Brexit court defeat for UK government

[Pat H]

More info here:
United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum, 1975 - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_European_Communities_membership_referendum,_1975

 

[The Ghost]

The point I make is that it was not just it was not legal it was illegal and treason throughout.

 

[Gavin A]

I find it a little odd to see those who a few months ago were no doubt banging on about bringing sovereignty back, and the undemocratic nature of the EU now frothing at the mouth about the notion that the UK's democratically elected representatives (at least) should have a vote on the government's proposed brexit plan.

Being as that brexit plan can't possibly match the often contradictory pledges made by the various Leave campaigns, it'd be completely undemocratic to simply leave an unelected Prime Minister to decide how this is to happen by herself.

The vote to both have your cake and eat it means that at some stage reality will need to intervene and we'll actually have to decide whether we're going to eat the cake, or have the cake, or maybe eat part of it so we can still have part of it.

Personally I reckon it's more democratic for us (or at least our MPs) to have a say in sorting this mess out rather than leaving it to basically 4 people to take these crucial decisions behind closed doors on the basis of a very close referendum result conducted before any of the actual details had been worked out, so the country was voting blind on gut instinct (or whichever of the lies they'd chosen to believe) rather than on what the final Brexit package will look like.

Something to ponder on is that there will be many like me who voted remain (on the basis of staying in to reform it, not because it's all perfect) but would prefer that if we're going to leave then we do it properly and pull out of the free trade arrangements that have resulted in a huge trade imbalance with the EU after the weak Euro allowed German companies to undercut ours, rather than ending up with the worst of all worlds - huge trade imbalance, still paying into the EU for the privilege of maintaining that trade imbalance, free movement of people, still having to comply with pretty much all the regulations, but having no democratic say in any of it.

The EU as an institution really wasn't the problem, neoliberalism is the problem and won't be solved by ditching the democratic side of the EU but keeping all the neoliberal elements of it as the Tories currently seem to want to do.

 

[Darkwood]

I think your missing the point here, we are not banging on as you put it, it was made very clear by Gove that to leave the EU also means leaving the EU structure which includes the single market etc, how can you expect to vote to leave a trade block and cherry pick the bits you want, so leaving is leaving - what is there to bring into parliament then to actually agree on the triggering of the article?
Once it is triggered and formal steps are taken then all EU laws will be enshrined into British law, of these we may decide to get rid of some or change them and Parliament will have a say on this as is there position to do so, so that is half the scare-tactics gone, with Remoaners claiming working rights etc will be lost.. no any alterations will go through the usual channels.
What is undemocratic is the fact the vote to leave was given to the people, it was announced, it was written down on every leaflet and it was promised, leave does mean leave and yes because the single market in within the EU structure then that is also part of the leave, this agan was made clear throughout the campaign - so what exactly is Clegg and his team asking for when they say we want a Parliamentary say on the terms of triggering article 50 .... What terms? .. its a process is the triggering of article 50, the negotiations and terms follow the process and as the process is part of an evolving system IE, the terms will be created as a step by step process and an intitial agreement on one term can effect other terms so you cannot give a list of terms before you have triggered the process as you haven't sat down with the EU and discussed anything.. To be forced to explain what you aim to achieve in detail or want will take away with our strong bargaining hand and will undermine our position, we will not get anything we want and it will drag the process out by years... think about having a strong hand in poker but you are forced to put your cards on the table while all the other players don't, you will get very little from the pot even if you have the best hand as other players can see what you have and will not entertain playing on until your hand is poor and they have the better hand.
All this is doing is dragging out and attempting to block the process, it will do more damage to the process and our strong position here than I think you realise, again I'll reiterate that all final agreements with our trade partners and changers to our laws will be up for parliamentary vote and debate once they have been agreed and formalised but you cannot expect to do this at the starting post... akin to asking what the result of the race is before the horses have set-off.
This legal challange was brought by 3 remoaners who have personal self interest, one not even living in this country, they didn't understand what impact this would actually have if they won, also to note the position of the judges on the high court panel been put into question with there own historic links to the EU meaning their impartiality cannot be guaranteed.
We are leaving the EU, we are leaving the single market that is part of the EU so what exactly do you think it is achieving in asking to show our intentions to the world before we can possibly know due to the nature of the process?

 

[Barry White]

Its designed to hinder the process all the rest of europe's eyes are on us.If we get a good deal maybe others will follow, so Expect a rough deal from them. We have got buying power on our side no matter what happens they will want to trade. (china is not in the eu and look at what we import from there) The country has voted so lets get on with it.

