The draft Withdrawal Agreement: a betrayal... of both Remainers and Brexiteers

The Withdrawal Agreement ("WA") comprises:

• 585 pages (many of which are half-pages, as befits a draft document, lots of white space between paragraphs);
• 6 parts;
• 21 titles;
• 18 chapters;
• 19 annexes (of which 9 are to the WA and 10 are to one protocol within the WA);
• 11 parts.

It comes across as a technical document, but it contains technical choices with profound - therefore political - implications.

Overview

The WA's basic approach is enforce EU law - the EU's acquis - onto the UK from the date of the WA.

The ambition is presumably to have the whole of the EU acquis replaced by alternative treaties by the end of the transitional period 31 December 2020.

The WA defines a Joint Committee of EU & UK to agree to terminate parts of the WA when the UK & the EU have established the necessary replacement treaties ("the future relationship", implied within Protocol on Northern Ireland, Article 6).

By its nature, the Joint Committee works on joint agreement.  Foreseeably, the EU would agree only when it is in the EU's interests to agree.  This implies that the EU's political and commercial objectives are met only when the UK has bound itself into the same policy choices as those of the EU.  Deviation from the worst excesses of poor EU policy choice is thus practically impossible for the foreseeable future.  This is bad news.

Just in case the Joint Committee cannot see EU acquis having into treaties during the transition period ending 31 December 2020, the Joint Committee may extend the transitional period once, at any time before 01 July 2020, to a currently unspecified date ("31 December 20XX") [part 4, article 132].

In addition, the WA provides the start of "third country" arrangements regarding trade of live animals, germinal products and animal products.  This sets up the transition period to be one of obligations on UK, without the benefits for having met such obligations (i.e. one-sided obligations).  This is very bad news.

Throughout the transition period, the EU may change its laws in any way that it sees fit, in accordance with its own procedure and political preference.  This is normal process for the EU.  But those changes in law then become binding on the UK, even though the UK would have had either diminished or zero influence on the choice of those laws.  This is very, very bad news.

Some aspects of the WA remain enforceable for 4 years after the end of the transitional period, notionally 31 December 2020, but, in fact, whenever the Joint Committee cynically wants to pick "31 December 20XX".  This is very, very, very bad news.

The European Central Bank is exempt from any conformity assessment and/or licencing that the UK may require.  This is a salutary reminder of how the banksters are still gaming the political system, and lobbying hard to preserve the right to parasitise the ordinary taxpaying pleb.  This is very, very, very, very bad news.

Thus, the WA meets the commercial, financial, strategic and political objectives of the European Union.  In effect, it sets out a method - a process - by which to "hollow out" any residual resources and sovereignty of the UK, to ensure that, whatever the British demos vote for, there shall be taxation without meaningful representation.

Does it meet Remainaics' objectives?

A shibboleth of the Remain campaign has always been that Europe is all about trade, and nothing else.  Let's examine this aspect of the WA.

Objectively, in all treaties, a useful trade policy requires strategic sacrifice of sovereignty.

Thus, the WA contains an unpleasant surprise to the gullible Remainiac: the WA goes well beyond the open-ended sacrifice demanded by the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union ("TOFU").

The effect of the WA is to sabotage, potentially forever, UK's ability to conduct its own commercial policy.

For those Remainiacs who felt that economics was all that mattered, this WA ultimately gives them what they want: the permanent crippling of UK's ability to conduct a useful commercial policy at all.

That this ultimately hollows out the interests of the Remainiacs themselves is, of course, one of the greatest ironies of the whole UK v EU issue, but one would not expect gullible Remainiacs to analyse this irony (let alone understand it).

Actually, it goes beyond Remainiacs' objectives

The Rt Hon Kenneth Clark was once reported to have said that he looked forward to the day that the UK Parliament was nothing more than a council chamber meeting in Brussels.  With this WA, there would be no need for the UK to occupy even a small council chamber's broom cupboard in Brussels.

Because the WA provides for the UK to be bound by changes in the EU acquis during the transitional period, it gives the EU the ability to take a short-cut to deepening political integration.

The short-cut mechanism looks fairly easy for the EU to invoke, subject to its own speed of changing or introducing EU acquis.

In effect, the WA converts the UK into the same vassal state as any Member Nation would ultimately become as a consequence of deepening political integration.

And, of course, the WA provides a suitable legal mechanism for the UK to pay for the Single European Army (at least in part) while it is subject to the vassal nature of the (never-ending?) transitional period.

Thus, the WA is a tool of accelerated integration.  Integration is quicker because the WA by-passes the procedures/protocols set out in the TOFU et seq.

Far from Brexit In Name Only ("BRINO"), the WA is actually the basis of an accelerated anti-Brexit!

Does it meet UKGov's objectives?

We know that the British establishment is a Remainiac establishment.

Its objectives are to lock-in political privilege (along with the accompanying gravy train) for itself, necessarily at the expense of us ordinary taxpaying plebs, resulting in taxation without meaningful representation.

No part of the WA could be rationally upheld as a departure from the EU.  The WA provides a framework for mis-appropriating wealth from ordinary taxpaying plebs to the cynical, sinister, parasitic elite, undermining the functional objectives of Brexit for all leave voters, resulting in the most stitched-up vassal state in modern "democratic" history.

Thus, the WA meets the political objectives of the British establishment.

What are the implications on ordinary taxpaying plebs?

Accordingly, the WA is, in effect, a declaration of war by the UK establishment against us, its own taxpaying plebs.  It is type of financial serfdom akin to that in the Russian Czarist empire.

All of this could have been avoided had the UK opted for the European Free Trade Area, signed the European Economic Area and invoked Articles 112-114 to provide immediate relief for immigration issues.

That the Remainaics poisoned the EFTA/EEA option and instead schemed towards the WA reveals the despicable nature of the Remainiacs' sickening ideology against the economic and democratic welfare of us ordinary plebs.  Truly evil people.

UKGov continues to have:

• no strategy within the EU;
• even less of a strategy outside of the EU; and
• no strategy to avoid a civil war in UK.

Bootnote: the UK media

Since the publication of the WA, the UK has consistently reported that it is "500 pages long".

It's actually 585 pages long, so perhaps the miserable hacks would have rounded it up to 600?

But, naaah, the miserable hacks could even get this detail right.

Technical references

• Preamble, "CONSIDERING that there is a need for both the United Kingdom and the Union to take all necessary steps to begin as soon as possible after 29 March 2019 the formal negotiations of one or several agreements governing their future relationship with a view to ensuring that, to the extent possible, those agreements apply from the end of the transition period,"
• Part 1, Article 4, paras 2-5.
• Part 2, Title 3, Article 30, paras 2 & 4.
• Part 2, Title 3, Article 33, para 1.
• Part 2, Title 3, Article 39.
• Part 3, Title 1, Article 41, para 3.
• Part 3, Title 10, Chapter 1, Article 87, paras 1-2.
• Part 3, Title 10, Chapter 1, Article 89, para 1.
• Part 3, Title 10, Chapter 2, Article 93, para 1.
• Part 3, Title 13, Article 123, para 1, last sentence.
• Part 4, Article 127, para 2.
• Part 4, Article 129, paras 1-2.
• Part 4, Article 132, paras 1-2.
• Part 6, Title 2, Article 164, all of it.
• Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland, Article 1, para 4.
• Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland, Article 6, para 1.
• Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland, Annex 2, Article 3, para 1.
• Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland, Annex 2, Article 4, para 1, 3.