She’s presenting it to her cabinet but is already facing opposition from hardline Brexiteers.
British Prime Minister Theresa May says she has a potential Brexit deal. Whether her cabinet will go for it is another question entirely.
May office announced Tuesday that negotiators have struck a draft agreement on the terms of the United Kingdom’s exit — or “Brexit” — from the European Union, more than two years after the UK voted to leave. The two sides have been scrambling to reach an agreement by the end of the year, to give both the UK and EU parliaments time to ratify it before the approaching March 29, 2019 deadline.
At that point, the UK will leave the EU — deal or no deal. And the consequences of a “no-deal” Brexit could be dire.
Both the UK and the EU want to avoid that scenario, and the existence of an allegedly 600-page plan, is a promising sign. But a lot of hurdles remain, the biggest one being May’s own Conservative party, which is split between those who want a less dramatic break with the EU and hardline “Brexiteers” who want a clean and decisive split. The border between Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK, and the Republic of Ireland, which is part of the EU, has also proven to be a huge sticking point in negotiations.
Opposition from within the UK could kill any Brexit deal, even if the 27 European member-states and the EU parliament go along with it.
May is presenting her draft deal to her cabinet on Wednesday — the first critical test. Her ministers may back her plan, allowing it to move forward. Or they may reject it or resign in protest, blowing up the deal as the Brexit deadline inches closer.
Regardless of what happens, here’s a basic overview of what you need to know.
The issue that had the EU and the UK at a standstill
The UK and the EU are in the midst of trying to finalize the terms of their break-up, a tangled process that’s gone on for more than a year.
Some aspects of the agreement have already been worked out, but neither side has been able to agree on the fundamental question of what the post-Brexit relationship would look like. (You can read our full Brexit explainer here.)
At the center of this is the thorny question of the Irish border. The UK’s membership in the EU helped preserve an open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which is a critical pillar of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. That agreement ended decades of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland between the largely Protestant population who wanted to stay within the UK, and Catholics, who identified more closely with the Republic of Ireland.
Brexit potentially threatens this open border, and the past two decades of relative peace. Both the EU and the UK believe that they’ll be able to work something out in a future UK-EU trade deal that will be negotiated during a 21-month transition period after March 29, 2019.
But the EU has insisted that any withdrawal agreement include a “backstop” — basically, a guarantee that even if the EU and the UK don’t reach a trade agreement by the end of the transition period (December 2020), an open border between Northern Ireland and Ireland will remain in place, no matter what.
Both the EU and UK agree they need an “Irish backstop.” Determining what that would actually look like is another issue.
The EU had proposed that Northern Ireland essentially maintain the status quo and remain in the EU customs union and its regulatory area — which means the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland follow the same rules, so there’s no need for customs and border checks.
But May has rejected any plan that treats Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the UK because it would effectively create a hard border within her own country because it would require customs checks on the
Instead, she has proposed her own solution: to keep all of the UK in the customs territory during the transition period.
This, however, was unpalatable to the EU because they didn’t want to put a time limit on the backstop, and objected to her broader plan they saw it as the UK “cherry-picking” parts of its relationship with the EU that it likes, while throwing out the ones it doesn’t.
Oh, and there’s just one more thing is complicating this scenario: May relies on Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to keep her government in power. The DUP has stubbornly refused any compromise, and called any plan that treats Northern Ireland different from the UK a “blood-red line.”
That’s left the UK and EU at a standstill. Until now. Maybe.
This is what we know about May’s proposed Brexit deal
May is showing her new draft plan to her cabinet ministers on Wednesday. As of press time, that meeting has lasted more than four hours.
But a few general details of the plan have leaked. According to the Guardian, it resolves the question of the status of millions of EU citizens living in the UK and UK citizens living in the EU. It also settles the divorce bill — or how much the UK will pay the EU for forcing everyone to go through this whole process. (This is expected to be about 39 billion pounds, which is about $50 billion.)
This plan also reportedly provides a solution to the Irish border question. It involves concessions from both the EU and UK — which means a lot of people are probably going to be unhappy.
The general idea is that all of the entire UK will stay in the EU customs union, until a long-term trade deal between the two sides is reached. But Northern Ireland will still have to follow somewhat stricter standards — such as those that govern the single market — compared to the rest of the UK.
This has created a brand-new Brexit metaphor: the “swimming pool.” Think of Northern Ireland in the deep end, having to follow more EU regulations, and the rest of the UK in the shallow end, with less stringent rules.
Per the Guardian, the UK will also have to follow this arrangement until the EU is assured there’s no chance of any return to a hard Irish border.
What’s next?
May’s draft Brexit plan, of course, is not a done deal. She first has to gain the support of her cabinet before she can move forward.
Meanwhile, plenty of people have already bashed the deal. Hardline Brexiteers in May’s own party hate it because it still ties the UK to the EU customs union — and they fear that it will “trap” the country in a long-term relationship with Europe. And Northern Ireland’s DUP finds it untenable because it still treats Northern Ireland differently than the rest of the United Kingdom.
Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn said it was “unlikely” that this would be a good deal for Britain, but hasn’t committed to a definite position, yet. “Labour has been clear from the beginning that we need a deal to support jobs and the economy — and that guarantees standards and protections,” Corbyn said. “If this deal doesn’t meet our six tests and work for the whole country, then we will vote against it.”
The EU has tentatively scheduled an emergency summit at the end of November to finalize the Brexit deal — if May’s cabinet gets on board. But even after that, the deal has to face to the UK Parliament, where its future may be precarious. There are no guarantees May will have enough votes to get it passed, which would put the UK even closer to a no-deal Brexit scenario.
May may also face a leadership challenge, meaning her party will call a no-confidence vote and try to oust her as prime minister. And then there’s the Labour party, which has its own intra-party splits on Brexit, including whether it should support a second referendum — and punt Brexit back to the people. This new deal, then, is just the latest chapter in the Brexit battle.
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