Northern Ireland and the European Parliament elections are straitjackets on Brexit

By George ILIEV
Brexit Metaphor No 158 

Boris Johnson once said that the EU had put a suicide vest on Britain and was holding the detonator. This is definitely not the case but his metaphor got quite some traction in the media.

Ironically, the UK itself has put two straightjackets on the Brexit process: one geographical, one temporal.

1. The status of Northern Ireland and the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland are the geographical straitjacket on Brexit. It pretty much ties Britain into some form of Customs Union with the EU and attaches Northern Ireland to the regulatory regime of the EU Single Market (except in a no-deal Brexit).

2. The European Parliament elections on May 23-26 are the time-limiting straitjacket on Brexit: the date of Brexit could have been postponed multiple times if there were no EP elections coming up in May. The EU maintains that every state has to hold elections for MEPs, which would be anathema to Brexiting Britain. Hence May 22 becomes the natural cutoff date for Brexit to take place.

This does not leave Britain too many options for Brexit: the country can either turn into a political and economic "couch potato" (an inactive participant) with a no-deal Brexit; or it can vote through Theresa May's Withdrawal Agreement and be a "straitjacket potato".

Straitjacket (Source: Wikipedia)

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Notes:
1. Timeline: This article is part of a series of original #BrexitMetaphors published daily. A total of 158 have been posted so far and three more Brexit Metaphors will be published until the originally planned Brexit date of March 29, 2019.
2. Disclosure: The author has a master's degree in European Integration. He also thinks he knows a bit about business, economics, entrepreneurship, China, history, geography, nature, science and Rubik Cubes.
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