The man responsible for post-Brexit negotiations, David Divas, UK’s Brexit Secretary has resigned from the cabinet. David resigned, citing irreconcilable differences with the Prime Minister Theresa May. In his resignation letter, David said that, “….the general direction of policy (which is being proposed by May) will leave us in at best a weak negotiating position, and possibly an inescapable one.”
UK will exit the EU in less than nine months. But before that UK will have to fulfill certain conditions laid down by the EU. Failure to agree to these conditions before March would result in “no deal”, which means that UK will have to agree to the conditions rather than negotiating a better position for themselves.
Top things to know about Brexit.
- What is Brexit: Acronym for Britain and Exit. It was coined when Britain decided to leave the European Union.
- What is European Union: European Union (EU) is a political and economic forum established in 1993, to create unity in Europe. It currently has 28 European nations as it’s members.
- It acts a supranational body with it’s own constitution, flag, national anthem, currency, parliament, visa (Schengen), single market ( allowsfree movement of labour, capital, goods and services), and it’s own set of rules and regulations.
- Why Britain is leaving European Union? The British felt that a large inflow highly skilled people from other EU states took away their jobs, the rules and constitutional authority of EU impinged on their national sovereignty, the benefits of being in the EU was disproportional to the amount of money spent to maintain the membership.
- When did the referendum take place ? The referendum took place on June 23, 2016 with 51.9% citizens choosing to ‘leave’ the EU and remaining chose to ‘stay’.
- What is likely to happen post-Brexit? As EU is UK’s largest trading partner, an exit will mean imposition of tariff and non-tariff trade barriers, which will negatively impact the British GDP.
- Reduction in FDI will narrow the employment rate and overall income level of the economy.
- UK will lose job opportunities and demand will fall as East European countries “A8”, who bought FDI and demand in the country, when they joined the EU, will not do so anymore.
Important events to watch out for
- March 29 , 2019 – Brexit Day – UK officially moves out of EU at 11:00 PM, British time and the transition period starts.
- EU’s chief negotiator wants talks to be completed by end of October so that 27 EU countries have time to sign off the deal.
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