No-Deal Brexit Is the Monster That Never Dies
Despite all the emergency plans, no one is truly prepared for a messy U.K. departure, whether they’re in Westminster, Brussels, Dublin or the City.
Britain, Europe, Ireland, the banking industry. They've all had a stab at planning for a no-deal Brexit. None of it is enough.
Photographer: DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFPModerate British lawmakers are hoping they can kill the threat of a no-deal Brexit in a parliamentary vote this week. But the prospect of the U.K. crashing out of the EU without an agreement on March 29th is like the monster that never dies: Bookmakers still rate the chances of this unhappy outcome at close to 40 percent.
Officials in Brussels have certainly become more gloomy about “no deal.” Prime Minister Theresa May has no new sweetener from the EU to hand to her divided Conservative Party, nor to Parliament as a whole. Many lawmakers are hoping for a long extension of the departure negotiations, but that would almost certainly spell the end for May’s time in office. As such, it’s hardly surprising that she’s sticking to her “running down the clock” approach, which would end up with Parliament being offered the choice of either supporting some version of her withdrawal deal or letting a hard break happen at the end of March.