9 ms·

Brexit – where now? The flow diagrams

116 points by lrsjng 8y ago

ColinWright 8y ago
These are fabulous - they take serious work to follow through, but are clear, and give a great sense of structure. Great work - props to Jon Worth!
- estomagordo 8y ago
  It does not describe what finger was licked and held up in what wind, though.
  - ColinWright 8y ago
    I produced exactly this kind of chart when engaged in a semi-hostile management take-over, including the wild guesstimates of probabilities. But then I further did a stability analysis to see which of the probabilities needed to be more accurate, and thus require more careful measurement. That identified critical decisions and pathways, and which of the other party's decisions should be nudged. Here, though, there's not really a lot to be gained by greater precision, although your point is taken.
fbn79 8y ago
Excellent work!
arethuza 8y ago
I don't think this covers (MV3)/2 or whatever today's vote is called?
- ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
  Mv3. The first one does. Its two days outdated
- elyobo 8y ago
  Yeah, the latest two have "Meaningful Vote 3" taken into account.
  - arethuza 8y ago
    But aren't we just having a part of MV3 voted on today, which is how it got round the ban on just repeating the same thing over and over again?
    - elyobo 8y ago
      Fair point, I guess that's what ganeshkrishnan was referring to about it being two days out of date.
- sveme 8y ago
  Three "Meaningful Votes" in a row indicate that they aren't that meaningful after all.
ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
This is two days outdated. We are at meaningful vote 3 phase. I assume this is going to fail again which gives it a 80% hard brexit chance with 20% rescinding brexit. I have always been all-in on "no brexit" for last three years. It's a dog and pony show.
- elyobo 8y ago
  The most flow chart seems to cover MV3 and potential outcomes pretty well. It (Brexit) is a hell of a mess, I have no idea how you guys are going to get out of this one.
  - keithpeter 8y ago
    "I have no idea how you guys are going to get out of this one" Neither have I, but I imagine that time, geography and economics will sort it out. EU changing, old guard turning over. UK voters changing each year due to the grim reaper and 17 year olds turning 18 (about 600k churn each year). Charts are really useful. Hope they are updated.
  - ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
    It cover's MV3 but starts above it giving 0.4 as no consensus and 0.7 for MV3 but we know it is "no consensus" and MV3 today. So the percentages below will change. As he said on twitter he is banking on Mv3 losing and I assume the same which leaves with 80% no-deal brexit and 20% no brexit. I am betting on brexit being rescinded. The deal falling thru and the parliament dumping it.
- ldite 8y ago
  It's not a "meaningful vote" today (29th) - it's only a vote on the withdrawal agreement, not the political declaration. According to the Attorney General that means it's not a "meaningful vote" as previously defined. And it's going to be voted down, of course.
  - ethbro 8y ago
    Whatever happened to the speaker's declaration that the government couldn't keep bringing up the same bill? Is this actually different, or did everyone forget that?
fredley 8y ago
These are great, but a little out of date (the situation has changed a lot in the last 48 hours...). It's the visualisation I've wanted all along though!
krona 8y ago
Unsurprisingly there are several possibilities not accounted for here. One being that the 3rd vote passes, the PM resigns (which she's already agreed to do), a new leader is elected and a general election is held soon after which will essentially be a 'second referendum' election in which we end up rejoining the EU in less than 5 years. A true Schrödinger's brexit.
- Sahhaese 8y ago
  Sadly we'll never be able to rejoin with the amazing deal we have now, with our rebate and opt-outs intact. And no matter the outcome, we've lost our dignity. We'll never get back our reputation for stability.
  - Theodores 8y ago
    If they had a pie fight in the Commons, much like the alternative ending of Dr Strangelove then I think that dignity could be restored.
  - digianarchist 8y ago
    Which would oblige the UK to join the Schengen area adopt the Euro.
    - _nalply 8y ago
      Perhaps you forgot the word "and" after "Schengen area". Because these are two different things as Switzerland shows (Switzerland being in the Schengen area but not adopting the Euro).
      - digianarchist 8y ago
        Indeed I did however I feel as though that is obvious and your comment is rather facetious.
        _nalply 8y ago
akerro 8y ago
Basically we're sitting at no deal or no brexit. If no deal happens I have to leave the UK in the next 2 weeks...
- davzie 8y ago
  Why would you have to leave?
  - akerro 8y ago
    My partner will lose her rights to work and will require a visa to enter UK, we will just both leave permanently.
- kieckerjan 8y ago
  Are you an EU expat in the UK? I am curious as to how the government is communicating about this with people in your situation. Is there any communication at all? Here in the Netherlands there is a pretty solid campaign to inform people (mostly business owners) to brace for impact.
  - akerro 8y ago
    I am, but my partner isn't. She will have to apply for rights to work and visa to enter/leave. Personally I haven't seen any communication towards me at all since 2016, but I also wasn't looking for it. It's just too big mess to even try to follow any information, whatever was true 2 days ago, isn't any more. Just look at this, I will also need to get international driving licence to visit my parents https://www.gov.uk/guidance/international-driving-permits-for-uk-drivers-from-28-march-2019 https://www.gov.uk/guidance/international-driving-permits-fo...
    - desdiv 8y ago
