So, what has happened in the three months since we voted to leave the European Union?
In the EU itself Guy Verhofstadt MEP and former Prime Minister of Belgium has been appointed to negotiate the terms of Brexit on behalf of the EU. And indeed, Verhofstadt has already stated that if the UK wants to retain access to the Single Market, the UK “must accept the free movement of citizens” and this is not what the Brexiteers voted for.
Meanwhile, what has happened in the UK? David ‘I-can’t-believe-you-did-this-to-me’ Cameron has been replaced by Theresa May who sat on the fence until the vote was in. She then appointed David Davis MP as Secretary of State for Brexit and since then she has been trying to shake-up Whitehall civil servants who had been prevented by Cameron from preparing plans in advance for a possible EU exit. So far, so good. But recently during Prime Minister’s Question Time she stated: “We will not take decisions until we are ready. We will not reveal our hand until we are ready, and we will not provide a running commentary on every twist and turn of negotiations.”
So, should we accept the PM’s assurances that it’s all work in progress or should we take this lack of information to mean nothing is actually happening?
There are a few worrying signs.
Firstly, the House of Lords has demanded that the Commons votes to trigger Article 50 and have a final say in approving the Brexit terms. Lord Laing has suggested that the Lords could mount enough support to vote against Brexit altogether. Davis has slapped this down saying: “It is not for Parliament to gainsay the view of the British people … A proposal that could put Parliament in opposition to the people over something as this is an extraordinary one.”
Secondly, the PM wants time to prepare the Government’s plans for these negotiations, which is fair enough since they had not even been begun before the Referendum, but Theresa May seems to be delaying this triggering of Article 50. First it was to be early in 2017 but there are now rumours that it may not be triggered until 2019.
So, what is Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty?
The Treaty on European Union (TEU) signed in Lisbon in 2007 specifically has Article 50 which lays out just how Member States could leave the Union. This Article can be summarised into six main points:
1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with is own constitutional requirements.
2. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention.
3. The Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with the withdrawing Member State within two years of the notification.
4. The Treaties shall cease to apply from the date the withdrawal agreement comes into force.
5. If no agreement is reached within two years, the period of negotiation may be extended indefinitely with the unanimous approval of the European Council (and ratification by the European Parliament).
6 Once Article 50 is triggered, the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or in decisions concerning it.
So after invoking Article 50 Britain would have no voting rights and if no agreement was achieved the negotiating period could be extended forever by the EU, which is unlikely to budge on free movement of people or paying large contributions to the EU.
Therefore it is plain that Article 50 is a trap and was introduced as a mechanism to delay or prevent a Member State from ever leaving the EU.
But there is another way for us to leave quickly, to stop paying into the EU and to control our borders.
The Treaty of Rome which established the European Economic Community in 1957 is what was enacted into British law by the European Communities Act (1972) and came into force on 1st January 1973. It is this Act of Parliament that made us members of the European Community (EC) and gave the EU law supremacy over British law. Successive treaties have transferred more and more power from our own Parliament to Brussels.
The European Union now controls most areas of British domestic policy. In order to leave the EU, we have to repeal this Act.
Gerard Batten, in his book ‘The Road to Freedom’, provides a five point plan on how to leave the EU quickly
1. Parliament should repeal the European Communities Act of 1972 which would immediately return law supremacy to our own Parliament and jurisdiction to our own Courts.
2. The repealing Act should specify that all EU Directives which have been transposed into Acts of Parliament and EU Regulations will remain in force until amended or repealed by Parliament. Chaos would therefore not ensue.
3. This would allow us to take immediate action to implement legislation on immigration and border control.
4. A special Parliamentary Committee should be set up to scrutinise the amendment and repeal of thousands upon thousands of Directives, Regulations and Judgments until we are left with only those which suit us and allow us to interact with the EU on our terms.
5. During this time we should have friendly and firm negotiations with the EU over the trade and matters of co-operation which we wish to continue with, such as international crime and terrorism. The big difference over this approach and Article 50 is that Parliament would be put in the driving seat rather than the EU but at the moment it would be nearly impossible to get a majority in Parliament for this plan.
Unfortunately, we have no reason to trust Theresa May. In her six years as Home Secretary she was an enthusiastic enforcer on EU legislation on Justice and Home Affairs matters and also a complete failure at controlling immigration. It can therefore be expected that she will delay the triggering of Article 50 until she can find a way to renege on her promise that ‘Brexit means Brexit’ and if she is able to delay this until after the next General Election, the new Parliament could argue that it has a new mandate to not implement the Referendum decision.
It was UKIP that forced Cameron to offer the Referendum by applying political pressure to take Tory seats at the ballot box, so right now it is necessary to keep up this threat to take seats from all parties in both councils and Parliament. With the anti-semitic, anti-British Labour Party in a shambles and the LibDems with a leader no-one can name, this be done.
UKIP have just elected a new leader, Diane James MEP. The Party knows that
Brexit must mean Brexit, and the battle starts now!
