Your Up-to-the-Minute Brexit Buzz
Britain’s Brexit saga continues, with UK markets waiting for Boris to hash things out again with the eurocrats and negotiate the non-negotiable. Boris is back, and this time with a “compromise.”
The sticking point so far in talks has been the Irish backstop, a legal agreement to keep the border between the two halves of Ireland open. It’s the only thing everybody actually agrees on. Reigniting a thirty-year-old conflict is a bad idea. Boris still wants passports stamped, but he wants it done away from the actual border. That’s the pitch deck he’s sent to Brussels.
So, is this deal the one? Well, the EU is keeping us in suspense. In any case, the deal would need to clear Parliament, where it’s become Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s job to say “no” to everything! He made a circus of BoJo’s “reckless” plan yesterday in the commons, but no perfect ideas of his own are keeping him on the back foot for any impending election.
If Corbyn can’t get the keys to Number 10, stocks like SSE and National Grid could spike as they become unshackled from his nationalization plans. In the event of a no-deal Brexit, the speculative safe-haven of gold could find itself in season and were there to be a deal, then Britain’s FTSE 100 could jump.
Politicians on both sides are debating on short fuses. There are going to be big winners and big losers from this Brexit era, and the political point-scoring will stay at fever pitch. Some want ‘Ref2’ (a second referendum), some want a general election, and others want to call the whole thing off. All we know for sure is that unless the Europeans are as keen to “get Brexit done” as the British Prime Minister, then he best get on with writing that letter asking for another extension. Markets watch on, popcorn in hand!
