Sunday 6th November

Well, we have had the High Court Decision – that only Parliament can actually empower the Government to trigger Article 50 and give notice to the rest of the EU of our imminent (two years) departure.   And oh the Furore!!!  The very Brexiteers and Newspapers who during the campaign insisted that British Parliament must be Sovereign are now decrying the judgement and insisting that Mrs. May alone has the Power (Royal Perogative) to decide.  And worse, that somehow this is a Betrayal of the wishes of the British Public.  And even worse still – personally attacking and insulting the judges who were asked to decide on points of Law.

As I see it, the judges were perfectly correct; the Referendum was neither legally binding nor Sovereign.  In reality it is inconceivable that Parliament (even the House of Lords) will not agree that the Government can trigger Article 50 (there would surely be a General Election, despite the fixed term Parliament Act, and Mrs. May would win).  But the main responsibility of Parliament is to hold the Government to account, to question them, to try to find some consensus.  We are not (yet) living in a Dictatorship; and the Government must still have the approval of Parliament for its actions.  I agree that it is for the Government to negotiate Treaties, but also it is for Parliament to Ratify them (as happened most recently with Maastricht and Lisbon).  Unfortunately with leaving the EU there will be no opportunity for Parliament to Ratify, or not, the eventual terms of our leaving.  It will be too late by then; there is no mechanism for returning to the table and like Oliver asking for more (or less).  All that Mrs. May has to do is come to Parliament and explain her negotiating position, her starting point if you like; does she want to remain in the Single Market, does she want to continue with the Customs Union, does she want to guarantee the rights of EU residents currently (and in the next two years) residing in the U.K., will she guarantee the existing rights and reciprocal arrangements of UK citizens living in other EU countries, what will happen to the border with Ireland, and so on.  Of course, everyone accepts that during the negotiations not everything will be achievable; but we must have some consensus as to what Brexit will actually mean.

I am sure that this won’t be the end of the story, and in no way will it be betraying the will of the people; all they voted for was to leave the EU, they had no opportunity to say exactly how that would be done and what would or would not replace it – those decisions are for Parliament, or if Mrs. May is really brave and trusts the public so much we could always have a new referendum with multi-choice options to discover just what the public wants…