U.K. Court Puts Brexit in Hands of Parliament 

europe-uk

A U.K. court put a hurdle in the country’s route out of the European Union, ruling that Prime Minister Theresa May can’t start the process without approval from Parliament.

The High Court decision offers a potential opening to lawmakers to disrupt her plans and steer the country toward a “soft” exit that maintains stronger ties to the bloc and a more-open immigration policy.

The government said it would appeal the verdict to the Supreme Court, which would hear the case in early December, under a predetermined timetable. If the ruling is upheld, lawmakers would have a chance to pressure Mrs. May to soften her terms in breakup negotiations with the EU. They could delay the process or even halt it.

The ruling introduces new uncertainty in the process on a day when the Bank of England, explaining why a further cut in interest rates looked less likely, said it expected Brexit to weigh less heavily on the economy next year than thought.

Brexit proponents called Thursday’s ruling an attempt to overturn the will of Britons who chose to break away from the bloc in a June referendum. “I think there is now going to be an attempt by our political class to overturn a significant part of the referendum result,” said Nigel Farage, the interim leader of the euroskeptic UK Independence Party. “We voted to leave but our political class will not accept the result.”

Mr. Farage said Britain is heading toward a “half Brexit.”

If the Supreme Court rejects the government’s appeal, Mrs. May could trigger a snap election to seek a bigger parliamentary mandate to carry out Britain’s exit from the EU. She currently has a thin majority of 15 lawmakers.

Mrs. May took office in July with a Conservative Party leadership election after her predecessor, David Cameron, resigned when his “Stay” camp lost the Brexit vote. She has said she wouldn’t call a snap election and her position hasn’t changed, a spokeswoman said Thursday.

Bank of England Gov. Mark Carney—who warned of the impact of a Brexit before the vote—called the court’s judgment an example of the high degree of uncertainty that will surround the U.K.’s exit path. Central-bank policy makers see scenarios under which their key interest rate could either rise or fall, he said.

Since the June vote, markets have remained jittery and some companies have put plans on hold, though prevote forecasts of economic catastrophe have so far proved wide of the mark.

The ruling on Thursday lifted the pound; the currency later extended its gains after the BOE announcement. The U.K’s benchmark FTSE 100 fell 0.23% on Thursday. The U.K.’s major listed companies earn most of their revenue outside the country, so a rise in the pound can be negative for the index.

Mrs. May has said she plans to invoke Article 50, opening the two-year window for exit talks, by the end of March. She has given away little about her negotiating positions, but has suggested that she would put more emphasis on the right to curb immigration at the expense of access to the EU’s tariff-free single market.

Though Mrs. May has said she would offer lawmakers some kind of say in Brexit, she insisted on the right to unilaterally invoke Article 50—a position that was the subject of the court case. The High Court ruled that she can’t trigger Article 50 without the approval of Parliament.

The court didn’t specify what kind of parliamentary approval is needed, and the appeal won’t necessarily draw such guidance from the Supreme Court.

The path through Parliament could be set in part by Mrs. May. The most direct option would be to seek passage of a law that simply gives her the right to trigger Article 50.

But the introduction of any law inevitably opens the door to debate. “The government will want it to be procedural and quick, but you can see ways in which parliamentarians will try to get more substantive answers on what happens,” said Kenneth Armstrong, a professor of European Law at the University of Cambridge.

If Mrs. May has to more comprehensively consult Parliament, lawmakers—a majority of whom voted to stay in the EU—would be in a position to extract concessions and pressure Mrs. May to soften her stance.

“It could mean the government struggles to get this legislation through by the end of March and the invocation of Article 50 is delayed,” said John Curtice, politics professor at the University of Strathclyde. “This is a major spanner in the works for Theresa May’s strategy.”

The Supreme Court’s timetable allows the government to stick to Mrs. May’s plan to trigger Article 50 in March, a government spokeswoman said.

Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the opposition Labour Party, said his party respects the referendum results and wouldn’t stop Brexit, but called for more openness from the government. “This ruling underlines the need for the government to bring its negotiating terms to Parliament without delay,” he said.

A vote on invoking Article 50 would likely be tight, said Tim Bale, politics professor at Queen Mary University of London. Though a majority of members of Parliament voted against Britain’s exit, many would be hesitant to overturn the referendum result.

“A lot of MPs would regard it as a risky thing for Parliament to set itself up against the people,” he said.

Crispin Blunt, a Conservative member of Parliament, said the decision was “profoundly unhelpful” and could allow Britain’s unelected upper House of Lords, which is overwhelmingly in favor of staying in the EU, to block or delay any legislation triggering Article 50. Legislation must pass through the lower House of Commons and the House of Lords before becoming law.

“The judges have behaved with constitutional recklessness that is on a magnificent scale,” Mr. Blunt said. He said that resistance from the upper chamber could delay Britain’s exit by up to a year.

In the case heard by the High Court, the government said it has the right to trigger Brexit because of the so-called royal prerogative, in which executive authority is given to ministers so they can govern on the monarch’s behalf.

The court rejected that position. “The most fundamental rule of the U.K.’s constitution is that Parliament is sovereign and can make and unmake any law it chooses,” said the chief judge, Roger Thomas.

The case was brought by a group of British citizens opposed to Brexit with the help of some of the U.K.’s top constitutional lawyers. Spearheading the legal challenge are British businesswoman Gina Miller and hairdresser Deir Dos Santos. Grahame Pigney, a France-based expatriate who used crowdfunding from more than 4,000 people to pay for lawyers, joined the suit as a co-party.

The ruling, by three High Court judges, was unanimous.

Source: WSJ

Leave a Comment


Broker Cyprus TopFX