      Your partner has the right to live and work in the UK, and to travel in and out of it without a UK visa. This brexit mess does not abridge any of those rights. 1. If you guys are married, she can apply for the EU Settlement Scheme[1]. 2. If you guys are not married, you need to first register a civil partnership[2], and then she can apply for the EU Settlement Scheme. None of these require EU citizenship for your partner. [1] https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-citizens-families/applying-for-settled-status https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-citizens-families/apply... [2] https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/living-together-marriage-and-civil-partnership/registering-a-civil-partnership/#h-who-can-register-a-civil-partnership https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/living-together-mar...
alkonaut 8y ago
A parliament that HAS to choose among N possible futures or else the one of those N that is least popular wins. Yet they seen convinced that the only thing they can do is do yes/no votes to reach a majority for one of the N alternatives. If this is for legal/constitutional reasons (it most likely is) then it’s a horrible mistake to not have realized this and corrected it. Parliament needs a simple and legal way to swiftly select the most popular option among N options where none have a majority. This isn’t a dangerous legal loophole - the acceptance of such an N-way tie and the selection of the N options can still be decided with majority. There should be a ranked or Condorcet vote and the winner should be enacted. It should have happened a year ago at least.
- estomagordo 8y ago
  Well, if futureFoo and futureBar are very similar, they could end up attracting similar numbers and effectively cancel each other out.
- redcalx 8y ago
  "There should be a ranked or Condorcet vote and the winner should be enacted." I believe this is the plan for Monday if the PM's deal doesn't go through today. I.e. list the options you will accept in order of preference.
  - oarsinsync 8y ago
    Isn't Monday too late? Doesn't the agreement with the EU stipulate that there needs to have been some real progress by today to justify extending until May 22, and if no real progress occurs by today, no deal Brexit occurs April 12?
    - redcalx 8y ago
      The April 12th deadline is conditional on the PMs deal, if that doesn't go through then May 22nd is the current date at which no deal exit will occur if nothing else happens, i.e. that's the current letter of the law. So the vote(s) on Monday are about finding an alternative to no deal before May 22nd. Even if they agree on an option, the EU can still refuse and stick with no deal on the 22nd. -- Edit: See comments below - I got the dates wrong.
davidjgraph 8y ago
Aside, a few click saving/general things with draw.io (and as a UK resident you'll excuse me if I avoid the actual subject): 1) Add #U to the URL then the path to the diagram to create a link that loads it directly: https://www.draw.io/#Uhttps://jonworth.eu/downloads/29jandiagrams/BrexitPlanB-V22.xml https://www.draw.io/#Uhttps://jonworth.eu/downloads/29jandia... 2) File->Embed->HTML gives you an HTML snippet that you embed in your page to render a vector version of the diagram. Click the viewer opens up a lightbox, zoomable vector version, that can include the diagram data in the snippet, and a edit option from the lightbox to navigate to the editor with the diagram loaded. 3) draw.io is open source, https://github.com/jgraph/drawio https://github.com/jgraph/drawio, if you don't want to depend on a third-party for the viewer, clone the repo, host it as a static site (doesn't need a back-end) and reference the viewer on that site instead of www.draw.io.
- oarsinsync 8y ago
  Dunno why you're being downvoted. The page itself isn't loading anymore, and the link you've provided in (1) does still load, so if anyone else is unable to load the page in question, see this link (1) to see the flowchart at least.
TorKlingberg 8y ago
Neat, but it seems to be missing the upcoming parliament vote on Monday. That one seems very important to me.
- Zenst 8y ago
  The EU has stated that they need to hear by close of today if any extension beyond the 12th of APril and they said they would only do that if the UK agreed the deal May got offered in which nobody of any voting stance likes. In short, the EU is dictating Brexit direction more than the UK now. So unless they agree May's deal, any other extension has to be voted upon. However technically the UK could cancel article 50, then resubmit it and give an extension of upto 2 years as article 50 covers a 2 year period and in that time the end date can be earlier. Whilst technically they could do that and the EU would be powerless to stop them, it would be a complete and utter gaming of the political and legal system.
  - repolfx 8y ago
    The Article 50 treaty says very clearly that unilateral revocation isn't possible. The ECJ has done what's expected for the EU and simply ripped it up, but will the other heads of state accept the treaty they all signed just being voided like that? Probably yes - ultimately what happens in the EU is always and everywhere about politics. Written law hardly matters.
    - stevesimmons 8y ago
      You are incorrect. The ECJ confirmed on 10 Dec 2018 that unilateral revocation is possible. Indeed the exact title of the press release from the ECJ after the judgement was "The United Kingdom is free to revoke unilaterally the notification of its intention to withdraw from the EU".
      - repolfx 8y ago
        How is what I'm saying incorrect? You're agreeing with me that the ECJ voided the treaty. Here's what Article 50 says: 3. The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period. The treaties cease to apply two years after the notification date unless the Council decides unanimously to extend. The ECJ read this and said, nope, unanimous consent not required actually, the country can simply revoke it (i.e. extend indefinitely) at any time.
jmkd 8y ago