 

[Gavin A]

I think your missing the point here, we are not banging on as you put it, it was made very clear by Gove that to leave the EU also means leaving the EU structure which includes the single market etc, how can you expect to vote to leave a trade block and cherry pick the bits you want, so leaving is leaving - what is there to bring into parliament then to actually agree on the triggering of the article?

There were many contradictory claims and statements made in the campaign, many argued that we could leave the EU and still either be in the common market, have access to the common market or be part of a Europe wide tariff free, free trade area.

They also variously claimed that none of the rules that any other countries who have that level of access have to follow would need to apply to the UK, so we could scrap free movement of people, we could make up our own rules and regulations and not follow EU ones, we wouldn't need to pay anything into the EU etc etc etc.

Were they able to actually negotiate such a deal, then you'd possibly have a point, but if (as seems likely) what they actually end up negotiating is substantially different then it would be totally undemocratic for parliament not to have a say in the final decision / negotiating position. Either way though legally in a parliamentary democracy where the referendum was made on the basis of it being an advisory referendum, the judges were entirely right to say that any decision must be put to a vote in parliament - the alternative is basically fascism where the leader takes the final decision alone, not representative (or any other form of) democracy. That's really not a precedent we want to be setting, certainly not following a referendum decision where one of the key arguments was around improving UK democratic accountability / decision making.

You may well be ok with the idea of actually exiting the entire free trade area and there being import and export tariffs imposed in UK - EU trade, and tbh there are significant merits to this argument that I'm increasingly in favour of the more I look at it, but this definitely is not what the UK voted for in the referendum, it's not what those leading the leave campaign were saying prior to the vote.

here's one of the things Gove said in the campaign.

The UK would still be able to trade freely within Europe even if it left the EU, Michael Gove has said.

The justice secretary said the UK could be part of Europe's free trade area to avoid trade tariffs, even if it was not a member of the EU single market.

 

[Darkwood]

There were many contradictory claims and statements made in the campaign, many argued that we could leave the EU and still either be in the common market, have access to the common market or be part of a Europe wide tariff free, free trade area.

They also variously claimed that none of the rules that any other countries who have that level of access have to follow would need to apply to the UK, so we could scrap free movement of people, we could make up our own rules and regulations and not follow EU ones, we wouldn't need to pay anything into the EU etc etc etc.

Were they able to actually negotiate such a deal, then you'd possibly have a point, but if (as seems likely) what they actually end up negotiating is substantially different then it would be totally undemocratic for parliament not to have a say in the final decision / negotiating position. Either way though legally in a parliamentary democracy where the referendum was made on the basis of it being an advisory referendum, the judges were entirely right to say that any decision must be put to a vote in parliament - the alternative is basically fascism where the leader takes the final decision alone, not representative (or any other form of) democracy. That's really not a precedent we want to be setting, certainly not following a referendum decision where one of the key arguments was around improving UK democratic accountability / decision making.

You may well be ok with the idea of actually exiting the entire free trade area and there being import and export tariffs imposed in UK - EU trade, and tbh there are significant merits to this argument that I'm increasingly in favour of the more I look at it, but this definitely is not what the UK voted for in the referendum, it's not what those leading the leave campaign were saying prior to the vote.

here's one of the things Gove said in the campaign.

What Gove said there is completely correct even with WTO applied this doesn't mean tariffs will be imposed on everything, there will be many goods that will still be traded free as no member state nor the EU would ruin members economy to make a point to Britain, also to add Canada has a free trade deal now with zero of the costs or movement, Turkey trades many good without free movement or membership fee, so we go on a WTO be it long or short term but it's far more beneficial than the set up we have now...there has been a misleading campaign by remain who kept on saying that we would loose access to the single market which is in no way true whether we leave the single market or not we will always have access.
The point I was trying to get across with the high Court ruling is its based on a technicality and actually has no benefit to either remain or leave to bring it into effect, it's like a murderer showing the officer where he buried a body but not been read his rights so he cannot be charged with the murder ( it's happened) ... just because the referendum wasn't on paper made binding is the only reason we are here and normally it hasn't been an issue as it's just the way it's always been done - no one expected 3 members of Joe public to pull it on a technicality and that is all it is .... so the voice of 3people has dropped a spanner in the works of the opinions of 17million and it changes nothing to the result except costing the tax payer millions going through the court system to be eventually overturned.

 

[Dan]

Let's be frank, we buy 85% of our stuff from abroad. And send very little these days. If they limit what we can buy, we damage their markets more than ours. They'll never stop selling us stuff. The fluctuation in FOREX will calm down soon and if people keep upping their prices 10%, then we'll end up with businesses in the UK starting up if we can make things cheaper in the end. So that's a positive too, I guess...?

