Brexit update

1. UK will leave the EU by operation of International Law and the calendar at 23:00 on 29th March 2019.

2. The UK Government can stop Brexit at any point until that moment.

3. The UK submitted its Article 50 notification on 29th March 2017, which set in motion the two year period in which both sides have to agree deals on trade, borders, rights and so on.

4. At every point since negotiations begun, the UK has refused the EU's position, for some time, then capitulated. All movement has been on the UK side, not that of the EU.

5. The Government and Brexiteers failed to realise, even now, that all of the EU27 have to agree and ratify the deal, if there is one.

6. Brexit is not an "event", it is a "process", a process that will never end. 29th March next year is not the end, nor near the end. It is the beginning. Of a neverending round after round of negotiations on everything.

7. The EU has negotiated trade deals on member's behalf for decades, in UK's case, 45 years. There is no secret, the EU knows what UK wants and needs from Brexit, even if UK doesn't know itself.

8. There a serious shortage in skilled and experienced trade negotiators in UK. Those that there are, work for the EU.

9. In case of a "no deal" with the EU, the UK will have over 750 trade deals to negotiate, simultaneously, from a position of great weakness.

10. In case of "no deal", UK will have to set up and get international acceptance each and every EU function that the EU currently does on the UK's behalf. This will take time. And money. Lots of money. Planes will not be able to fly, medicine will not be able to be imported. There will be food shortages, there will be fuel shortages.

11. Once UK has left the EU, the only way back in will be via the Article 49 process in the Treaty. No short cuts. It will be at least a generation before Europe would trust UK enough to let us back in. Rightly so.

12. Ireland has said the solution to the NI/Irish Border must be addressed in the next two weeks. No deal on this, there is no deal and talks would collapse and UK would leave the EU with no deal, unless the Government stopped the Article 50 process.

13. The transition deal can only last until Jan 1st 2021, due to the next 5 year budget period.

14. Article 50 cannot be extended due to EU elections in May 2019, and if the UK is not out by then, elections for the EU Parliament would have to take place in the UK as well. Neither the EU or UK Government wants that.

15. If we take Dover as an example, as I live two miles from the port, a considerable amount of planning, construction of new offices, hiring and training of additional immigration and customs staff, areas for stacking of lorries and cars, enough for 10,000 trucks a day at Dover, and if the tail of the queue is moving quicker than the front, then the tailback will grow ever longer.

16. After 12 weeks of Operation Stack in 2015, the Ministry of Transport's plan to build a lorry park near to Hythe had to be abandoned when the planning application failed to include an environmental impact assessment. The only plan now is to close a 13 mile section of the M20 and park lorries there. This would not be enough after a couple of days.

17. The Government's own assessment shows that Dover would effectively stop working on 3th March 2019.

18. The UK Government, the Cabinet of the PM, is divided as to what kind of Brexit the country wants or voted for.

19. Without agreement, there is no UK negotiating position.

20. The EU has based it's position on the A50 notification letter and the red lines May has spelled out in various speeches. These would limit the UK to a Norway style FTA, costing in excess of 10% GDP after a decade.

21. Frictionless trade is only possible by all of a Custom's Union, Single Market and VAT rules. Without any one or two of these, there will have to be significant infrastructure on all borders to satisfy EU and WTO rules.

22. UK is hoping that in the event of a "no deal" it can allow all traffic through without checks and is hoping the EU will do the same. No, really.

23. The EU is based on the four freedoms, and will not, not ever, compromise those.

24. With the NI/Irish border, the simple choice is to where UK Government wants the border with the EU and selects the deal with the EU based on that. Its not rocket science. But each of those three choices will bring May's Government down.

25. The DUP is propping up May's Government in Westminster. It backed Brexit. It was the only major NI party to vote against the GFA. It wants a deal with the EU which means NI has the same status with the EU as the rest of Britain. Whilst ignoring NO has it's own laws which make it different from Britain. But that's different says Arlene.

26. The NI/Irish Border as nearly double the crossing points as the USA/Canada border, in less than 500km. Road cross and recross from one side to another. Farms are split in two by the border. It is unpoliceabe.

27. The UK economy cannot survive without immigration. Many sectors; NHS, agriculture, services, etc, would collapse without it.

28. As immigration falls, jobs go unfilled, tax revenues fall, either the remainder pay more in tax or more cuts are needed.

29. Entire industries rely on frictionless trade to allow supply chains to work, to enable "just in time" deliveries to factories. Where there is delay, there will be costs. MAny international companies would just leave UK if there were no frictionless trade with the EU.

30. Many companies are in the UK because UK is part of the EU. The quote the Chinese, "the UK is a door to the EU, if it left, there would just be a door.