No wonder the public feel powerless. The options are so obfuscated behind political complexity AND ever-changing that a simple voter (me) can't hope to keep up. The moment you half-understand a scenario it is outdated, the days it takes to form a layperson's reasonable opinion are wasted grasping at now-irrelevant information. It takes multiple hours per day to try and understand the details and their strategic importance. I will forever remember this as a contradictory moment when the British public's political awareness was both at its greatest and weakest. No positive outcomes look possible any more.
- daemin 8y ago
  This is why it should not have been a simple majority public vote. Either leave it for the politicians which or make it a two thirds majority (so if a civil war breaks out the side that lost the vote has to defeat 2x people).
  - lucozade 8y ago
    Unfortunately, that all only makes sense if we were given the vote in order to make the decision to leave the EU or not. But that wasn't why. It was to stem the haemorrhaging of MPs and voters to UKIP for the 2015 GE. As such, the calculation was that anything other than a straight fight wouldn't resolve the question. I see no reason to disagree with that calculation. I mean, say it was a 2/3rds vote and we got the result we did. How likely would it be that Farage et al would just say "Fair cop" and move on? The truth is it was a high risk punt, same as with the Scottish referendum and AV vote, to kill any constitutional questions for a generation. If it had succeeded as the other two had done, we would likely have Tory hegemony for at least another decade. And Cameron could have argued (quite reasonably) that he was the most democratic PM in our history. And the way I see, it the calculation was based on the idea that the British people are generally pretty conservative (with a lowercase c). This worked well for AV (I mean who votes to retain FPTP?), reasonably well for Scotland and spectacularly well for Brexit. The only problem was that, it turns out, we're too conservative: we didn't want the status quo, we wanted the Edwardian era back.
  - reubeniv 8y ago
mikekchar 8y ago
Tinfoil hat: I'm actually on record as speculating that Brexit is just a big currency trading scam. Imagine that you go into Brexit knowing that you will make it fail. You spend 2 years sitting on your prosterior, not actually forming a deal and then at the last minute: OMG what are we going to do. The currency bounces around like a yoyo. You time all the nice low points. And then you cancel it saying "Oh we tried our best. Nothing we could have done. The EU was bent on screwing us if we left". The pound jumps 20 or 30 cents on the pound overnight. I will literally fall over if it actually comes to pass, but like I said, this was my somewhat tongue in cheek speculation about 6 months ago (although I predicted that the budget would fail leading to a general election and an opportunity to repeal Brexit at that point, so I'm already technically wrong).
- riazrizvi 8y ago
  Tinfoil? To imply that the driver for political decisions is financial? I think it’s safe to say there is a financial incentive, that’s how the world works. Is it to drive volatility in the currency markets to help hedge funds? Is it to drive deregulation to help corporations, for example to spy on employees for improved productivity, say? Is it to help restore sovereignty over financial laws to restore british offshore banking, to help launder sanctioned cash, and hide wealthy individuals’ cash, for example? It must be something lucrative, to be so well supported by the Tories despite the harm it is doing to London property prices and London jobs...
  - throwaway500mg 8y ago
    Link to Bloomberg investigative piece titled 'The Big Brexit Short': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht40yrt3VrY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht40yrt3VrY
- binarymax 8y ago
  I speculated this in Feb 2016 as well: https://mobile.twitter.com/binarymax/status/702076334160408576 https://mobile.twitter.com/binarymax/status/7020763341604085... The people rocking the boat were just a bunch of jerks who wanted to get richer. Market destabilization through false rumors and societal disruption is very very real.
DanielBMarkham 8y ago
I'm not a Brit and the politics of this are not my concern. However the information dissemination and internet aspect of the story is quite fascinating. I have no idea what's going on. I tried to ignore it, but my friends who care deeply about it can get quite upset so I've been pulled into several private conversations. Because of that, on several occasions I've looked around the web in an effort to easily understand what's going on. No luck. Two things come to mind. First, complexity can be used as a wonderful shield against openness and accountability. You can be as open and accountable as anybody would like, but as long as most people find the situation impenetrable and you do not, it doesn't matter. It's the same thing as not being open at all. Second, I don't see how any reasonable public discussion happens at all in an information environment like this. It's a fail. If they wanted no public discussion, they should have made that choice. This is probably the worst situation a democracy can find itself in: lots of upset people arguing about things which they have no idea the true status of. You might as well watch a puppet show. There's no nuanced conversation possible. It is contrast turned as high as possible. It's not the decision as much as the uncertainty. I can't help but think the net failed us here -- but I don't know how it could have done better. The betting markets at least will give you an up/down version of the likely outcomes. Oddly enough that might be the best source of information.
- rusk 8y ago
  I don't think the net failed us ... I think the 'net is maybe the only thing that's slowed this disaster down. Yes yes whatever about the disinformation campaign that allegedly influenced the vote, but misinformation has always been a tool in the political toolkit. What's different this time around is that the net provides the means to route around the official narrative and dig into what's going on. Yes, you might dig the wrong way and come up with bullshit but anyone that can evaluate information can figure this out, and once the honest and educated manage to get to grips with the non-official details then the net provides a means to mobilise. If anything it's politics has broken the 'net, not the other way round. But the net provides a means to save politics.