 

[Dan]

We have a couple of smallish businesses on our tilersforums.co.uk site that buy from abroad and sell in the UK. They're classed as manufacturers, but in essence it's made and sent to them exactly how they sell it so they're more kinda importers.

Price Increases - http://www.tilersforums.co.uk/threads/price-increases.81570/

Very good thread on it here. Ray TT is Porcel-Thin, a British brand that supplies market-leading thin porcelain tiles, some 3m long by 1.8m wide!!!!! The first on earth to sell them so big. Sells them all over the world. The other is ATSDiamondTools who is the OP of the thread. He 'makes' diamond blades and other cutting discs and things. Both I think buy using the US Dollar, but buy from China.

They're well in the know about this importing thing.

 

[Gavin A]

What Gove said there is completely correct even with WTO applied this doesn't mean tariffs will be imposed on everything, there will be many goods that will still be traded free as no member state nor the EU would ruin members economy to make a point to Britain, also to add Canada has a free trade deal now with zero of the costs or movement, Turkey trades many good without free movement or membership fee, so we go on a WTO be it long or short term but it's far more beneficial than the set up we have now...there has been a misleading campaign by remain who kept on saying that we would loose access to the single market which is in no way true whether we leave the single market or not we will always have access.
The point I was trying to get across with the high Court ruling is its based on a technicality and actually has no benefit to either remain or leave to bring it into effect, it's like a murderer showing the officer where he buried a body but not been read his rights so he cannot be charged with the murder ( it's happened) ... just because the referendum wasn't on paper made binding is the only reason we are here and normally it hasn't been an issue as it's just the way it's always been done - no one expected 3 members of Joe public to pull it on a technicality and that is all it is .... so the voice of 3people has dropped a spanner in the works of the opinions of 17million and it changes nothing to the result except costing the tax payer millions going through the court system to be eventually overturned.

it won't be overturned, their legal ruling is a correct interpretation of the law, as was completely clear in the terms of the original referendum legislation.

Parliament will make the final decision be it to accept May's proposals, amend them, reject them, or send the final proposals back to the people for a 2nd binding referendum.

We don't live in a county with an all powerful ruler who determines the country's fate by themselves without reference to parliament, we live in a parliamentary democracy.

I'm finding it quite concerning that some of the arguments against this court case and parliament getting to vote on this (eg that made by one of UKIP's leadership candidates) is veering dangerously close to support for a fascist state - judges should be answerable to the government, the leader should take this huge decision without reference to parliament etc.

In your view it may be a mere technicality, but it's an incredibly important technicality as anything else would mean we no longer lived in a parliamentary democracy.

 

[Octopus]

If the EU is such a wonderful success, why has the EU got the 2nd lowest growth in the entire world?

Why has the EU consigned a generation or more in southern Europe to the trash bin?

Why has the pursuit of the Euro for all new entrants been continued as its clear for everybody to see that its a failed project as the economies are too diverse?

Why is there so much angst among the populations at the "elite" in Brussels?

Why did the UK "remain" camp do such a poor job at presenting their side of the argument?

The political situation in Europe is going to get worse, far worse in the next 5 years IMHO.

And my final point is that if the UK had joined the Euro, we would have been "f x c ked" many years ago

 

[Gavin A]

If the EU is such a wonderful success... bit of a straw man start to the post.

why has the EU got the 2nd lowest growth in the entire world?
Austerity.

Why has the pursuit of the Euro for all new entrants been continued as its clear for everybody to see that its a failed project as the economies are too diverse?
Because it benefits the stronger economies in the Eurozone to have a weaker currency, which having weaker countries as part of it ensures it will be relative to the strength of the German Mark.

Why is there so much angst among the populations at the "elite" in Brussels?
Austerity mainly

Why did the UK "remain" camp do such a poor job at presenting their side of the argument?
Because it was largely presented by tories who're also ideologically wedded to austerity and neoliberalism, so they couldn't make the argument about it being better to stay in the EU and reform those elements of it together with our cousins in Europe, than to run away from it and leave ourselves entirely open to the same or worse policies from the Tories unshackled by the EU.

The political situation in Europe is going to get worse, far worse in the next 5 years IMHO.
Same in the UK.

And my final point is that if the UK had joined the Euro, we would have been "f x c ked" many years ago

I'm not in favour of the Euro as currently structured, but the German experience makes a fair case for our manufacturing sector to have been far better off with us actually having been far far better off if we'd been in the Euro.

Much of that increased German exports since the Euro is coming to us, and is responsible for displacing UK manufacturing.

