At Ashbrooke Law we pride ourselves in straightforward, sensible legal advice, expressed in plain English.
With clients in both Australia and the United Kingdom, we have been watching Brexit particularly carefully, to ensure that we stay across the opportunities and difficulties that the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union may present.
Given our philosophy for straight talking, we were particularly impressed by the response from Donald Tusk, the European Council President, last week as to whether the United Kingdom could have a ‘soft’ exit from the union. A soft exit meaning that it would no longer be a paid up member but could still benefit from its existing trade deals.
In response, as to whether the United Kingdom could still have its cake and eat it so to speak, Mr. Tusk summed up the issue beautifully.
“That was pure illusion, that one can have the EU cake and eat it too. To all who believe in it, I propose a simple experiment. Buy a cake, eat it, and see if it is still there on the plate.”
We tested this approach on Friday afternoon and quelle surprise, no cake left.
If you are an Australian business with interests in the UK, these are going to be very interesting times.