  - DanielBMarkham 8y ago
    Interesting. If I understand each of us correctly, my position is that the internet has provided a ton of information and drama, just nothing of use to the general public. Your position is because of the vast amount of information, we can identify these problems and route around them. I can certainly see where you might be correct. I think the key question is this: does the emotional impact of all the noise outweigh the nuggets of useful information a person may find here or there? (And I use the term "noise" generously. A cynic would consider this a form camouflage) In a way, this is the discussion the net is having all over, right? Do you get more social control by creating these made-for-internet dramas that hide the actual important stuff? Or does the fact that the information can exist much easier now and be published instantaneously to millions easily overcome that? I'm with the "people decide based on emotion, then use reason to justify their decisions" group of folks, but that's only because I come at this from a sales/startup angle. It very well may be different in the political realm.
michaelbuckbee 8y ago
Imagine if Florida wanted to leave the US and renegotiate their trade and governmental relationship with China/Brazil/Iceland, etc? - Why would a country give Florida a better trade deal or more rights than the US? - How do Floridians benefit from suddenly being unable to freely cross the border to the US? And this is why Brexit is so screwed up: the promise was "all the benefits you have now plus we'll renegotiate and get a bunch more when we aren't being held back anymore", but it's really hard to fundamentally see why/how that could happen. EDIT: bunch of replies to this that maybe miss the main thrust of this question which is "Why would a country give a better deal to Florida in this scenario?"
- rusk 8y ago
  In fairness, it's substantially different in the UK is a sovereign nation. In this instance the UK sees that the EU erodes their sovereignty. If that were the case the UK leaving the EU is a reasonable course of action. Geography is also a factor in that the UK actually can physically separate from the UK, arguments with regards to the land border with Northern Ireland notwithstanding of course!
  - zimzam 8y ago
    You’re replying with a discussion of sovereignty in response to a parent that’s discussing trade deals. Braxit was generally sold on two main pillars: sovereignty and making vastly better trade deals. Sure, there are sovereignty issues that make sense to drive Brexit, but it is the second pillar that never made sense. The U.K. is not a very large country by itself (no longer a global empire) so it is puzzling at best to think that the rest of the world is dying to give it amazing trade deals. The U.K. has friends who would be happy to trade with it, but a market 1/10th the size of the EU is unlikely to get many trade deals that are better than the EU.
    - wolco 8y ago
      Trade deals in the EU try to benefit all but could be at the expense of a nation.
- 8y ago
martythemaniak 8y ago
Nice diagram, but it's already out of date. The indicative votes already passed, there was no consensus and I think now they'll do a second round? I wouldn't be surprised if a good chunk of MPs are confused about what's happening. Anyway, the central delusion of Brexit is that the British public vote to have a foreign sovereign government give them something. Technically they voted for the British government to leave the EU, but what they really voted for is to have the EU give them an unbelievably awesome deal that screws over the EU. That is not going to happen, so now we're witnessing this mass political delusion crash into reality.
Kurtz79 8y ago
A few weeks ago I was in Basel, Switzerland, which is uniquely positioned at the cross of the Swiss, German and French borders. There are suburbs of the city that are in German and French territory: Basel trams and buses will get to either side, with no notice you are crossing a national border. You can cross the Rhine from Weil am Rhein (Germany) to Huningue (France) through a footbridge, with the only thing marking the cross being a German and French flags side by side, on the French side of the river. https://en.radreisen.at/data/thumbs/_data_pic_Frankreich_Region_Basel_Sternfahrt_Huningue_WeilamRhein_2_jpg.1539077909.800x600x75.crop.jpg https://en.radreisen.at/data/thumbs/_data_pic_Frankreich_Reg... No border, no checks, even normal police nowhere to be seen. 75 years ago (and pretty much over the course of their history) these two countries were at bitter war between themselves. I cannot fathom why people would do anything that could cause returning to those times a possibility. As flawed the EU is, it has been instrumental in ensuring decades of peace. The (partial but undoubtful) loss of sovereignity for individual members should be considered a fair price to pay. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
- Chris2048 8y ago
  > I cannot fathom why people would do anything that could cause returning to those times a possibility What has Brexit got to do with that?
  - dTal 8y ago
    Brexiteers frequently position it as the first domino in a cascade that will destroy the entire EU, and assert that this is a good thing.
    - Chris2048 8y ago
      To the extent that the failure of the EU leads to war?
  - binarymax 8y ago
    It is not far fetched to imagine a situation where a hard Brexit results in extreme languish of imported food and staple goods into the UK. Austerity was hard enough on the poor - Imagine if food prices doubled or tripled due to tariffs and currency devaluation. Not to mention the land border in Ireland returning to skirmish with patrols and violence.

