Brexit: Legal action to decide if MPs can stop Article 50 gets go ahead - Independent

22/12/2017

Brexit: Legal action to decide if MPs can stop Article 50 gets go ahead

Move comes as senior EU legal expert argues the UK could halt Brexit without consent of other 27 member states

Rob Merrick Deputy Political Editor @Rob_Merrick

Theresa May signs the official letter to European Council President Donald Tusk, invoking Article 50 Getty

A legal action to decide if Britain can unilaterally halt Brexit if MPs vote down Theresa May’s withdrawal deal should go ahead, a court has ruled.

The Government will now be required to respond to a petition, brought by a cross-party group of Scottish politicians, after the decision in Edinburgh.

The politicians want the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to rule on whether the UK can halt the Article 50 process without needing the approval of all other 27 EU member states.

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The move comes as one of the EU’s most senior legal experts boosted the case by arguing the UK could withdraw the exit notification without that consent.

“Article 50 is based on the principle that withdrawing from the EU is a unilateral decision. Nobody can force a state to leave,” Jean-Claude Piris, former head of the EU council’s legal service, wrote on Twitter.

“The only condition is that [the] decision is taken in conformity with its constitutional requirements.”

Meanwhile, as The Independent reported, MPs will vote next month in an attempt to lift the lid on secret legal advice which is believed to say that Britain could act alone to halt Brexit.

The Prime Minister has been accused of suppressing a formal opinion that Parliament has the power to reverse the Article 50 notice.

The controversy could be crucial if MPs reject any Brexit agreement she secures in a “meaningful vote” to take place next year, before the withdrawal process can start.

The signatories to the action, at the Court of Session in the Scottish capital, SNP and Liberal Democrat MPs, MEPs representing the SNP and Labour, and SNP and Green members of the Holyrood Parliament.

The inclusion of Labour’s two Scottish MEPs, David Martin and Catherine Stihler, adds to party divisions, given Jeremy Corbyn’s stance that the referendum decision should be respected.

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A crowdfunding campaign to meet the legal costs has passed its £50,000 target, with a petition asking the Scottish judges to refer the issue to the ECJ in Luxembourg.

Jolyon Maugham, a QC coordinating the action through his Good Law Project campaign group, said it was right for the UK parliament to have the power to cancel the Brexit process.

It would allow Brexit to be abandoned if the Prime Minister’s deal was poor – as well as strengthening her hand in the negotiations in Brussels, he argued.