Brexit: no-deal and the Irish backstop

The road to Rome is paved with gold

What Theresa May said but never meant. Now Boris is saying it and don't know if meant it or not. At least the city bought it given how the pound has sunk today.

But as one reviewer put it:

• if the reason to prepare for no deal is to get EU to offer better terms then it's a good strategy. 
• if it's to be prepared for no deal when the EU doesn't budge, then it's a good strategy....

The referendum was poorly executed - that's without doubt and the reason for liking current approach is Boris gov now actually tells the truth, and not afraid to say it's a bad deal, and challenges the remainers MP to trigger the nuclear option - revoke Article 50.

The referendum had some provision built it such as: 60% to trigger article 50, or if Brexit won immediately hold another referendum to decide the type of Brexit.

The return of of the prodigal son 

Just as well that all parliamentary options are exhausted while May was in charge. There's not much left in the remainers arsenal, which is a good thing. 

Brexit will be bad but the sun will still shine the next day: deal or no-deal. The current deal is anti-democratic because it strips UK of all power yet stuck in the endless backstop trap.

Both sides sold snake oil, sure. You can even blame Russia for sponsoring Brexit campaign or Trump or Italy right wingers. But no point drooling over spilled milk.

Good Friday Agreement

No border or no agreement?

I believe that uk will declare custom/duty free for that border and then it’s up to EU to enforce. This is the ultimate no deal threat that EU probably can’t handle under its massive EU Bureaucracy. 

If you consider the willingness of UK to ease the pain by declaring tariff free trade (which annoyingly wasn't reciprocated by Canada, they just said thank you very much and walked off!), I extrapolate that to the Irish border and whether it's a negotiation strategy/threat is irrelevant. It could work.

I’m interested in the game theory side of this and it’s intriguing how each sides actually expects Brexit to happen.

One journalist phrased it well. Scotland thought Brexit was stupid because Europe is UK’s biggest export market/trading partners. But Scotland want independent from England, who’s their biggest export market/trading partners……. Go figure!

It's not a business decision; it's a political decision. So don't say it's bad for business.

[Update 6th Aug 2019]

Fast forward one week, and legal positions are emerging from the UK regarding possibility of an effective challenge to government's no-deal position and EU's apparent propaganda of no-deal inevitability. If I were the EU, I'd be mad not to trigger a motion in the UK parliament by a symbolic change to the withdrawal agreement to force Boris' hands, possibly swapping Irish backstop with one of May's red lines such as immigration. Or simply rewording a few sentences on the last week of October to force a certain postponement. In fact, they can just offer a postponement with the pretence of a new deal.