116 points by lrsjng 8y ago

These are fabulous - they take serious work to follow through, but are clear, and give a great sense of structure. Great work - props to Jon Worth!

estomagordo 8y ago
It does not describe what finger was licked and held up in what wind, though.
- ColinWright 8y ago
  I produced exactly this kind of chart when engaged in a semi-hostile management take-over, including the wild guesstimates of probabilities. But then I further did a stability analysis to see which of the probabilities needed to be more accurate, and thus require more careful measurement. That identified critical decisions and pathways, and which of the other party's decisions should be nudged. Here, though, there's not really a lot to be gained by greater precision, although your point is taken.

fbn79 8y ago

Excellent work!

arethuza 8y ago

I don't think this covers (MV3)/2 or whatever today's vote is called?

ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
Mv3. The first one does. Its two days outdated
elyobo 8y ago
Yeah, the latest two have "Meaningful Vote 3" taken into account.
- arethuza 8y ago
  But aren't we just having a part of MV3 voted on today, which is how it got round the ban on just repeating the same thing over and over again?
  - elyobo 8y ago
    Fair point, I guess that's what ganeshkrishnan was referring to about it being two days out of date.
sveme 8y ago
Three "Meaningful Votes" in a row indicate that they aren't that meaningful after all.

ganeshkrishnan 8y ago

This is two days outdated. We are at meaningful vote 3 phase. I assume this is going to fail again which gives it a 80% hard brexit chance with 20% rescinding brexit. I have always been all-in on "no brexit" for last three years. It's a dog and pony show.

elyobo 8y ago
The most flow chart seems to cover MV3 and potential outcomes pretty well. It (Brexit) is a hell of a mess, I have no idea how you guys are going to get out of this one.
- keithpeter 8y ago
  "I have no idea how you guys are going to get out of this one" Neither have I, but I imagine that time, geography and economics will sort it out. EU changing, old guard turning over. UK voters changing each year due to the grim reaper and 17 year olds turning 18 (about 600k churn each year). Charts are really useful. Hope they are updated.
- ganeshkrishnan 8y ago
  It cover's MV3 but starts above it giving 0.4 as no consensus and 0.7 for MV3 but we know it is "no consensus" and MV3 today. So the percentages below will change. As he said on twitter he is banking on Mv3 losing and I assume the same which leaves with 80% no-deal brexit and 20% no brexit. I am betting on brexit being rescinded. The deal falling thru and the parliament dumping it.
ldite 8y ago
It's not a "meaningful vote" today (29th) - it's only a vote on the withdrawal agreement, not the political declaration. According to the Attorney General that means it's not a "meaningful vote" as previously defined. And it's going to be voted down, of course.
- ethbro 8y ago
  Whatever happened to the speaker's declaration that the government couldn't keep bringing up the same bill? Is this actually different, or did everyone forget that?

fredley 8y ago

These are great, but a little out of date (the situation has changed a lot in the last 48 hours...). It's the visualisation I've wanted all along though!

krona 8y ago

Unsurprisingly there are several possibilities not accounted for here. One being that the 3rd vote passes, the PM resigns (which she's already agreed to do), a new leader is elected and a general election is held soon after which will essentially be a 'second referendum' election in which we end up rejoining the EU in less than 5 years. A true Schrödinger's brexit.

Sahhaese 8y ago
Sadly we'll never be able to rejoin with the amazing deal we have now, with our rebate and opt-outs intact. And no matter the outcome, we've lost our dignity. We'll never get back our reputation for stability.
- Theodores 8y ago
  If they had a pie fight in the Commons, much like the alternative ending of Dr Strangelove then I think that dignity could be restored.
- digianarchist 8y ago
  Which would oblige the UK to join the Schengen area adopt the Euro.
  - _nalply 8y ago
    Perhaps you forgot the word "and" after "Schengen area". Because these are two different things as Switzerland shows (Switzerland being in the Schengen area but not adopting the Euro).
    - digianarchist 8y ago
      Indeed I did however I feel as though that is obvious and your comment is rather facetious.
      - _nalply 8y ago

akerro 8y ago

Basically we're sitting at no deal or no brexit. If no deal happens I have to leave the UK in the next 2 weeks...

davzie 8y ago
Why would you have to leave?
- akerro 8y ago
  My partner will lose her rights to work and will require a visa to enter UK, we will just both leave permanently.
kieckerjan 8y ago
Are you an EU expat in the UK? I am curious as to how the government is communicating about this with people in your situation. Is there any communication at all? Here in the Netherlands there is a pretty solid campaign to inform people (mostly business owners) to brace for impact.
- akerro 8y ago
  I am, but my partner isn't. She will have to apply for rights to work and visa to enter/leave. Personally I haven't seen any communication towards me at all since 2016, but I also wasn't looking for it. It's just too big mess to even try to follow any information, whatever was true 2 days ago, isn't any more. Just look at this, I will also need to get international driving licence to visit my parents https://www.gov.uk/guidance/international-driving-permits-for-uk-drivers-from-28-march-2019 https://www.gov.uk/guidance/international-driving-permits-fo...
  - desdiv 8y ago
    Your partner has the right to live and work in the UK, and to travel in and out of it without a UK visa. This brexit mess does not abridge any of those rights. 1. If you guys are married, she can apply for the EU Settlement Scheme[1]. 2. If you guys are not married, you need to first register a civil partnership[2], and then she can apply for the EU Settlement Scheme. None of these require EU citizenship for your partner. [1] https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-citizens-families/applying-for-settled-status https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-citizens-families/apply... [2] https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/living-together-marriage-and-civil-partnership/registering-a-civil-partnership/#h-who-can-register-a-civil-partnership https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/living-together-mar...

