London: Britain’s Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that Prime Minister Theresa May must get Parliament to sign off before triggering Britain’s exit from the European Union.
The decision adds a hurdle to May’s promise to invoke Article 50 — the never-before-used mechanism for getting out of the EU — by the end of March.
Most observers, however, do not expect the decision to derail the Brexit process, which was set in motion when the country voted for departure by a margin of 52-to-48 in a June referendum.
The Supreme Court’s decision turned on the question of whether the prime minister or Parliament should have the last word in deciding Britain’s status in the EU.
May’s government had argued that the principle of “royal prerogative,” enshrined in British law, allows her to decide whether Britain remains a part of international treaties.
But Gina Miller, a businesswoman, brought a case to court arguing that Parliament in Britain is sovereign, and must be allowed a say on Brexit before May formally launches the process.
Miller’s view was upheld in a November decision by the London-based High Court for England and Wales. The government appealed the ruling, setting up Tuesday’s Supreme Court decision.
The decision was considered one of the most constitutionally significant for Britain in decades, with important legal precedents regardless of which way the court ruled. The decision was read by the court’s president, David Neuberger, in a short hearing at the court’s neo-Gothic chambers in central London, just across the street from the iconic towers that mark Parliament’s home at Westminster.
In addition to the primary question of Parliament’s role, the court was also expected to rule on whether the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Irish and Welsh assemblies should be allowed to weigh in on Brexit. Both Scotland and Northern Ireland voted against an EU departure in the June vote.
Most members of the UK Parliament were also anti-Brexit. But since the November High Court ruling, the country’s political winds have shifted, and analysts believe that most pro-remain lawmakers would not try to block Brexit altogether — though they may try to influence its nature.
May signalled in a speech last week that she intends to seek a clean break from the EU, with Britain leaving behind both Europe’s single market for goods and services and its customs union for trade.
Once Britain triggers Article 50, it will have two years to negotiate the terms of its departure.
Despite the country being closely divided on the question of whether Britain should get out of the EU at all, polls have shown that May’s approach — regarded as a “hard Brexit” — has been well received. Her Conservative Party has a wide lead over the opposition Labour Party, which has struggled to develop a unified position on Brexit.
The November High Court ruling had elicited a strongly negative reaction from pro-Brexit politicians and newspapers. The Daily Mail, a leading British tabloid, ran photos of the court’s judges on the next day’s front page along with the headline “Enemies of the People.”
Pro-Brexit firebrand Nigel Farage told ITV news Tuesday, before the Supreme Court’s ruling was announced, that people were getting “very angry” by what he described as attempts by the British establishment to obstruct the public’s will. But he expressed confidence that Brexit would go ahead.
Ken Clarke, a pro-remain Conservative lawmaker, told the BBC before the verdict that the idea of not giving Parliament a say on Brexit “strikes me as totally undemocratic. It is not exactly mob rule but it is the tyranny of the majority to silence people’s opinions on complicated issues of due importance to the future.”
