5 Ways to Stop BREXIT in its Tracks – Corpus VEC Institutes | Virtual Ethical Careers Corpus

Can the path toward BREXIT set in motion last Friday be REVERSED?

It is a question that many chagrined Britons and global market participants are pondering intensely some 72 hours after the outcome of an unprecedented referendum threatened to cleave the U.K. from the rest of the European Union after 40 years of membership.

The so-called Brexit, or British exit from the EU, marks uncharted territory for Britain and Europe. No country has left the EU since its inception as MarketWatch’s London bureau chief, Karen Friar explains. Quitting the EU centers on Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which sets forth a murky blueprint for giving up membership in the bloc. “Any member state may decide to withdraw from the union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements,” the provision begins.

But there are a few manoeuvers that could possibly result in Britain remaining a part of the EU, especially since June 23’s referendum isn’t legally binding. That means that the British government isn’t obligated to follow through by ditching its EU membership.

To be sure, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday said he planned on honoring the nearly 52% majority for Brexit in the referendum. He also reiterated that he planned on resigning to allow new leadership to take the next steps after his efforts to campaign for a “stay” vote failed.

“The decision must be accepted and the process of implementing the decision in the best way possible must now begin,” Cameron told the House of Commons ahead of ahead of a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels on Tuesday.

But it isn’t a lead-pipe cinch. The march toward Brexit could be reversed or diluted, experts say. Click ahead for five possible scenarios.

 

UK Parliament NOT Activating Article 50

 The U.K. parliament could opt not to activate Article 50. That would mean that the government wouldn’t notify the EU of its intent to withdraw. This is an unlikely scenario:

“Politically speaking, in a referendum where so many people have voted and there is a clear majority, it would be next to unthinkable that the parliament would go against the will of the people,” Nikos Skoutaris, lecturer in European Union law at the University of East Anglia told MarketWatch.

Once Article 50 is put into motion, the U.K. and EU will be on a two-year timetable, unless an extension is approved, for completing the severing of membership. A separate and parallel discussion could take place to renegotiate trade terms between the EU and the U.K., Kenneth Armstrong, professor of law at the University of Cambridge, told MarketWatch. Hammering out fresh trade terms could take several years.

Scottish Veto

This is seen as an even more unlikely outcome. But Scotland First Minister Nicola Sturgeon argues that the Scotland Act 1998 gives the country’s semiautonomous parliament the authority to reject the U.K. vote (Scottish voters solidly favored remaining in the EU). Experts point out that this is an interpretation of the act and that as a sovereign nation, the U.K. should be able to do whatever it wants, including moving forward with Brexit, said Skoutaris.

“The Scottish Parliament can make things difficult, but legally it can’t block Brexit,” said Featherstone.

 

Economic Shock leads to BREXIT Rethink

A complete economic shock that plays into the narrative espoused by the “remain” camp could potentially set in stage a process that would derail the move toward Brexit.

In this case, the vox populi could compel the government to rethink Brexit on the grounds that it could lead to a long-term destabilization of the U.K. economy. Worries about Britain’s economy are certainly in focus. On Monday, ratings firm Standard & Poor’s Global Ratingsstripped the U.K. of its pristine AAA credit rating, citing “less predictable, stable, effective policy framework.” And the British pound  continued to free fall, tumbling to a 31-year low below $1.32 on Monday.

 

Brexit-lite

Partial or associate membership.

The U.K. could strike a fresh deal with the EU that could reframe its relationship with Europe’s trading bloc. Skoutaris says that this could look very similar to the reshaped relationships between the EU and Norway and Iceland. As an article in The Telegraph noted, the so-called Norwegian model “would fulfill many key Leave demands. Britain would be free of Brussels bureaucracy, and free from the stifling effects of the EU’s Common Fisheries and Agricultural Policies. We would remain a participant in the single market, without any of the trappings of political union.” By all practical purposes, this is still a Brexit.

 

A Second Referendum

This is a variation on the previous scenario.

The Financial Times’s Gideon Rachman makes the case that the EU could make concessions to keep the U.K. in the EU warranting a second referendum. He draws parallels to referendums by Denmark, which voted to reject the Maastricht Treaty in the early 1990s and Ireland, which voted to reject the Nice treaty in 2001. Rachman also argues that one of the “leave” camp’s most prominent personalities, Boris Johnson, has been campaigning for an exit as gambit toward grabbing the PM seat and may change his tune once he’s won it.

A petition for a new referendum already has received millions of signatures, but at this point might be futile. That could change if the matter becomes more hotly debated. The U.K. government is in disarray with Cameron’s resignation leaving the Conservative Party rudderless and the Labour Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn facing outright insurrection.

Whatever, the outcome the markets likely are in store for a long and volatile slog. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has dropped nearly 900 points over the past two trading sessions and the S&P 500 index barely closed above 2,000, as the implications of Brexit continued to wreak havoc.

“This is one of the biggest shocks of my life to see that there is a Brexit,” said Skoutaris, who hails from Greece.