2020: “EU, EU, (So Bad We’re Leaving Twice)”

The double-bonus for Brexiteers in the first year of the new decade

Make no mistake about it, 2020 will be a monumental year for Brexit

On Monday in just four days’ time, Twelfth Night will have passed, Christmas will be over, and Epiphany starts.

If readers follow Anglican tradition, they will be taking down their Christmas decorations by midnight on Sunday. It will then be time to get serious about the year ahead.

In 2020, we will finally leave the EU – not once but twice

Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary

This coming year should contain the following defining moments:-

11pm on Friday, 31 Jan 2020 - The Withdrawal Treaty will come into force and the United Kingdom will technically no longer be a member of the European Union.
11pm on Tuesday, 30 June 2020 – This is the deadline by which any extension to the Transition Period must be agreed. If this deadline passes with no extension agreed – as Boris Johnson has promised - this leads to the next defining moment.
11pm on Thursday 31 Dec 2020 – The Transition Period will end. The UK will no longer be subject to the full panoply of EU laws, regulations, and directives. The United Kingdom will once again be a free, independent, and sovereign nation.

Note: There are many caveats to the above, and a great many aspects which will require absolute vigilance if the UK is truly to become free of the EU, but now is not the time for these.

The end of the 30-year war

Finally, after a 30-year battle for many patriotic people starting with the lead-up to the Maastricht Treaty at the beginning of the 1990s, the year 2020 will mark the start of Brexit and the end to the forced integration of the British people into an EU superstate.

It was the Maastricht Treaty which established the European Union and created “European citizenship”. It also established a common foreign and security policy and crucially laid the foundations for the creation of the common currency: the Euro.

The British people were given no direct say over this fundamental change in the status of their own country.

A monumental year for the United Kingdom

It is no exaggeration to describe 2020 as an epiphany in the status of the United Kingdom in the World.

As things stand, the UK will exit the EU formally (but not in practical terms) on Friday, 31 Jan 2020. We will then fully exit again on Thursday 31 Dec 2020, when the Transition Period ends.

Until the Transition Period ends, the United Kingdom will be a colony of the EU, condemned to obeying its laws, to taking its people, and to paying its bills. During this time the UK will have no say over anything the EU decrees, and will have no veto over anything.

Nonetheless, Brexiteers can still look forward to and celebrate two epic moments in 2020.

2020: “EU, EU, (So Bad We’re Leaving Twice)”

In this coming year we must be optimistic. Let’s face it, the future looks very bright compared to any of the last 30 years, and in particular to where we all were under the disastrous government of Mrs May only six months ago.

With apologies to the native New Yorker and singer-songwriter Gerard Kenny, and to paraphrase his famous song "New York, New York, (So Good They Named It Twice)", the EU really is so bad that we have to leave it twice.

To put a positive spin on this,
at least we get two great moments to celebrate in this year of 2020

The moment the UK is no longer officially a member of the EU - Friday, 31 Jan 2020
The moment the UK is no longer subject to all EU laws and obligations - Thursday 31 Dec 2020

Observations

Tomorrow we will announce our decision on our own plans for 2020. In short, and after four years of 7-day per week working, team members can no longer afford to subsidise Brexit Facts4EU.Org to the current extent. We are enormously grateful to all members of the public who have made donations – and especially to the handful who made generous donations.

There is still time to influence our impending decision to cut back to a 3-day per week output. If just 500 more readers subscribed to our Brexit Index, for example, this would make a huge difference. For just £5.95 per month for Standard access or £12.95 per month for the Advanced access, you would be donating whilst at the same time getting access to the largest repository of official Brexit facts in the World.

We would hate to scale back now, just when we are in sight of achieving our goal in 2020, so if readers who have not yet contributed could do so, we could see this thing through. Even a one-off donation using one of the quick and secure payment methods below would make a difference.

Thank you all, and our best wishes for 2020 – a monumental year for Brexit.

[ Sources: EU Commission | Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, 02 Jan 2020

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Reader Comments 14

11. James Bertram , Thursday, January 02, 2020, 18:41:

L Jones - In principle, totally agree with what you say.
However, reading John Redwood's Diary, JR has made it clear that he has tried to get his Tory colleagues to leave without signing the WA but they are not up for it [My guess -probably because the Tory party still want BRINO, and not a clean break, as they are still servants of big business and the CBI remainers - and are still quite prepared to waste this vast sum of money even though it would be far more sensible to spend this sum on their newly won Northern constituencies.].
Thus, I've proposed this amendment as a compromise - something not too ambitious that JR and a few of his more principled colleagues might just get through - and, if passed, means we either get a better position in trade negotiations (with the damocles sword of 'no trade deal and the EU gets no money' hanging over the EU); or if not, the EU, not Boris, has to reject the amended WA and take the blame for intransigence.
So this is the art of the possible at this late stage - but, yes, totally agree that it would have been best not to sign this wretched Withdrawal Agreement at all - but JR is clear that this is not going to happen; that it will get signed regardless - so now it is best to change what is signed.

12. L Jones , Thursday, January 02, 2020, 20:00:

Comment 8. Mr Bertram
We are seeing such euphoria and glee from people who genuinely want Brexit so passionately, want all the benefits it ought to bring. They WANT to believe, and that's why it's easy for BJ to take advantage of their optimism. At the moment he can tell them anything, and because they NEED to believe it, they will. He is presenting May's old WA as his own - that's the bottom line. He has never explained why this should be - he must know people know this. Why doesn't he address this accusation publicly? Is he appeasing his EU ''friends''?
If he's not duplicitous, then I'll be abject in my apologies.

13. L Jones , Thursday, January 02, 2020, 20:02:

Mr B - comment 11. Sorry - posted another before I read your kind reply. Thank you.

14. Adam Hiley , Tuesday, January 21, 2020, 21:19:

Britain should of left the EU almost immediately after the Referendum of 2016, the Idiotic Tories could of prevented Theresa May from becoming Prime Minister the Worst in living Memory along with John Major & Gordon Brown Corbyn would of been awful also thankfully the British People rejected Him and McDonnell's mad Socialist World being inflicted on us, We would of faced Years of debt Mass Immigration and remaining in the failed EU project

14 comments, page 2 of 2

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