The Euro has been really bad for the weaker countries like Greece, but really really good for stronger manufacturing countries. Our manufacturers have been having to compete with the Germans with our hands tied together because they've got the advantage of a relatively much weaker currency than we've had, plus stable currency across all transactions within the EU (other than for us). We have to price in for the higher currency and potential currency fluctuations, which puts us at a competitive disadvantage.

 

[Darkwood]

it won't be overturned, their legal ruling is a correct interpretation of the law, as was completely clear in the terms of the original referendum legislation.

Parliament will make the final decision be it to accept May's proposals, amend them, reject them, or send the final proposals back to the people for a 2nd binding referendum.

We don't live in a county with an all powerful ruler who determines the country's fate by themselves without reference to parliament, we live in a parliamentary democracy.

I'm finding it quite concerning that some of the arguments against this court case and parliament getting to vote on this (eg that made by one of UKIP's leadership candidates) is veering dangerously close to support for a fascist state - judges should be answerable to the government, the leader should take this huge decision without reference to parliament etc.

In your view it may be a mere technicality, but it's an incredibly important technicality as anything else would mean we no longer lived in a parliamentary democracy.

Have a read of this, surprisingly an unbiased view and pretty acurate

Was the EU referendum “advisory”? - https://fullfact.org/europe/was-eu-referendum-advisory/

You can see the argument it pretty strong on both parties but our way of doing things differs to that of other EU members and yes if you pick the nitty gritty of the laws then the High Court are correct but its the challenge itself which flouts the Democratic nature here as we have always voted using the Politically Binding method hence this is just a deliberate attempt to block the process, the High Court have to quote the law but it cannot comment on whether method used is still politically binding, the Supreme Court have the power to view the use of the law past and present and whether it really has any bearing in the manner its been brought against the Government and also what is in the interest of the result and our position on negotiations, this in itself is enough to overturn the High Court but my personal deep down fear is the Judges themselves as they all have vested interest or past links to the EU and all judges should be impartial but how do you find an impartial Judge in a Supreme court given the route most go through in life to become a Judge, you don't find your average town hall judge or lawyer getting to sit at the Supreme court as a Judge.

Also have a look into one of the 3 people who brought the challenge, in particular Gina Miller (Anti Brexit campaigner), check out her history ...

Now the Mirror is Pro -EU and very left wing (which suprises even me to put a link to aid my point), even they scathed this women with a well written article, rare for the Mirror to defend the result of the referendum, this shows you why this challenge is just the mega wealthy trying to disrupt brexit through self interest and not considering the electorate.

Gina Miller's daft Wrexit will be even worse than Brexit - http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/elitist-gina-millers-daft-wrexit-9204861

 

[Gavin A]

(3)If Her Majesty by Order in Council declares that a treaty specified in the Order is to be regarded as one of [F19the EUTreaties] as herein defined, the Order shall be conclusive that it is to be so regarded; but a treaty entered into by the United Kingdom after the 22nd January 1972, other than a pre-accession treaty to which the United Kingdom accedes on terms settled on or before that date, shall not be so regarded unless it is so specified, nor be so specified unless a draft of the Order in Council has been approved by resolution of each House of Parliament.

(4)For purposes of subsections (2) and (3) above, “treaty” includes any international agreement, and any protocol or annex to a treaty or international agreement.

That's from the 1972 treaty, which basically states that any change to any of the EU Treaties, or new Treaties or agreements with the EU can only be entered into following approval by both houses of parliament.

Nothing in the referendum legislation did that, and it can't be done via statutory instrument (which effectively is what would have to happen if it weren't to have proper legislation and proper parliamentary discussion and votes.

 

[Gavin A]

Commencement or repeal of amending provisions
(1)The Minister must make an order bringing into force section 9, Schedule 10 and Part 1 of Schedule 12 (“the alternative vote provisions”) if—

(a)more votes are cast in the referendum in favour of the answer “Yes” than in favour of the answer “No”, and

(6) below) has been submitted to Her Majesty in Council under section 4 of that Act.

(2)If more votes are not cast in the referendum in favour of the answer “Yes” than in favour of the answer “No”, the Minister must make an order repealing the alternative vote provisions.

That's taken from the AV referendum, it's the section that made that referendum a binding referendum.

There's no similar section or provision in the EU referendum legislation, without it the referendum is a non-binding referendum and would require a separate act of parliament to actually put the referendum decision into law.

This is all pretty basic stuff, it shows how ignorant of the law those in charge of this process (ie May, and the 3 brexiteers) actually are that they ever even contemplated doing this without parliamentary debate and approval.