The “national unity” government idea continues to hog breathing space in Westminster gossip columns. Funny, I was the one talking about it years ago as a possibility when no one thought it could ever be a thing; now I really don’t see it happening. It’s too big a leap for too many MPs to take simultaneously. One can just about imagine 30 or even 40 Tory MPs willing to jump ship, at least temporarily, to stop no deal from happening; for this to happen at the same time as the vast majority of the PLP decide to do the same thing is just too wacky.
The alternative being discussed is MPs, via the speaker’s aid, seizing control of the business of the House to force Johnson to request an extension of the Article 50 period. The problem with this, like so many things Brexit flavoured, is that it is incredibly convoluted. Think about it: the House of Commons forces an unwilling PM to extend Article 50, something he actually has to negotiate with the EU to achieve? The EU will want some idea of what an extension will achieve, other than staving off the inevitable once more. Johnson just has to say that nothing will change and that he in fact doesn’t really want an extension at all. It is a poor way to try and put off no deal Brexit.
And that’s the crux of where we are: you either need to create a new government out of the existing House of Commons in order to seek an extension of Article 50 or you try and force Johnson to do something he doesn’t wish to, and that he still has the power to wriggle out of. There is one other possibility, however, and it is disarming in its simplicity.
The MPs can take control of the business of the House of Commons in order to make revocation of Article 50 take place. It could be something like, a law that says the UK must revoke Article 50 prior to 11 PM on October 30th if no Brexit Withdrawal Agreement has been passed by the House of Commons prior to that moment. Revocation is easy since it does not require the EU to agree on anything – the ability to revoke is solely within the UK’s power.
Despite what many MPs will say in public at this exact moment, this is way more likely to happen than any pundits are saying. This is because it may well come down to revocation as the only way to stop a no deal Brexit from taking place and if this were so, there may just about be the numbers for it. I can’t say that for sure, but when it’s the only game left in town I can imagine a lot of EEA types suddenly jumping on it.
The aftermath of such an event would probably be incredibly messy. But then again, it might be less horrid than many expect, at least if you aren’t a member of the Conservative party. As Boris Johnson rightly said, a lot of people are sick of this topic. I think if Article 50 was revoked, a lot of people would be happy to get on with their lives and stopping having to read about things like medicine shortages.
I’m not saying revocation of Article 50 will happen – just that the logic of it happening might make it unavoidable.
Revocation is easy since it does not require the EU to agree on anything – the ability to revoke is solely within the UK’s power
Well, ish. Didn’t the ECJ case make clear that a unilateral revocation of Article 50 was only possible if it was unconditional, in good faith, and and not a negotiating ploy to get more time or better conditions?
[As decided unilaterally, and unappealably, by the ECJ itself, presumably, in another stunningly arrogant display of judicial power-grabbing of the type that would have people up in arms if it wasn’t just what we’d come to expect form the EU and so another reason why we’re right to be leaving.]
So if we take that at face value, then in order for the unilateral revocation to be accepted, the ECJ has to be convinced that it’s permanent, and that Johnson won’t either just immediately bring in another bill to re-invoke it (could he get that through the present commons? maybe), or have a general election which could return a Parliament which will, again, just immediately re-invoke Article 50.
I don’t think in the present febrile situation anyone can guarantee that neither of those things could happen. Therefore the ECJ, by its own rules, can’t accept the unilateral revocation and it would have to go to a vote of the council (where the memebrs could try to demand concessions from the UK in return for accepting it, and at the very least will want to be reassured that this is the end of the matter for the foreseeable future — a reassurance Boris, if he’s still PM, will presumably not give).
Of course the ECJ can and will just totally ignore its own rules when it suits the European Project, and just decide in the face of all the evidence that the UK is serious about wanting to Remain now.. But then what happens if Article 50 is re-invoked in short order? Does the 2-year clock start again? Will Macron, for instance, put up with that — with the prospect of the UK invoking Article 50 every two or three years, only to withdraw it at the last moment and then re-invoke it again? Or will the acceptance of the unilateral recovation be suddenly rendered invalid, meaning we’re in an instant no-deal situation and possibly had been, without realising it, for months?
It seems to me like the ‘unilateral revocation’ route must — for everyone’s sanity — only be available if there is a clear indication that the electorate of the UK has firmly decided that voting Leave was a mistake, and that they are content ot Remain. That doesn’t seem to be the case at the moment.
M –
“Didn’t the ECJ case make clear that a unilateral revocation of Article 50 was only possible if it was unconditional, in good faith, and and not a negotiating ploy to get more time or better conditions?”
