In the legacy media, perhaps the most serious and comprehensive rebuttal of the "fax democracy" meme comes in the Booker column this week. But then, if it was going to happen, this always was the place it was going to be.

Thus does Booker's sub-head state, "Britain might exercise more influence over the European single market outside the EU than in it", building on the work in this blog, in Autonomous Mind, Witterings from Witney and Boiling Frog.

Echoing our thoughts, Booker says that it's possibly just as well that David Cameron had to postpone that most-trailed speech in history, on Britain's place in "Europe". It might just have given him time to get rather better briefed on what he proposes to say than the advance leaks of his speech have suggested.

View full article here

The trouble is that the political elites are doing the equivalent of this guy ...

http://www.pcmag.com/art...e2/0,2817,2414357,00.asp

It is very convenient for them to have Brussels do all the heavy lifting, saving them from having to work for their pay.

RAENorth said:-

Question, Who would actually 'invoke Article 50' ?
Would it be the 'Prime Minister' or would it have to be the 'Government' or would it need a whole raft of ministers & bureaucrats who one day state that "Article 50 is hereby invoked".
I am just curious as to the mechanism involved.

Thanks.

They have plugged this fax democracy meme hard because it is a good sound bite and will be remembered and believed by many who are uncommitted or soft voters who will flock to their side. But there lies their mistake, they should have kept this sound bite for the closing days of a referendum, instead they have pushed it out much too early. It is their battleship at the very heart of their campaign We have a number of years to plug away educating the public and hacks that what they have been told is the opposite from the truth, and when the meme sinks their cause will lose a lot of buoyancy.

Of course the debunking of the fax democracy meme started here. (I have seen this so many times)

I think it would be done under Royal Prerogative, by the prime minister.

I did not know that faxes were still used these days. While we are busy informing ourselves with the new media, perhaps the great and the good just have not heard. Why not send them a fax, and the debate would be won!

Richard, I was googling about Article 50, particularly to find out why it had been added to the Lisbon Treaty, since I believe it was not included in the Treaty version that France and The Netherlands voted against. I'm sure I read somewhere that if such an Article was not included this could nullify the Treaty. I can't find where I read that and consequently, I'm not sure it's a correct understanding; particularly since I came across this from the politics.ie website and written in 2008 :

"Article 56(1) of the Vienna Convention on the Law on Treaties states:

Article 56(1) of the Vienna Convention on the Law on Treaties (applies now under Nice)
1. A treaty which contains no provision regarding its termination and which does not provide for denunciation or withdrawal is not subject to denunciation or withdrawal unless:

a) it is established that the parties intended to admit the possibility of denunciation or withdrawal; or
b) a right of denunciation or withdrawal may be implied by the nature of the treaty.

A leading text on the law of treaties says ‘the constituent instrument of an international organisation…almost certainly falls within paragraph (b)’. In other words a signatory state is free to leave an international organization even if the treaty setting up that organisation has no specific provision on withdrawal. What Lisbon does do (in Article 50 TEU) is include such a specific provision on withdrawal. because of that Article 54 of the Vienna Convention on the Law on Treaties would apply should Lisbon come into force. It states:

Article 54 of the Vienna Convention on the Law on Treaties (would apply under Lisbon)
The termination of a treaty or the withdrawal of a party may take place:

(a) in conformity with the provisions of the treaty; or
(b) at any time by consent of all the parties after consultation with the other contracting States.

So the change in Lisbon on withdrawal is not to grant a right of withdrawal but to set out (in Article 50 TEU) the procedure to be followed should any state want to leave at some point in the future, for reasons yet unseen. The question then arises as to whether this procedure is more onerous than that implied by Article 56(1) of the Vienna law of treaties quoted above that allows it to leave unilaterally today. I would suggest Lisbon would make the situation slightly worse for the withdrawing state in that it sets out a two-year negotiating period during which the member-state will be excluded from the EU Councils on decisions concerning its withdrawal and is obliged to follow all the EU rules for two years after which it could do what it can do today without waiting two years; walk away.

The claims of EU supporters that EU-skeptics should vote for Lisbon on the grounds that they are locked into the EU now without Lisbon is false.

No doubt you and Mr Booker know this, but I didn't, hence my reproduction of it here. My understanding, therefore, is that we can always exit an international treaty no matter what the treaty actually says.
In that respect, I think it supports your ( including WfW, TBF, AM et al) assertion that the task is to define the process for withdrawal and not whether we can or cannot, should or should not withdraw.

Anyone voicing an opinion has to have the ability to stand on his ( her ) own two feet, ( figuratively speaking ) Cameron always displays himself with his body as leaning on something !!!! As he instructs his sheep in the commons , always needs support for his body, "any-body" in this situation needs the attention of a mind mechanic, either the body is not working, or that what controls it is uneducated, who, payed the millions to have this freak of nature elected ? Not the man down the pub, who has been effected most by his uneducated ramblings !!!

John on Cheshire.

The two years is not set in stone. It can be shorter, (or longer by mutual consent),

Just dropping out under art 56 would lead to similar circumstances as the repeal of the ECA.

We'd be out in the cold with no trade agreements in place.

Apologies for O/T
Amazing pictures of global warming in Russia;
http://rt.com/news/winter-snow-russia-weather-275/