokes the customs union and the single market as the source of these regulations: “In the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the internal market and the customs union which, now or in the future, support North-South co-operation, the all-island economy and the protection of the 1998 Agreement.”

The phrase “in the future” is crucial - it means that every single change in the EU’s rules will have to be mirrored north of the border. But this is now the wooden horse inside the walls of Troy because, to avoid the idea of Northern Ireland becoming a separate regulatory space, there will also have to be the same mirroring of the rules and regulations that continue to apply in Northern Ireland by the UK as a whole. The mathematics are simple: if A equals B and B equals C, then C equals A. A is Ireland’s position in the single market and customs union, B is Northern Ireland’s full alignment to that position and C is the UK’s commitment not to differ from Northern Ireland. The commitment to have no barriers to east-west trade means that London is effectively a prisoner of Belfast.

I suggested earlier this week that we were seeing things being turned upside down: instead of, as DUP leader Arlene Foster insisted, Northern Ireland leaving the EU on the same terms as the UK, the UK will have to leave the EU on the same terms as Northern Ireland. This, in effect, is what is now agreed.

[BlasterBates]

Indeed the new agreement has changed the default position from crashing out on WTO rules to staying in the EU indefinitely. It certainly has kicked Brexit into the long grass because the transition is now a done deal.

[meridian]

Indeed the new agreement has changed the default position from crashing out on WTO rules to staying in the EU indefinitely. It certainly has kicked Brexit into the long grass because the transition is now a done deal.

On the face of it, it looks that way:

“In the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the internal market and the customs union”

No agreement = the UK maintains full alignment with EU rules and regulations.

It’s not a legal document of course but just a heads of agreement. There are plenty of details to work out yet.