alkonaut 8y ago

A parliament that HAS to choose among N possible futures or else the one of those N that is least popular wins. Yet they seen convinced that the only thing they can do is do yes/no votes to reach a majority for one of the N alternatives. If this is for legal/constitutional reasons (it most likely is) then it’s a horrible mistake to not have realized this and corrected it. Parliament needs a simple and legal way to swiftly select the most popular option among N options where none have a majority. This isn’t a dangerous legal loophole - the acceptance of such an N-way tie and the selection of the N options can still be decided with majority. There should be a ranked or Condorcet vote and the winner should be enacted. It should have happened a year ago at least.

estomagordo 8y ago
Well, if futureFoo and futureBar are very similar, they could end up attracting similar numbers and effectively cancel each other out.
redcalx 8y ago
"There should be a ranked or Condorcet vote and the winner should be enacted." I believe this is the plan for Monday if the PM's deal doesn't go through today. I.e. list the options you will accept in order of preference.
- oarsinsync 8y ago
  Isn't Monday too late? Doesn't the agreement with the EU stipulate that there needs to have been some real progress by today to justify extending until May 22, and if no real progress occurs by today, no deal Brexit occurs April 12?
  - redcalx 8y ago
    The April 12th deadline is conditional on the PMs deal, if that doesn't go through then May 22nd is the current date at which no deal exit will occur if nothing else happens, i.e. that's the current letter of the law. So the vote(s) on Monday are about finding an alternative to no deal before May 22nd. Even if they agree on an option, the EU can still refuse and stick with no deal on the 22nd. -- Edit: See comments below - I got the dates wrong.

davidjgraph 8y ago

Aside, a few click saving/general things with draw.io (and as a UK resident you'll excuse me if I avoid the actual subject): 1) Add #U to the URL then the path to the diagram to create a link that loads it directly: https://www.draw.io/#Uhttps://jonworth.eu/downloads/29jandiagrams/BrexitPlanB-V22.xml https://www.draw.io/#Uhttps://jonworth.eu/downloads/29jandia... 2) File->Embed->HTML gives you an HTML snippet that you embed in your page to render a vector version of the diagram. Click the viewer opens up a lightbox, zoomable vector version, that can include the diagram data in the snippet, and a edit option from the lightbox to navigate to the editor with the diagram loaded. 3) draw.io is open source, https://github.com/jgraph/drawio https://github.com/jgraph/drawio, if you don't want to depend on a third-party for the viewer, clone the repo, host it as a static site (doesn't need a back-end) and reference the viewer on that site instead of www.draw.io.

oarsinsync 8y ago
Dunno why you're being downvoted. The page itself isn't loading anymore, and the link you've provided in (1) does still load, so if anyone else is unable to load the page in question, see this link (1) to see the flowchart at least.

TorKlingberg 8y ago

Neat, but it seems to be missing the upcoming parliament vote on Monday. That one seems very important to me.

Zenst 8y ago
The EU has stated that they need to hear by close of today if any extension beyond the 12th of APril and they said they would only do that if the UK agreed the deal May got offered in which nobody of any voting stance likes. In short, the EU is dictating Brexit direction more than the UK now. So unless they agree May's deal, any other extension has to be voted upon. However technically the UK could cancel article 50, then resubmit it and give an extension of upto 2 years as article 50 covers a 2 year period and in that time the end date can be earlier. Whilst technically they could do that and the EU would be powerless to stop them, it would be a complete and utter gaming of the political and legal system.
- repolfx 8y ago
  The Article 50 treaty says very clearly that unilateral revocation isn't possible. The ECJ has done what's expected for the EU and simply ripped it up, but will the other heads of state accept the treaty they all signed just being voided like that? Probably yes - ultimately what happens in the EU is always and everywhere about politics. Written law hardly matters.
  - stevesimmons 8y ago
    You are incorrect. The ECJ confirmed on 10 Dec 2018 that unilateral revocation is possible. Indeed the exact title of the press release from the ECJ after the judgement was "The United Kingdom is free to revoke unilaterally the notification of its intention to withdraw from the EU".
    - repolfx 8y ago
      How is what I'm saying incorrect? You're agreeing with me that the ECJ voided the treaty. Here's what Article 50 says: 3. The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period. The treaties cease to apply two years after the notification date unless the Council decides unanimously to extend. The ECJ read this and said, nope, unanimous consent not required actually, the country can simply revoke it (i.e. extend indefinitely) at any time.

