Welcome to British Isles Friday! British Isles Friday is a weekly event for sharing all things British and Irish - reviews, photos, opinions, trip reports, guides, links, resources, personal stories, interviews, and research posts. Join us each Friday to link your British and Irish themed content and to see what others have to share. The link list is at the bottom of this post. Pour a cup of tea or lift a pint and join our link party!
Last week, I reviewed the 2019 film Blinded by the Light. Tina reviewed the novel The Missing Years by Lexie Elliott and replicated a roast chicken dinner from the book. Jean shared thoughts on three books that she's read recently.
As you probably heard, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservative Party won a sizable majority of seats in the Parliament during the General Election on December 12.
They won using the slogan "Get Brexit Done." This was an appealing message to Leave voters, of course. Apparently, it played well with Remain voters, too. Many Remainers are now convinced that continued uncertainty is worse than whatever will happen with Brexit.
Johnson's Brexit Deal passed the first hurdles in Parliament last week and is expected to make it through the committee process and the House of Lords with little change.
It looks like the UK will leave the EU on January 31st. This will begin an 11-month transition period. So, not much changes on February 1st, but the structures will be created so that the UK will operate independently by January 1, 2021.
There are still many open questions:
- What are the implications for Ireland? The details are still fuzzy about how trade and migration will work. Johnson seems to have made incompatible claims about no border on the island of Ireland and no border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
- Will Scotland leave the UK? The Scottish National Party did very well in the December 12 election. They have 80% of the Members of Parliament who represent Scottish constituencies. However, while they got the plurality of the vote, the SNP was supported by less than half of Scottish voters. So, it's still fairly likely that a new Scottish referendum for Independence would be voted down just like the one in 2014.
- How fast can the UK come up with all the laws, structures, and systems that they will need to operate independently of the European Union? How much controversy will surround the decisions that are made?
- What, if any, impact will all this upheaval have on the British economy?
What will you be watching for as the UK unwinds itself from the EU in 2020?
About Joy Weese Moll
a librarian writing about books