The ECJ did indeed make that clear.
Revocation of Article 50 would be a definitive act (in so far as anything can be definitive in politics long term).
It would also be a defining signal to a large portion of the UK electorate as to what exactly the political establishment thought of them and their concerns.
My wish a hard brexit
Let the experiment in self harm begin
If it goes tits up
Consequences for the party that brought this will be terminal
There is no room for the conservative and dis union party
For a while now I have been hoping for us to leave with no deal, just so that those who have been predicting mediciine shortages, food riots, aeroplanes grounded, plagues of frogs, the third part of the sea turning to blood, etc, have to eat their words when those things don’t happen.
The transient minor disruptions that do occur will seem trivial compared to what was promised, and will be well worth it for the egg on faces.
Close reading of the ECJ judgement reveals that there is no specific ruling on a subsequent Article 50 submission, given that it would be a discrete new procedure, and the Court would not be able to bind a member state for all time to the details of the current judgement. We are in a hopeless stalemate, a hostage to Johnson’s scheming and the vagaries of the EU’s internal politics. We need time to reset and re-think the whole issue, free from the tyranny of May’s catastrophic deadline. Forget the sticking plaster of stopping No Deal, only revocation will free us from the arcane procedural machinations and reductive compromises, and begin to open doors instead of closing them.
We need time to reset and re-think the whole issue, free from the tyranny of May’s catastrophic deadline
No, we need to finish the process and actually leave the EU. We are basically stuck in a permanent holding pattern because because (some of) the Remain side of the referendum have never accepted losing, and have adopted a strategy of trying to delay, delay, delay until they can claim that the referendum mandate has expired.
We can’t ‘re-set and rethink’ because that will just draw out the agony longer and longer without actually getting us any closer to a resolution. We will not be able to progress until one side or the other — Leave or Remain — admits that they are not going to get what they want, and stops trying to get their way.
And it must be Remain that surrenders because Leave won the vote.
Close reading of the ECJ judgement reveals that there is no specific ruling on a subsequent Article 50 submission, given that it would be a discrete new procedure
The judgement assumes, I think, that any revocation would be due to a country conclusively changing its mind; not due to the Remain side gaining a temporary advantage in an ongoing political struggle.
Fortunately, the fate of our country will not depend on what the mysterious ‘M’ thinks – far from ‘a temporary advantage in an ongoing political struggle’ any subsequent test of the will of the people is likely to unmask Brexit as a temporary aberration, narrowly squeezed through on a false prospectus by a fading clique of hard-line ideologues.
All very well and good M. But suppose you are wrong? Even if it’s only half as bad as predicted? Then who will have egg on face? Er, well it will be you and your Brexit friends.
And suppose it actually goes even better than I think, and in a few years the supercharged low-regulation UK economy is sucking up massive investment and powering away from an EU that’s in recession, still mired in permanent currency crisis and plagued by insoluable youth unemployment?
We can trade ‘what ifs’ back and forth all day. I don’t think it’s going to be anywhere near a fraction as bad as predicted. Yes, there will be temporary disruptions while things like transport routes adjust. But the whole point of a capitalist, free-market economy is that as long as there’s money to be made, people will find a way around any obstacle. It’s not in the interests of the people who are actually getting things done, the people who run the ports and airports, the producers and consumers, the airlines and the haulage companies, for things to grind to a halt. So even if that’s what the politicians and beaurocrats of the EU want to happen, even if they try their hardest to cut off their nose to spite their face, the people on the ground, the people with most to lose, will subvert it.
And people have had a lot of time to prepare, so it’s not like this is a sudden unexpected catastrophe.
It’ll be fine. Seriously. It will.
Transient minor disruptions
He must be a hedge funder
He must be a hedge funder
It’s true. There’s not a hedge in all the suburbs that I don’t have some shares in. Privet, leylandii, even holly, I back them all.
Yeah it will be fine for you
In the suburbs
I’m alright jack
I’d rather jack, than Fleetwood Mac.
Who still believes that 31st October is the decisive date ? As far as the “will of the people”, which is a fickle thing; the longer that Brexit never happens the less reliable is the mandate in any case. The real problem at the moment is there is no agreement between an orderly brexit and a disorderly one. All very well for Daily Express readers to say ” get on with it”, but until the means of exit is decided and whilst over half of the conservative party are hopelessly undecided between the two – there will never be any progress. The above article does not deal with the elephant in the room – there should be a second referendum to give a mandate for a no deal brexit or stay in. There will never be an orderly brexit – 3 years has shown us that.