3 Nov, 2016 @ 11:08
1 min read

BREAKING: UK Parliament can derail Brexit after High Court rules it must vote on triggering Article 50

brexit department e
EU RIGHTS: Bremain In Spain urges action

brexit departmentTHE UK Parliament must vote on whether the UK can trigger Article 50 and begin the process of leaving the EU, the country’s High Court has ruled.

Prime Minister Theresa May has said the referendum result and ministerial powers mean MPs do not need to vote, but campaigners have said this is unconstitutional.

The government is expected to appeal the decision, with a further hearing to held in the Supreme Court.

Theresa May
Theresa May

If their challenge fails, Brexit could face months and months of parliamentary hurdles.

May had previously said she will trigger Article 50 by the end of March 2017.

 

Laurence Dollimore

Laurence Dollimore is a Spanish-speaking, NCTJ-trained journalist with almost a decade’s worth of experience.
The London native has a BA in International Relations from the University of Leeds and and an MA in the same subject from Queen Mary University London.
He earned his gold star diploma in multimedia journalism at the prestigious News Associates in London in 2016, before immediately joining the Olive Press at their offices on the Costa del Sol.
After a five-year stint, Laurence returned to the UK to work as a senior reporter at the Mail Online, where he remained for two years before coming back to the Olive Press as Digital Editor in 2023.
He continues to work for the biggest newspapers in the UK, who hire him to investigate and report on stories in Spain.
These include the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Mail Online, Mail on Sunday and The Sun and Sun Online.
He has broken world exclusives on everything from the Madeleine McCann case to the anti-tourism movement in Tenerife.

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31 Comments

  1. Just like Maaastrict and Lisbon – if the serfs don’t do what the elites and their lackeys want, hold another vote or simply ignore – would’nt it be nice to actually live in a country where democracy existed. For those who don’t know – democracy is rule by the majority of the people, fascism is rule OF the people – altogether now – it’s Springtime for Hitler.

  2. At last. Legality rears it’s head and lends some credibility to parliamentary democracy, which is how Britain is supposed to be run, instead of Mickey Mouse referendums. Now let’s see what the PEOPLE who are supposed to run the country decide. Remember them? The ones who were voted for in a general election?
    If nothing else, it’s good to see the arrogant fascists (UKIP et al) get some egg on their faces.
    Fingers crossed Jane G.

  3. Great result, but the appeal is yet to come of course. A group of ordinary business people taking on the Government and winning their case does restore the faith in the democratic process. Not all of the people in the UK voted in the referendum of course; we do not even know if a majority of all the people voted for Brexit. Many people did not vote, many people could not vote. Parliament is sovereign and there needs to be debate and a vote by MPs on triggering article 50. The person who even drafted article 50 said today that the UK can also change their mind.

  4. It’s only because the conservatives wanted to be popular amongst the right wing, bigoted type voters that they included the brexit, in or or out vote in their tory manifesto in the first place. Playing with fire, little did they imagine the level of xenophobia and bigotry held within British society still today, it certainly raised it’s ugly head.
    I suppose some walks of people would generally prefer to believe that it is ‘Johnny foreigner’ that is responsible for the problems within British society rather than looking at themselves or those that they have elected as being in anyway responsible whatsoever, in any shape or form.

  5. Another sign of the instability of the UK.
    They don’t have the slightest credibility, which is logic when you have an unelected PM and a buffoon as minister of foreign relations.
    The best for the EU is to kick Britain out of the EU, the sooner the better.

  6. Well since the referendum the jobless figures have gone down, growth figures are on the up and new businesses are opening. So all you people who are happy that Brexit may not go ahead must be happy not for the future of the UK or the children’s future but only for their own ends.

    • John, how are employment figures related to a referendum exactly? So we have a referendum and that automatically makes jobs and growth? Sounds too simplistic and I think you are looking at the very short-term. After the result yesterday, the pound strengthened and that tells you all you need to know really. All I hear from businesses is how suppliers costs are rising because of Brexit, and that is ultimately going to kill small UK businesses down the road.

    • All the economic predictions pre-referendum were based on A50 being triggered immediately after a Leave vote. This has not happened and the UK economy is currently in a unique position of having a low value currency and barrier/tariff free trade so it is not a good barometer. Things will change when and if A50 is triggered and obviously if we leave the single market and customs union, business will be burdened with WTO tariffs and endless problems with customs administration. This will impact all businesses in the UK enormously and of course it will affect individuals who value freedom of movement within the EU.

      If you want to move to Nerja, leaving the EU will not help you at all and your life in Spain, be it full time or part time, will be much more difficult. There is so much that we are used to now that we take for granted as members of the EU that cannot continue post Brexit. My parents bought a holiday home in Estepona in 1978 and believe me, things were so much more difficult then than they are now. Nobody in their right mind would want to go back to those times or anything like that.

      The trouble with Brexit is, nobody knows what the end product will look like. The EU is far from perfect and needs to reform but do people in the UK really want this car crash of a situation?

  7. The Referendum was never binding on any government of the day until it is ratified by Parliament itself.Do people only ever read the parts of documents that they care about or what?

