UK High Court rules that the government cannot trigger Brexit without parliamentary approval

[bilby]

In what the Brexit camp are calling a dismaying challenge to democracy, the High Court has ruled that the unelected Prime Minister and her government do not have the authority to totally fuck up the nation on the basis of a narrow victory in an advisory and non-binding referendum.

Despite having spent the last five months saying that a decision, once made, should not be criticised by anyone, an appeal seems certain from the Brexit camp, whose understanding of irony is almost as weak as their grasp of how the UK is actually governed.

Ultimately, this could be decided by the most senior legal authority, and final court of appeal, the European Court of Justice. Because the irony just keeps on coming.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I always figured that they'd find some sort of legal maneuver to back their way out of this. It will be kind of awkward fighting against this when all the pro-Brexit leaders found a way to go and bugger off and let other people deal with the shitstorm they kicked up as soon as the vote was done.

 

[bilby]

I always figured that they'd find some sort of legal maneuver to back their way out of this. It will be kind of awkward fighting against this when all the pro-Brexit leaders found a way to go and bugger off and let other people deal with the shitstorm they kicked up as soon as the vote was done.

It seems that the current feeling in parliament is that MPs are too scared of losing their seats to vote against Brexit, so it is certainly not dead yet. However, by requiring a parliamentary vote, the court has effectively scrapped May's plan to move quickly to trigger Article 50 (she said she would do this in March 2017, but that seems unlikely now). Perhaps more importantly, this means that parliament will get to pick apart the details of the Brexit plan, and have the opportunity to amend it - so the Government's preference for a 'Hard' Brexit may well be watered down significantly.

My gut feeling is that, while the vague idea of Brexit has popular support (and as such will likely be supported by MPs), any specific plan for Brexit will turn out to be a awful disaster that MPs cannot possibly accept - leading to a long and drawn out process of submission of plans by the government, followed by rejection of those plans by MPs, repeated ad-nauseum.

The republican debate in Australia has a similar pattern to it. The vast majority of Australians support ditching HM the Q as our head of state, and having an Aussie in charge instead. But each actual proposal for the form the new system might take turns out to be unacceptable to the people. So we are sticking with Lizzy II until someone comes up with a method for choosing a head of state that is both workable and popular - I anticipate that this will occur on or around the 31^st of never.

 

[Deepak]

My gut feeling is that, while the vague idea of Brexit has popular support (and as such will likely be supported by MPs), any specific plan for Brexit will turn out to be a awful disaster that MPs cannot possibly accept - leading to a long and drawn out process of submission of plans by the government, followed by rejection of those plans by MPs, repeated ad-nauseum.

Quite likely, but you have to wonder if this constant uncertainty will actually have a worse economic impact than just getting it over with.

 

[bilby]

My gut feeling is that, while the vague idea of Brexit has popular support (and as such will likely be supported by MPs), any specific plan for Brexit will turn out to be a awful disaster that MPs cannot possibly accept - leading to a long and drawn out process of submission of plans by the government, followed by rejection of those plans by MPs, repeated ad-nauseum.

Quite likely, but you have to wonder if this constant uncertainty will actually have a worse economic impact than just getting it over with.

I am not sure how a bit of uncertainty is going to be worse than not having any trade deals in place at all - which is the likely short to medium term result of Brexit.

Even if the UK managed (by some miracle) to get some deals in place before the deadline, they are unlikely to be as favourable as those that exist now for the EU, simply because the EU is a far larger trading partner - nobody really minds too much if they can't trade with the UK, as long as the rest of the EU, the USA, and other large economies such as China and India are still doing business.

The Brexiteers seem to be living in 1950's Empire World - a fictional place and time, in which Canada, Australia, South Africa and even India are keen to do business with them, simply because they love the queen. They are in for a very rude shock - the dominions have changed a lot in the last century, and no longer feel the need to be sycophantic towards their masters in London.

One of the great hangovers of the days of the British Empire is that the UK is a centre of world trade - and really, that's all it has going for it. Brexit could actually kill that - some firms are already moving to places like Paris and Frankfurt - and if London isn't a major commercial and trading hub, what has the UK actually got that makes her a serious player on the world stage?

 

[Deepak]

Quite likely, but you have to wonder if this constant uncertainty will actually have a worse economic impact than just getting it over with.

I am not sure how a bit of uncertainty is going to be worse than not having any trade deals in place at all - which is the likely short to medium term result of Brexit.

Even if the UK managed (by some miracle) to get some deals in place before the deadline, they are unlikely to be as favourable as those that exist now for the EU, simply because the EU is a far larger trading partner - nobody really minds too much if they can't trade with the UK, as long as the rest of the EU, the USA, and other large economies such as China and India are still doing business.

The Brexiteers seem to be living in 1950's Empire World - a fictional place and time, in which Canada, Australia, South Africa and even India are keen to do business with them, simply because they love the queen. They are in for a very rude shock - the dominions have changed a lot in the last century, and no longer feel the need to be sycophantic towards their masters in London.

One of the great hangovers of the days of the British Empire is that the UK is a centre of world trade - and really, that's all it has going for it. Brexit could actually kill that - some firms are already moving to places like Paris and Frankfurt - and if London isn't a major commercial and trading hub, what has the UK actually got that makes her a serious player on the world stage?

Knowing based on even unfavorable trade deals that I'd need, for example, a datacenter in mainland Europe and a separate one in UK&I allows me to calculate what my ROI will be for each market. A continual state of uncertainty might have me only invest in the European datacenter since that may actually be sufficient on the back of a future trade deal that is favorable. In the meantime I'm not buying space or electricity or paying for employees in the UK while I wait for the other shoe to drop (and we all know it has to at some point). One can account for a haircut with revenue at 50% of last year, what is more difficult to account for is revenue that might be anywhere between 35% and 65% on any given quarter over the next five years. In the second case it's more sensible to take a certain cut of a smaller pie and simply not participate in the UK&I.

And endlessly dithering isn't really going to help them get a better trade deal. It's a case of shit or get off the pot.