At 5.30pm this Thursday evening, the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement Bill swiftly passed it’s third reading in the Commons with an unsurprising majority of 330 with 231 against.
The Bill will now be passed to the Lords for their scrutiny. Unlike the Commons, the Government far from having an overwhelming majority doesn’t have control. However the ace in the hole is Boris Johnson’s crushing election victory as it’s typically out of order for the Lords to wreck legislation the country effectively voted on in an election. However the Lords could tag on amendments, some might even be welcomed, but the Government’s majority in the Commons is large enough to vote down amendments they’re not in favour of.
We’re expecting the Bill to pass the Lords by the 22nd of January, at which time it will go for Royal Assent and become law. The expectation is that the UK will leave the EU on the 31st of January with the Withdrawal Agreement Bill passed both here in the UK and in the EU who also need to sign off on it. Both sides are keen for a transition deal and without passing the Bill the UK would crash out of the EU at the end of the month without a deal.
Then the real work starts on the final free trade agreement with the EU, which just above everyone in the know, both EU and UK, say would take longer than a year to negotiate. But then people also said it was impossible to get the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration reopened and renegotiated by Boris Johnson achieved that in a matter of weeks. Is it possible that Boris could pull off another miracle and get a free trade agreement through before the end of the year or is that a pipe dream and we could be looking at a transition agreement timing out and defaulting to World Trade Organisation rules on the 1st of January 2021?
Brexit Webinar 15th January 2020
We will be holding a webinar to discuss the situation further in a few day’s time on Wednesday the 15th of January. We’ll be welcoming the experts from GFS who will set out the potential scenarios and discuss how best to Brexit proof your business for the future, regardless of what that future might turn out to be. You can sign up for the webinar here.
16 Responses
Can commentators PLEASE stop referring to our current Prime Minister as ‘Boris’.
He has taught the country to call him by his first name so that Cheeky Chappy Man Of The People Alexander Defeffle Boris Johnson can be seen to be ‘down to earth’.
We didn’t refer to any previous PMs by their first name so let’s not fall for this ‘Boris’ rubbish.
Let’s also remember, any ‘free trade deal’ is likely to cost money one way or the other, there is simply no point being a member of a club if you get the same benefits by not being a member, Brexit will hurt and that’s the end of it.
Plus the EU will want to keep the UK as close to them as possible
They will not want an off shore trading power house that they have no influence on
GET BORIS NOW.
Or something like that…
I’ll just leave this here…
rather than saving us £350 million a week like they wrote on that bus, Brexit will soon have cost more than all the payments we sent to the EU in the last 47 years combined:
https://www.businessinsider.com/brexit-will-cost-uk-more-than-total-payments-to-eu-2020-1?r=US&IR=T
excellent money saving logic guys.
What i’m still not sure about is what is happening with EU VAT on 31st January. We are registered for VAT in France and Germany because we are above the threshold, but we are sending goods from the UK. So after 31st Jan is everything going zero rated when it leaves the UK and the customer pays VAT once it arrives? If this is the case presumably we don’t pay VAT to France and Germany. Or do we carry on as normal until 31st December?