Lord Kerr, who wrote Article 50, has said many times that it is revocable. We could get out of Brexit if we wanted. People are resigned to it because they don’t know that we could get out of it. So spread the news far and wide whenever you see it.
He’s reportedly making a speech tomorrow in which he emphasises that point. Vince Cable had this to say:
The author of article 50 revealing that the process can be revoked is a significant development.
There is no longer any refuge for brexiteers who argue that this whole process can’t be revoked.
The possibility of an exit from Brexit is still very much on the cards
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17 Comments
Am I missing something or hasn’t this message been doing the rounds for some time?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38240121
I don’t see what’s new here.
Breaking: gain from UKIP in Fareham!
notification under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty could be revoked “if there is the political will”
Is there any evidence of firstly there being any real and substantive “political will” among the EU27 to accept a UK revocation of Article 50, and secondly is there any evidence that the Brexiteers in the Conservative party would be willing to lose face by revoking our notification.
I ask, as I do get the impression that some, influential in the EU27, would prefer the UK to leave and thereby enable all existing agreements, including all the opt-outs and contribution rebates to be torn-up, knowing that in any new negotiations the UK will be unable to regain such favourable arrangements.
The only momentum for a second referendum will come when the EU changes the rules for freedom of movement to preclude access to benefits etc for the first five years so killing the flow of low skilled, low paid workers.
At Roland
If Lord Kerr is right – and he should know because he wrote it – there is no need for there to be political will on the part of the EU 27 to unilateral revocation of the Article 50 notice by the U.K.
THe political will referred to is British. Keep campaigning people!
Revocation until March 2019 would be unilaterally valid and salvage all current opt-outs and rebates. No EU 27 approval is required.
It would require a lost vote of no confidence, a change in Government, quite likely new elections. This is doable until February 2019.
Another referendum is logistically and politically impossible: the timeline does not allow it, and , even in the unlikely case of the EU 27 unanimously granting an extension, subjecting them to another abject UK-thriller showing the ugliest possible face of Great Britain is no way to rebuild a relationship.
If such referendum were lost again, it would trigger yet again a change in Government and new elections, this time with the “risk” of producing an even more pro-remain HoC in a situation of complete economic freeze. At that time, all ingredients for a failed state would be in place: financial meltdown together with a totally derailed Brexit process, a planless, pancking Executive and forceful separation dynamics in Scotland, NI and Wales. EU re-entry would be blocked for decades by this national demonstration of irresponsibility.
The well-intended idea of the people settling the EU-question cannot justify this risk of total constitutional breakdown.
“If such referendum were lost again”
and
“cannot justify this risk”
Does this mean that the British people are not to be trusted with their own future?
What sort of MPs will they angrily choose when they realise that their decisions are to be overuled by their self appointed ‘betters’?
It looks as if our parliamentary representatives will vote to put the 29th of March 2019 at 11pm, (midnight for Brussels), into law, as :
**** Brindependence Day ****
So just 504 days to go before the UK regains its freedom.
Since the democratic mandate from the people in June 2016, this party has shamelessly, and frankly petulantly, rejected the very ‘contract’ of democracy that bonds and retains a civil society,
Your party has lost its way, and has foolishly abandoned the unspoken obligation, enshrined within the civil contract of democracy, to ‘lose with good grace’.
In the days of reflection, as to how you got it so badly wrong, please have the common decency, at the very least to take ‘Democrats’ from the party name.
Does this mean that the British people are not to be trusted with their own future?
Quite a lot of pro-EU people are becoming more and more open about the fact that the reason they want the UK in the EU is that they don’t think the British people should be allowed to run their own affairs.
@ Dav “Quite a lot of pro-EU people are becoming more and more open about the fact that the reason they want the UK in the EU is that they don’t think the British people should be allowed to run their own affairs.”
May I very gently say with the greatest possible courtesy……………….what a load of b—-cks.
“It looks as if our parliamentary representatives will vote to put the 29th of March 2019 at 11pm,” as the date for leaving the EU. If the Maybot gets her way, that is.
Surely midnight on 31 March would have been a more appropriate time and date for such an act of folly.
I voted remain, however, the vote went the other way. I therefore expect the government to arrange to leave the EU. A Norway deal would meet the terms of the referendum, without creating an economic disaster. Attempting to reverse the decision to leave seems to me to be a recipe for continued UKIP style agitation, so not a good idea.
If we got to to a parliamentary vote between staying in and a disastrous no deal exit, though, staying in for a while longer looks to be a feasible option.
“It looks as if our parliamentary representatives will vote to put the 29th of March 2019 at 11pm, (midnight for Brussels), into law”
Err no, T.May is just making a big fuss over something that was going to happen anyway!
To avoid legal ambiguity the exact date and time of exit would need to be specified in the relevant law – but then as we’ve seen politicians tend to skip over the details, leaving such matters to the courts…
“Surely midnight on 31 March would have been a more appropriate time”
Depends on which time zone you are in. Suspect the UK bill will refer to BST rather than GMT or UTC and hence will generate a degree of ambiguity. At least it is the 29th and not the 31st when the clocks change in Belguim …
Apparently the Maybot is now determined to provide a “smooth and orderly brexit”. How do her chances of achieving that compare with her general election aim of delivering “strong and stable government”?
In the very unlikely event Brexit is stopped, it would very likely be by more votes from outside England. If the tail wags the dog, I look forward to an English State.
Current Lib Dem policy is to seek a further referendum, but as time goes on it might make more sense to trust Parliament to vote, in a binary choice between the deal that’s been negotiated and revoking Article 50.
Three ex-Prime Ministers (Major, Blair and Brown) favour this route to stopping Brexit. In this battle of political heavyweights they are up against Davis, Gove and Johnson. Not really a contest is it? Those who doubt that we will exit Brexit one way or another might like to ponder this mismatch.
Jenny Barnes 10th Nov ’17 – 11:53am:
A Norway deal would meet the terms of the referendum,…
It wouldn’t. We voted to “take back control of our borders, our laws, and our money”. The EU Commission have consistently stated that none of those three can be achieved whilst a member of the EU Internal Market (the ’Single Market’). Both the UK government and Britain Stronger In concurred, making the claimed disadvantages of leaving the Single Market the central plank of the Remain campaign…
‘Brexit vote was about single market, says Cameron adviser’ [November 2016]:
http://www.politico.eu/article/brexit-vote-was-about-single-market-says-cameron-adviser/