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Parliament must vote on whether the UK can start the process of leaving the EU, the High Court has ruled.
This means the government cannot trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty - beginning formal exit negotiations with the EU - on its own.
Theresa May says the referendum - and existing ministerial powers - mean MPs do not need to vote, but campaigners called this unconstitutional.
The government is appealing, with a further hearing expected next month.
- Rolling reaction to Article 50 court ruling
- Kuenssberg: Will this mean early election?
- The High Court's judgement in full
- Brexit: All you need to know
A statement is to be made to MPs on Monday but the prime minister's official spokesman said the government had "no intention of letting" the judgement "derail Article 50 or the timetable we have set out. We are determined to continue with our plan".
Plebiscites only count when plebes vote the way they're told.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by pTamok on Friday November 04 2016, @08:06AM
The 23 June 2016 Referendum was appallingly badly constructed, though. I think most people would agree that deciding whether to continue with EU membership or not was rather important. In most cases, topics of such importance need a super-majority ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermajority [wikipedia.org] ) to make a decision, not just a plain simple majority of those who voted.
The vote was 51.9% in favour of leaving, 48.1% in favour of staying, with a turnout of 72.2%.
The electorate was 46,501,241 of a UK population of approximately 65,000,00 in 2016 ( The last census, in 2011 puts the population as 63,181,775 )
On that basis the 51.9% of those who voted in favour of leaving the EU were 37.4% of the electorate, and roughly 27% of the population. That's hardly a stunning mandate.
To be fair the Scottish Independence Referendum of 2014 was constructed along the same lines, only requiring a simple majority if the votes cast. A major difference was that the result of the Scottish referendum was legally binding - an item omitted in the law passed to enable the UK EU continuing membership referendum to be carried out, which legally only has advisory status.
The argument now is over whether the government (administration) needs to pass another law in order to actually leave the EU. A lower court decision is that a new law is required, and it is by no means clear that there is sufficient support among politicians in both houses of Parliament (House of Commons, roughly equivalent to Congress, and House of Lords, roughly equivalent to the Senate) to pass such a law. It is a complete mess. The government (administration) lost this court case, so the current intention is that it will be appealed, bypassing one layer of appeals, up to the UK Supreme Court, with all 12 judges sitting on the case (in USA parlance en banc, I think) - so the lower courts decision could still be overturned by the UK Supreme Court. There is a slight issue - the UK Supreme Court might decide that it requires advice from the European Court of Justice, which is the final arbiter of European Law - see here ( http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.no/2016/11/brexit-can-ecj-get-involved.html [blogspot.no] )for details. This could delay things.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 04 2016, @09:19AM
You don't retroactively change the rules of an vote because you don't like the topic. This is obvious stuff. And apply the same math to nearly any election results on any topic and you'll find that 27% of the population is an absolutely enormous mandate by the standards of modern democracies without coerced voting. The 2008 US election was the most hotly contested and highest turnout election ever in a modern democracy. Obama won with 69.5 million votes or less than 23% of the population at the time.
(Score: 3, Informative) by khallow on Friday November 04 2016, @11:51AM
You don't retroactively change the rules of an vote because you don't like the topic.
No rules were changed. A non-binding referendum is non-binding. Parliament has to approve or Brexit doesn't happen. Elections are a way to ensure that the public gets what it wants.
The 2008 US election was the most hotly contested and highest turnout election ever in a modern democracy.
Not even close. For example, it was similar turnout to the US in the 1950s and 1960s. Second, Australia with its mandatory voting has achieved turnout of 94%.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 04 2016, @08:41PM
"of modern democracies without coerced voting"
Australia is coerced voting. He did leave it off in the second sentence though.
(Score: 3, Informative) by choose another one on Friday November 04 2016, @10:19AM
A major difference was that the result of the Scottish referendum was legally binding
NO it was not, it was simply _assumed_ to be that way, as with the EU referendum. In fact there is a difference between "a legal obligation to abide by the result and a political commitment" (in that a political commitment isn't worth the paper, or the bus, it is written on). There is actually nothing in the Scottish referendum legislation to make it binding. it was only "politically" binding in that all political parties agreed that they would implement the result, legislation in (both UK and Scottish) parliament would still have been required (see e.g. committee proceedings here: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmscotaf/542/54204.htm [parliament.uk] ).
The AV (alternative vote) referendum is a good example of an _in effect_ binding referendum in the UK, parliament passed all the legislation, every little detail, that would put AV into effect, but stated that it would only come into effect if the referendum was won (which it wasn't). A cursory examination of the run up to the Scottish referendum shows that this sort of process was not followed - none of the legal details of independence were in place or even agreed.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Friday November 04 2016, @09:31PM
You are quite right. mea culpa.
I got my referendums (form of plural deliberately chosen) mixed up. Yes, the AV Referendum was the binding one.
It still demonstrates the EU Referendum Act could have been drafted better.