With the UK and the EU reaching an agreement on the content of the "Brexit" agreement, public opinion is concerned whether the draft agreement can be passed in the UK Parliament and EU member states. At this time, the minister of Brexit was temporarily changed, which undoubtedly deduced a real version of "Game of Thrones". So, what are the practical problems the UK is facing in the matter of "Brexit"? What is its future development trend?
According to the 585-page draft Brexit agreement released by the British government, the UK and the EU have reached consensus on four "bottlenecks" on border issues, tariff issues, the Ireland agreement, and the Brexit transition period. The problem is that these are still unresolved issues in the UK. For example, after Theresa May announced that she had agreed to the draft withdrawal agreement, Brexit Secretary Raab, Employment and Pensions Secretary McVeigh, Undersecretary for Brexit Braverman, and Undersecretary for Northern Ireland Walla and other senior officials have announced their resignation. On the surface, members of the cabinet are "hanging seals and seals" one after another, but the deepest part is probably that this "painful divorce" has a huge controversy within the UK. The most controversial issue of
is undoubtedly the status of Northern Ireland after Brexit. Raab, the Brexit secretary, told the media after his resignation that the draft agreement had a fatal loophole, that is, the settlement of the border issue between Ireland and Northern Ireland undermined Britain's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Moreover, this rather vague agreement at the operational level does not establish clear rules, let alone a permanent framework, in the complex relationship between the UK and the EU in the future. He believes that this will undoubtedly lay hidden dangers for the United Kingdom, which is a weak party after Brexit, when dealing with the EU as a whole, and will even be "blackmailed" and "oppressed" by the EU everywhere. Such a decision "contrary to the national interest" is not supported by the British people.
Looking back on the difficult "Brexit history" that has stumbled over the past year, it is not difficult to find that the sovereignty and territorial disputes caused by the issue of Northern Ireland have long plagued the British and their European neighbors. Just after the "historic" meeting on March 19 this year, EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier and Brexit Secretary Davis confirmed to international media that the UK had finally taken a "decisive step" to finalize the transition. Expect. However, the thorny issue of the Northern Ireland-Ireland border, the "Achilles' heel" of Brexit, remains unresolved. The UK and EU only confirmed that: if there is no better way, then implement the "immediate measure" - after the UK leaves the EU, its Northern Ireland region will remain in the EU customs union to ensure that there will be no "hard border" with Ireland.
This means that Northern Ireland, which is part of the same territory, and the British mainland will be separated by a "trade border" - the so-called British version of "one country, two systems". In this regard, the British attitude and position are obviously contradictory. On the one hand, the UK hopes to avoid re-establishing checkpoints on this border, that is, to form a "hard border" to protect the Good Friday peace agreement reached by the parties to the conflict in Northern Ireland in 1998. After all, for the United Kingdom, which has suffered from the pain of separatism such as Scotland in recent years, if an economic "country within a country" is formed in Northern Ireland, it will undoubtedly add a new dimension to the scar that has not subsided. hurt. On the other hand, the May government does not want to form any customs union with the EU. This means that this border can only be changed from a "soft border", where goods and people flow freely, to a "hard border" that requires inspection of people and goods entering and leaving the EU and the collection of tariffs.
Therefore, this plan has been proposed by the European Union before, but it has been rejected by Theresa May. And now people are generally worried that even if the final withdrawal agreement formally writes this plan, it will be just a symbolic move, and the United Kingdom will also use its strength to seek other alternatives. In other words, uncertainty remains.
In the draft Brexit agreement, the relevant clauses on the border issue between Ireland and Northern Ireland have been interpreted by the " hard Brexit " party as keeping the UK in the customs union and the single market, so the UK will become independent after Brexit. Sex remains a concern. Although Prime Minister May firmly claimed that in the negotiations with the EU, the United Kingdom will maintain the autonomy to withdraw from the "background" agreement at any time in the future, and give both sides enough space to solve the "hard border" issue. But the thorny problem at present is that, because of the "ineffectiveness" in the aforementioned issues, the May government has encountered a certain degree of personnel crisis and confidence crisis at the parliamentary and public levels at the same time.. How to overcome and steadily advance the established line in the future Brexit action and preserve the UK's rights and interests is a practical problem that the May government, who has firmly stated that "I can survive it", must face it.