Brexit Bulletin: Delaying Tactics

Brexit is officially three days away.

(Bloomberg) --

Today in Brexit: European Union leaders finalize plans for a delay with the U.K. Parliament set to vote against Boris Johnson’s election plans.

What’s happening? France may have put up a fight on Friday, but President Emmanuel Macron now seems to be falling into line. The French have abandoned their hardline position, and will back an extension to Jan. 31.

According to a draft proposal under consideration by EU envoys today, Brexit would be postponed past this week’s looming deadline because the U.K. has not yet ratified a withdrawal agreement with the bloc. That would remove the prospect of an abrupt no-deal exit on Thursday, Oct. 31. 

The new deadline would be Jan. 31, in line with the formal request made by Prime Minister Johnson after Parliament blocked his attempt to pass the withdrawal deal nine days ago. In an effort to encourage a speedy ratification, Brexit could happen earlier, on Nov. 31 or Dec. 31, if the U.K. and EU both back the divorce deal ahead of time. 

Meanwhile, Johnson is still seeking a general election. The prime minister will ask lawmakers today to approve his plan for a Dec. 12 poll. That’s likely to be voted down without opposition Labour support. However, in another unexpected twist, anti-Brexit allies — the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Nationalists — proposed at the weekend to back a slightly earlier election on Dec. 9.

Johnson’s government said on Sunday it would consider “all options” to trigger an election. The pro-Johnson Daily Telegraph interpreted that as meaning the plan is likely to be the government’s Plan B in the event that lawmakers reject Monday’s motion.

Today’s Must-Reads

• ICYMI: Still worth reading this morning is a look by Bloomberg’s Ian Wishart at Johnson and Macron, the odd couple who both want to get Brexit done. Meanwhile, Bloomberg Opinion’s Lionel Laurent thinks Macron is right about Brexit.
• We really do need the next election to be about Brexit, U.K. polling expert John Curtice writes in the Times today.
• Johnson’s inflammatory language appears to have provoked an increase in abusive messages to lawmakers on Twitter, according to a Financial Times analysis.

Brexit in Brief

The B-Word | Earnings season and Brexit are making for a lively combination, with concerns over the divorce cropping up in a series of quarterly corporate statements. Bloomberg’s Ivan Edwards and Joe Easton have a rundown of what U.K. companies are saying about Brexit.

Still DUP | Democratic Unionist Party Leader Arlene Foster kept up her opposition to Johnson’s Brexit deal — which would set up a regulatory border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland —  and warned the U.K. leader that her party would continue to oppose the accord in Parliament.

Pound Struggles | With an extension looming, but no clear sign of how Brexit will be resolved, the pound is stuck in no-man’s land, with traders struggling to act on headlines and hypothetical scenarios. Sterling lost about 1.1% against the dollar last week after a rally of more than 5.6% the three previous weeks. It traded at $1.2825 early on Monday.

Euro Bears | Meanwhile, the euro’s prospects are hardly bright. It has fallen more than 3% so far this year and the top forecaster in Bloomberg surveys predicts it will slide as much again to $1.07 by the end of 2019, with German economic woes set to outweigh any good news on the Brexit front.

Divergence | The U.K. government plans to distance itself from EU standards on workers’ rights and regulation after Brexit, according to an official paper leaked to the Financial Times. The report of the plan emerged days after Johnson pledged to maintain a “level playing field” with the EU.  Conservative Party Chairman James Cleverly told the BBC on Sunday that “divergence doesn’t mean lessening.”

People’s Vote Leave | Two key figures within People’s Vote, the campaign organization pushing for a new Brexit referendum, have been forced out amid signs of an internal power struggle, the Guardian reports. Director James McGrory and communications chief Tom Baldwin were told to leave on Sunday, the paper says, citing an email from Roland Rudd, chair of Open Europe, the largest group within People’s Vote.

Want to keep up with Brexit?

You can follow us @Brexit on Twitter, and listen to Bloomberg Westminster every weekday.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chris Kay at ckay5@bloomberg.net, Leila Taha

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.