jmkd 8y ago

No wonder the public feel powerless. The options are so obfuscated behind political complexity AND ever-changing that a simple voter (me) can't hope to keep up. The moment you half-understand a scenario it is outdated, the days it takes to form a layperson's reasonable opinion are wasted grasping at now-irrelevant information. It takes multiple hours per day to try and understand the details and their strategic importance. I will forever remember this as a contradictory moment when the British public's political awareness was both at its greatest and weakest. No positive outcomes look possible any more.

daemin 8y ago
This is why it should not have been a simple majority public vote. Either leave it for the politicians which or make it a two thirds majority (so if a civil war breaks out the side that lost the vote has to defeat 2x people).
- lucozade 8y ago
  Unfortunately, that all only makes sense if we were given the vote in order to make the decision to leave the EU or not. But that wasn't why. It was to stem the haemorrhaging of MPs and voters to UKIP for the 2015 GE. As such, the calculation was that anything other than a straight fight wouldn't resolve the question. I see no reason to disagree with that calculation. I mean, say it was a 2/3rds vote and we got the result we did. How likely would it be that Farage et al would just say "Fair cop" and move on? The truth is it was a high risk punt, same as with the Scottish referendum and AV vote, to kill any constitutional questions for a generation. If it had succeeded as the other two had done, we would likely have Tory hegemony for at least another decade. And Cameron could have argued (quite reasonably) that he was the most democratic PM in our history. And the way I see, it the calculation was based on the idea that the British people are generally pretty conservative (with a lowercase c). This worked well for AV (I mean who votes to retain FPTP?), reasonably well for Scotland and spectacularly well for Brexit. The only problem was that, it turns out, we're too conservative: we didn't want the status quo, we wanted the Edwardian era back.
- reubeniv 8y ago

mikekchar 8y ago

Tinfoil hat: I'm actually on record as speculating that Brexit is just a big currency trading scam. Imagine that you go into Brexit knowing that you will make it fail. You spend 2 years sitting on your prosterior, not actually forming a deal and then at the last minute: OMG what are we going to do. The currency bounces around like a yoyo. You time all the nice low points. And then you cancel it saying "Oh we tried our best. Nothing we could have done. The EU was bent on screwing us if we left". The pound jumps 20 or 30 cents on the pound overnight. I will literally fall over if it actually comes to pass, but like I said, this was my somewhat tongue in cheek speculation about 6 months ago (although I predicted that the budget would fail leading to a general election and an opportunity to repeal Brexit at that point, so I'm already technically wrong).

riazrizvi 8y ago
Tinfoil? To imply that the driver for political decisions is financial? I think it’s safe to say there is a financial incentive, that’s how the world works. Is it to drive volatility in the currency markets to help hedge funds? Is it to drive deregulation to help corporations, for example to spy on employees for improved productivity, say? Is it to help restore sovereignty over financial laws to restore british offshore banking, to help launder sanctioned cash, and hide wealthy individuals’ cash, for example? It must be something lucrative, to be so well supported by the Tories despite the harm it is doing to London property prices and London jobs...
- throwaway500mg 8y ago
  Link to Bloomberg investigative piece titled 'The Big Brexit Short': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht40yrt3VrY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht40yrt3VrY
binarymax 8y ago
I speculated this in Feb 2016 as well: https://mobile.twitter.com/binarymax/status/702076334160408576 https://mobile.twitter.com/binarymax/status/7020763341604085... The people rocking the boat were just a bunch of jerks who wanted to get richer. Market destabilization through false rumors and societal disruption is very very real.

DanielBMarkham 8y ago

I'm not a Brit and the politics of this are not my concern. However the information dissemination and internet aspect of the story is quite fascinating. I have no idea what's going on. I tried to ignore it, but my friends who care deeply about it can get quite upset so I've been pulled into several private conversations. Because of that, on several occasions I've looked around the web in an effort to easily understand what's going on. No luck. Two things come to mind. First, complexity can be used as a wonderful shield against openness and accountability. You can be as open and accountable as anybody would like, but as long as most people find the situation impenetrable and you do not, it doesn't matter. It's the same thing as not being open at all. Second, I don't see how any reasonable public discussion happens at all in an information environment like this. It's a fail. If they wanted no public discussion, they should have made that choice. This is probably the worst situation a democracy can find itself in: lots of upset people arguing about things which they have no idea the true status of. You might as well watch a puppet show. There's no nuanced conversation possible. It is contrast turned as high as possible. It's not the decision as much as the uncertainty. I can't help but think the net failed us here -- but I don't know how it could have done better. The betting markets at least will give you an up/down version of the likely outcomes. Oddly enough that might be the best source of information.