Brexit:
A good article from Lord Tebbit, one of a very few peers deserving of respect:
telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/02/rejoice-for-today-theresa-may-has-started-the-avalanche-which-wi/
Having heavily criticised Sonya Jay Porter’s article I should say I agree that we cannot trust Theresa may to deliver Brexit. The Government is trying to do negotiate a new formal relationship with the EU in parallel with arrangements for withdrawal. It recognises the the requirement in Article 50 to negotiate the latter but is, in my opinion, dangerously and unnecessarily, delaying agreement on withdrawal to accommodate the new formal relationship. This may just be bluff in order to get a good trade deal in two years rather than the customary minimum of seven years with the EU. If it works, bravo to her.
But it is extremely risky. During this period of two and a half years from now, the torrent of EU Directives and regulations will continue, demands for more money will be made and since the treaties continue to apply UK will be bound to accept them. We already know of many such as the Ports Directive, and the Clinical Trials Directive we should reject at the earliest opportunity. A complex new relationship would require agreement by unanimity in the EU, whereas the withdrawal arrangements require only QMV, which gives UK a huge negotiating advantage.
The narrower scope of withdrawal arrangements means they could be negotiated within months. Both the EU and UK could then develop in the ways they wish. UK could re-learn how to govern itself, and exploit the new world horizons opening up to it as a fully sovereign, independent, powerful nation. It would gain a broader perspective from which then to consider a formal relationship with the EU. It may even decide it does not want or need one.
Mrs May’s approach risks committing the UK to a new complex and long term relationship that is not in UK’s interests and based on a vision of UK barely distinguishable from UK’s being a subject member state of this foreign empire.
UK should first become independent, spread its wings, and only then re-visit its neighbour, which by then will have changed quite dramatically – as we hope so too will Britain.
Good points, especially when you consider Deutscher Bank is likely to go belly up and Commerzbank is heading in the same direction.
Can you imagine if Germany leads Europe and the world into another, much greater than the last, financial crisis? It doesn’t bear thinking about, Europe will be ground zero. Given that most EU countries are insolvent, the chaos in Europe will catastrophic.
If Theresa May or anyone else in government had an ounce of sense and cared for our country, they’d get us out of the EU ASAP and then we may just about manage to go down with it.
The EU is going down, let’s run for it.
Sonya Jay Porter cites Gerard Batten’s book ‘The Road to Freedom’, to argue that the European Communities Act 1972 (ECA) should be immediately repealed and that this provides a faster alternative to using Article 50. She is completely wrong about the meaning of Article 50 as I point out in my previous two comments. She is also wrong that immediate repeal of the ECA provides an alternative.
UK is a signatory to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. This means that UK has agreed not to repudiate treaties in this manner. the Convention also goes further at Article 54 by requiring states withdrawing from a treaty to use the provisions within the treaty or to agree an alternative. It should be obvious that unless UK wishes to be regraded as an international pariah, it must use Article 50. Surely I do not need to point out that trying to agree an alternative to Article 50 with the EU really would lead to interminable negotiations, not mention years of subsequent argument in the international Court of Justice.
Sonya Jay Porter makes two seriously misleading statements about Article 50.
“If no agreement is reached within two years, the period of negotiation may be extended indefinitely with the unanimous approval of the European Council (and ratification by the European Parliament).”
This misrepresentation is often used to argue that the EU can keep Britain locked in negotiations and in the EU indefinitely. it cannot. Article 50.3 actually states:
“The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.”
So extending the negotiating period is permitted only with the consent of UK. this means UK has a tremendous advantage. If the EU fails to agree, it gets nothing.
Next SonyaJay Porter writes: “6 Once Article 50 is triggered, the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or in decisions concerning it.
This misrepresentation is often used to argue that the EU can dictate to UK and the the UK is excluded from the negotiations. Neither is true.
Article 50.4 is actually qualified in scope: “For the purposes of paragraphs 2 and 3, , the member of the European Council or of the Council representing the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it.”
This qualification means simply that each side can hold its internal discussions on the negotiations in the absence of the other, which is perfectly normal in any negotiation. It is necessary to include this in Article 50 because para 3, quoted above, states that the treaties continue to apply during the negotiations, which would otherwise entitle UK to sit in on the EU’s internal discussions.
And of course Sony Jay Porter draws precisely the wrong conclusions on Article 50: “So after invoking Article 50 Britain would have no voting rights and if no agreement was achieved the negotiating period could be extended forever by the EU, which is unlikely to budge on free movement of people or paying large contributions to the EU.”
This is wrong not only because she misrepresents Article 50 as I point out in my previous comment but also because she conflates a new formal agreement with the EU and “arrangements for withdrawal”. Future issues like free movement of people are not required to be included in arrangements for withdrawal, which is all that Article 50 requires to be negotiated.
Furthermore with the exception of the discussions in the European Council and the Council of Ministers on the specific matter of UK’s withdrawal, the UK has every right to maintain its representation and voting rights in every EU institution as stated in Article 50.3, which I, unlike Sonya Jay Porter, quoted in full in my previous comment.