Where are we?

We are halfway through the A50 process, so a few pointers as to where we are. I have no idea where it will all end up, but will be a choice between no brexit, an FTA or crash out with no deal.

Thus far, all movement in order to move negotiations forward has come from UK. The EU has not moved on any of its guidelines published last April. Anyone can conduct trade negotiations and get agreement by capitulating to the other side over and over again, won't get you a good deal at the end of it.

The EU are our nearest and closet friends and trading partners. This is the easy part, or should be. If we can't deal with the EU then UK will get ripped to shreds by a really aggressive negotiating team. Trying to get deals that the EU said are red lines and contrary to the SM over and over again show that lessons are not being learned. This does not bode well if such lessons are not learned now, then how on earth will trade negotiations with other countries be handled, except badly.

Probably for political reasons, A50 was started before UK was ready. It is probably that UK would never be ready, but to start a two year process without identifying risks, issues, knowing UK wanted and having any solutions to the issues that experts in various fields would have to be dealt with, despite, in some cases, Brexiteers been banging on about leaving the EU for decades.

Splitting the Foreign Office into three, and creating two new start up ministries, so having to create and ramp up resources at the same time as doing a time limited job, three Ministers each with their own agenda and with different, if any, skill sets.

A year in, the Cabinet still not in agreement on anything, and May too weak to do anything to bring unity.

Calling a snap election three weeks into the A50 period, wasting 6 weeks of valuable time, and at the same time asking for an increased vote to strengthen her negotiating hand with the EU and losing her overall majority.

The signing a supply and confidence agreement with the DUP at the cost of one billion pounds, meaning May had to do the DUP's bidding on Brexit and Ireland lest lose their support. The DUP were the only major party in NI that voted against the Good Friday Agreement, so may not be the best bedfellows when trying to keep the Union together,

Failing to identify the NI/Ireland Border as an issue that could split the Union, cause the resumption of The Troubles, stop Brexit or severely limit what UK can do by having to agree the fallback position in the Decemeber agreement with the EU.

May possibly failing to understand what she signed up to in December.

DD trying to renege on that deal within a week, being bitch-slapped by the EU and having to issue a groveling clarification. This created a loss of faith in the UK by the EU, and the need to insert punishment clauses if UK did not keep to what it agreed to.

Appointing DD to lead negotiations. He clearly had no experience in trade negotiations. There is strong evidence he still doesn't.

Losing the head Civil Servant to the EU because May wouldn't listen to his warnings.

Treating the negotiations like it were a war, using warlike terminology. Almost like May thought that the EU could not use the internet.

Failing to deal with citizens rights, both EU citizens in UK and UK in the EU. A simple agreement to keep things as they are would have created a lot of goodwill, but instead using citizens rights as a bargaining chip has meant anger not just in the EU but by citizens, both UK and EU, in they being used as bargaining chips, going back on a promise to UK citizens living in the EU that nothing would change for them in the event of Brexit.

Already in the first year, there has been a massive drop in the number of EU citizens coming to work in the UK, with the farming sector reporting fruit last autumn being left to rot in the fields.

Apparently forgetting that as there are more jobs in the UK that ever before, or there were at the start of the A50 process, each job brings in tax. If there are less jobs, there will be less tax revenues, how is this going to affect future spending? Even if there are no jobs lost, there will not be enough people here to fill them.

The loss of an EU passport is not just its colour, but what else it brings; visa free travel and working in 27 other countries. No need for travel insurance, pet passports and now free data roaming with your phone. All will be lost.

Even now, May is saying there will be more money when we leave the EU for things like the NHS. This is just not true, all the agencies that are currently run and funded by the EU will have to be funded by the UK in setting up our own. You only have to look at how complicated and expensive this is for the aviation industry, getting other countries to accept our inspection and certification agency would be fit for purpose. If this is not fixed then UK based airlines might not be able to fly anywhere except inside UK airspace.

Over 750 trade deals will have to be negotiated, as the same time as the one with the EU.

UK hopes to rollover deals it currently enjoys as being in the EU and on the same terms. This is far from a given.

Many countries trade deals with the EU demand parts having a percentage of EU parts to quality, say 55&. No British manufactured car is currently 55% British.

Not knowing what the final deal will be makes transition difficult, in effect it is a standing still ploy while the Cabinet and Party work out what they can all live with.

Most of May's, and other Brexiteers, speeches have not been to the EU, but to her own party and the press to see what they would accept. Sadly, many of her speeches in the early days of her leadership where she created red lines out of thin air really limit what deal can now be struck. Although already some of her red lines have gone or moved from 2019 to 2021.

It appears that May confused ECHR with the ECJ early on, but in order to look strong, she has not admitted this mistake, so not accepting rulings by the UCJ is another of these red lines.

The Foreign Secretary seems unsackable, and at times has carried out his own Brexit policy against that of the Government.

There is the issue of Cambridge Analytica and who paid them and what effect they had on the referendum, and what the Vote Leave campaign spent 10% of their budget in paying a student in Ireland to pay a subsidiary of CA. The DUP also paid a huge amount, but May, for reasons you can see above, has been unwilling to widen investigations to include the period when the DUP made this payment. Also, one of the Leave campaigns paid the other a large sum of money, against election law, either with or without approval from the Electoral COmmission is still illegal. Had the remain campaign done this, there would have been hell to pay.

Almost every Brexiteer promise has been broken, the referendum sold on lies and damned lies, yet we are told that the result is a mandate despite being only advisory. As May does not know what she wants nor if she can get it, calls for a second referendum, or Parliamentary approval for any potential deal has been rebuffed as being antidemocratic. In denying either a second referendum or Parliamentary vote, this is as demographic as they come. Just how long does the mandate of the referendum last; 2 years, 5 years? And if the question was on leaving the EU, then if UK does leave the EU, and not the SM and CU, then has the mandate been fulfilled?

The roll of the press and media in enabling Brexit and the last year of clusterfuck needs to be looked at, becasue without the 4th estate holding the executive to account is how dictators and worse come to power and grab more.

But even after all this, UK will leave the EU at 23@00 on 29th March 2019, ready or not. Just how unready we are remains to be seen. Even the transition is not given, as the EU have said many times, nothing is agreed until all is agreed, so it can all still collapse like a house of cards, bringing down the Government, and then what; and election? In which case the main parties will have to decide are they still for or against Brexit.