rusk 8y ago
I don't think the net failed us ... I think the 'net is maybe the only thing that's slowed this disaster down. Yes yes whatever about the disinformation campaign that allegedly influenced the vote, but misinformation has always been a tool in the political toolkit. What's different this time around is that the net provides the means to route around the official narrative and dig into what's going on. Yes, you might dig the wrong way and come up with bullshit but anyone that can evaluate information can figure this out, and once the honest and educated manage to get to grips with the non-official details then the net provides a means to mobilise. If anything it's politics has broken the 'net, not the other way round. But the net provides a means to save politics.
- DanielBMarkham 8y ago
  Interesting. If I understand each of us correctly, my position is that the internet has provided a ton of information and drama, just nothing of use to the general public. Your position is because of the vast amount of information, we can identify these problems and route around them. I can certainly see where you might be correct. I think the key question is this: does the emotional impact of all the noise outweigh the nuggets of useful information a person may find here or there? (And I use the term "noise" generously. A cynic would consider this a form camouflage) In a way, this is the discussion the net is having all over, right? Do you get more social control by creating these made-for-internet dramas that hide the actual important stuff? Or does the fact that the information can exist much easier now and be published instantaneously to millions easily overcome that? I'm with the "people decide based on emotion, then use reason to justify their decisions" group of folks, but that's only because I come at this from a sales/startup angle. It very well may be different in the political realm.

michaelbuckbee 8y ago

Imagine if Florida wanted to leave the US and renegotiate their trade and governmental relationship with China/Brazil/Iceland, etc? - Why would a country give Florida a better trade deal or more rights than the US? - How do Floridians benefit from suddenly being unable to freely cross the border to the US? And this is why Brexit is so screwed up: the promise was "all the benefits you have now plus we'll renegotiate and get a bunch more when we aren't being held back anymore", but it's really hard to fundamentally see why/how that could happen. EDIT: bunch of replies to this that maybe miss the main thrust of this question which is "Why would a country give a better deal to Florida in this scenario?"

rusk 8y ago
In fairness, it's substantially different in the UK is a sovereign nation. In this instance the UK sees that the EU erodes their sovereignty. If that were the case the UK leaving the EU is a reasonable course of action. Geography is also a factor in that the UK actually can physically separate from the UK, arguments with regards to the land border with Northern Ireland notwithstanding of course!
- zimzam 8y ago
  You’re replying with a discussion of sovereignty in response to a parent that’s discussing trade deals. Braxit was generally sold on two main pillars: sovereignty and making vastly better trade deals. Sure, there are sovereignty issues that make sense to drive Brexit, but it is the second pillar that never made sense. The U.K. is not a very large country by itself (no longer a global empire) so it is puzzling at best to think that the rest of the world is dying to give it amazing trade deals. The U.K. has friends who would be happy to trade with it, but a market 1/10th the size of the EU is unlikely to get many trade deals that are better than the EU.
  - wolco 8y ago
    Trade deals in the EU try to benefit all but could be at the expense of a nation.
8y ago

martythemaniak 8y ago

Nice diagram, but it's already out of date. The indicative votes already passed, there was no consensus and I think now they'll do a second round? I wouldn't be surprised if a good chunk of MPs are confused about what's happening. Anyway, the central delusion of Brexit is that the British public vote to have a foreign sovereign government give them something. Technically they voted for the British government to leave the EU, but what they really voted for is to have the EU give them an unbelievably awesome deal that screws over the EU. That is not going to happen, so now we're witnessing this mass political delusion crash into reality.

Kurtz79 8y ago

A few weeks ago I was in Basel, Switzerland, which is uniquely positioned at the cross of the Swiss, German and French borders. There are suburbs of the city that are in German and French territory: Basel trams and buses will get to either side, with no notice you are crossing a national border. You can cross the Rhine from Weil am Rhein (Germany) to Huningue (France) through a footbridge, with the only thing marking the cross being a German and French flags side by side, on the French side of the river. https://en.radreisen.at/data/thumbs/_data_pic_Frankreich_Region_Basel_Sternfahrt_Huningue_WeilamRhein_2_jpg.1539077909.800x600x75.crop.jpg https://en.radreisen.at/data/thumbs/_data_pic_Frankreich_Reg... No border, no checks, even normal police nowhere to be seen. 75 years ago (and pretty much over the course of their history) these two countries were at bitter war between themselves. I cannot fathom why people would do anything that could cause returning to those times a possibility. As flawed the EU is, it has been instrumental in ensuring decades of peace. The (partial but undoubtful) loss of sovereignity for individual members should be considered a fair price to pay. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Chris2048 8y ago
> I cannot fathom why people would do anything that could cause returning to those times a possibility What has Brexit got to do with that?
- dTal 8y ago
  Brexiteers frequently position it as the first domino in a cascade that will destroy the entire EU, and assert that this is a good thing.
  - Chris2048 8y ago
    To the extent that the failure of the EU leads to war?
- binarymax 8y ago
  It is not far fetched to imagine a situation where a hard Brexit results in extreme languish of imported food and staple goods into the UK. Austerity was hard enough on the poor - Imagine if food prices doubled or tripled due to tariffs and currency devaluation. Not to mention the land border in Ireland returning to skirmish with patrols and violence.