Supreme Court: Brexit Bill and votes needed
When the High Court originally ruled that Parliament should have a vote before Britain formally notifies the EU that it is leaving, some passionate Remainers danced a jig. Eighty two days later, no-one on the Remain side is dancing much.
I spotted one of the original claimants hugging a fellow litigant as the Supreme Court President read out the judgement. But when I asked the claimants afterwards if they thought the judgement would change anything, they acknowledged the chances of that had reduced.
Talking to pro-Remain Labour and Tory MPs, you hear them say there is now only one real game in town for those wanting to stop what they see as a stampede towards “Hard Brexit” and it is not the Bill that will now be debated in Parliament on Article 50.
Quite a few pro-Remain Labour and Tory MPs say that their hopes now rest on making sure that the vote promised to Parliament towards the end of the negotiations with the EU27 happens early enough to send the Government back with a different negotiating mandate.
That could mean, say, that in the summer of 2018, if there was a slide on pound, lost jobs and poor economic indicators, public opinion might have shifted to a new place. Immigration control might not seem as important relative to economic policy as it does right now, the argument runs. The public might be minded to let their MPs vote to stay, for instance, in the Customs Union. (The plausibility of that whole scenario could rest on whether the two- year deadline of Article 50 is reversible, subject of a separate legal case.)
At the moment the Government is only committed to a vote right at the end of the whole process when the chances of getting the UK Government back into negotiations with a new mandate will be zero. David Davis, in his statement to the Commons, repeatedly refused all invitations to commit to an earlier vote on the deal that’s taken shape. Labour’s Emma Reynolds specifically asked for a timing that worked in tandem with the European Parliament’s ratification debates on the deal. Mr Davis ducked that too.
Sir Edward Leigh, fervent Tory Leave supporter, was one of a number of MPs on the Tory benches who spotted what some on their own side and on the Labour benches were angling for and Sir Edward said the Government should simply force a fresh election if the Commons did try to frustrate the plans outlined by the PM to come out of the Single Market and the Customs Union.
A timetable for the Article 50 Bill will come soon. It looks like there is very little chance of Theresa May missing her deadline for notifying the EU of the UK’s intention to leave. Indeed, the Prime Minister has through intermediaries told at least two EU capitals that she intends to send the notification a few weeks ahead of the deadline.
At one point, David Davis said that the free trade agreement that the UK would negotiate under his team’s leadership would bring the UK “the exact same benefits” that the economy currently gets from full membership of the EU. That’s quite a bold claim and one the critics of Brexit in the Commons would like to test, some time next year, before any deal is set in stone.
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