27/01/2017
In response to the referendum held on 23 June 2016, the Prime Minister on 2 October 2016 the Prime Minister
announced that the Government would commence the formal process of leaving the European Union before the end of March 2017, thereby formally signalling that the United Kingdom had decided to withdraw from the European Union.
That decision has not been challenged and no-one has questioned whether the Prime Minister â with or without Cabinet approval â has the right to make that decision.
This then kicks in the Article 50(2) of the
Treaty of the European Union, which states: "a Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention". This is a legal obligation, imposed on the UK Government by virtue of Section 2 of the
European Communities Act 1972. Subsection 1, which states:
All such rights, powers, liabilities, obligations and restrictions from time to time created or arising by or under the Treaties, and all such remedies and procedures from time to time provided for by or under the Treaties, as in accordance with the Treaties are without further enactment to be given legal effect or used in the United Kingdom shall be recognised and available in law, and be enforced, allowed and followed accordingly.
In accordance with the ECA 1972, therefore, the United Kingdom Government, having decided to withdraw of the EU, is obliged to take note of Article 50(2) TEU, and notify the European Council of its intention.
And there the matter should have rested, but for a number of activists, a series of misguided court cases and a wholly inadequate Supreme Court which managed to misdirect itself and deliver a
fatuous judgement that managed completely to miss the point.
In response, the Government has produced the
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill, the substantive part of which runs to two lines (23 words), declaring: "The Prime Minister may notify, under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, the United Kingdom's intention to withdraw from the EU".
Given the amount spent on legal fees and court expenses, that must work out at several million pounds per word, all so Parliament can "permit" the Prime Minister to do something she is already legally obliged to do.
And now we have
Helen Goodman MP complain that Government showing contempt for Parliament in offering only three days for the committee stage of the Bill. That's fine for Government, but how do we â the ordinary people â show contempt for Parliament and, as
Pete ponders, is it deserving of anything else?
At least, though, no one of any significance is suggesting that Article 50 is not the operative instrument. But, from
there to
here, via
here, it's been a long, long journey.
Even then, in May 2013, Booker
writing that "the solution to this EU mess lies in Article 50", I was being called a "useful idiot". It was then being argued that:
The Gordian knot of Article 50 can be cut simply by passing an Act of Parliament repealing all the treaties that refer to the EU from the Treaty of Rome onwards. No major UK party could object to this because all three have, at one time or another, declared that Parliament remains supreme and can repudiate anything the EU does if it so chooses.
Mr Davis, the previous year, in November 2012,
was telling us that his preference was "that we should remain within the Customs Union of the EU".
But if the EU did not want to do that, the other options, he said, "are pretty attractive too. The Swiss free trade area approach would allow us to negotiate advantageous trade deals with non-EU countries. It is this sort of option that offers Britain the 'European Hong Kong' strategy. So UK negotiators would have the luxury of negotiating for one of several options, all better than our current status".
At the time, Mr Davis was actually arguing for two referendums: a "Mandate referendum" to give a Conservative Prime Minister a mandate "to get as close as possible to the trading alliance, the common market we all voted for in 1975".
If passed, voters would have made it clear that they want to leave the EU as it presently stands. Next, if the people had voted "yes", there would be a renegotiation with the aim of getting as close as possible to that trading alliance. And finally, he said, there would be a second referendum â a "Decision Referendum" â which would give voters the option of accepting the renegotiation terms.
At least we have moved on from there â but not that much. We still lack clarity and direction, while Mr Davis, more then four years on, is now Secretary of State for Brexit. And what he's offering now isn't much better than we was suggesting then.
Meanwhile, we have this Parliamentary farce to endure.