  8. Whilst a majority voted in favour of the UK leaving the EU, it was hardly a landslide victory for those wishing to leave. Bearing in mind those that couldn’t or wouldn’t make up their minds, that leaves an awful lot of potential voters that could have either increased the leave or the remain result. I suggest that few indeed the majority of the population, had no idea of the complexities involved should a leave vote result in the UK actually leaving. Nevertheless the new Prime Minister has decided that she’s determined to go ahead with the relatively small majority who voted to leave, no matter what the consequences. It took many years for the UK to join the EU and incorporate its laws and the law changes since it joined some 40 years ago. These changes affect the UK’s position both from within (thinking of Scotland in particular) and Ireland’s association with Northern Ireland. To basically tear all that apart is an unthinkable & highly complex set of virtually impossible tasks. And for what? Should the EU be willing to allow us to continue trade with them without our agreement on free movement of EU citizens is most unlikely primarily because if they let the UK have that concession, then why not every other EU country as well? That’s not going to happen. Meanwhile the Pound has slipped to almost unheard of levels which will result in UK companies having to pay more for their imports so affecting everyone in the UK. If the Pound ever rises back up it’ll likely take years during which time everyone in the UK will continue to suffer.

  9. Parliament took us into the EU, parliament must take us out NOT Theresa May. That said article 50 will be invoked simply because there are not enough MP’s in the UK with the guts to block it.

  10. The main problem for the UK as well as for the EU is the delay in uncertainty that came with the court decision. Neither in the UK nor in the EU people are keen to discuss the modalities and consequences of a Brexit for so many years, while other severe problems have to wait. Also potential investors will delay their investment decisions until it’s clear what Brexit really means.
    The winner of this situation will be China, Russia, the little tiger states and the US, especially if Donald Trump wins.

    • We are now seeing democratic deliberation in the UK; it takes time. It should have followed this path in the first place instead of a populist ‘burp’. Expedient decisions are made by dictators, not the nation’s people.

      • Racism is not acceptable to the vast majority of Americans, as I am sure it isn’t acceptable to most UK and Continental citizens, though prejudice against nationality and ethnicity in EU is another problem.

  11. Trump is a racist schmock, it therefore follows that his (millions) of adherents are of the same persuasion.
    Incidentally chas, what’s the difference between racism and the prejudice you outline?

    • No, it neither follows logically nor culturally that all people within a group or movement do so for the same reasons or are motivated by the same impetus. There are many, many explanations for the Trump phenomenon – racism just one of them, probably not even the strongest. To find remedies one must recognize a multiplicity of causes for social behavior even though assigning just one linear cause would seem from a populist standpoint to be enough.
      People are expressing anger at being left out of the economy, and don’t understand that the economic system and poor education need to be addressed: this is a class issue which is being expressed with the vocabulary and sentiments of people lacking more complex explanations. The attacks on Spanish and Polish immigrants in the UK is the UK version. In Spain it is to support narrow ideologues who appeal to the prejudices and lack of education of the marginalized Spanish citizen.

  12. Aunt Sally once again understands nothing and can only trot out stock phrases – because that’s all he has.

    White working class Americans have been shat upon for at least 35 years, just the same as in the UK. The American elite has so brainwashed them (Brits as well) that they have bought hook, line and sinker the elite’s mantras about Communism and Russia/China when neither country has ever been Communist or a real threat because both sets or Red fascists were and are too busy keeping a lid on affairs at home.

    All the while these traitorous scum have been exporting millions of jobs to slave labour countries. At last in both countries these once hard working peoples have woken up. GE alone destroyed over 200,000 jobs in the US and built up offshore booty of $180 billion.

    These working people who were once fit and healthy have been brainwashed into becoming fat unhealthy slobs who exist on a diet of reality TV (a complete misnomer) and junk food and debt.

    They are voting for Trump simply as a way to express their anger and feelings of hopelessness.
    In the UK you have Pink Tories still saying that immigration is good for business, wait a minute your supposed to be representing the interests of British people.

    Both working classes are angry and both have to deprogramme all the crap they have been assailed with for decades – will this happen – quien saves.

    The big problem is that both countries employ armies of goons, drawn from the working class who are only too eager to follow orders, just like El Paso in the 1930s and Peterloo in the early 19th century. What’s more they have far better protection and weapons, especially in the UK.

    The problem is that the serf mentality is so deeply embedded and 1984 came and went a long time ago and so few noticed – esta la vida.

    • And you REALLY believe that Trump would be the saviour of the American working-class?
      Now that IS desperation Stuart, along with your desperation of using childish name-calling to “emphasize” your extremely dubious contentions.
      Grow up man.

  13. People who cast protest votes don’t believe in their candidate’s platform; they are protesting the main candidate or the whole field. You know, like people writing in the name of a village dog as a better council candidate than those on the list. This does not mean voters want a dog or hate cats.
    Perhaps Stuart is giving an explanation for voters’ protest angry behavior. Feeling the rage, but not having the power to make positive change, generates protest in words and actions, even if to some those words and actions appear displaced – an ethology concept from Lorenz, Maestripieri. The energy has to go somewhere when it can’t go where intended.
    Successful totalist regimes – corporatist, fascist and global capitalist – have built in pressure valves to allow the system to continue on even in the face of serious conflict, ie, revolution: social conditioning and propaganda, police repression, economic disincentives, corrupt local politicians, etc.
    Spain’s political system – like those in South America and middle east – have been masterful in rejecting reform and absorbing, expelling or exterminating would-be reformists. In Spain think of Podemos. In UK, EU, USA think of new reform parties such as Bernie Sanders, and their marginal success.

    • In the case of the EU referendum, it is pretty pointless to be unhappy about “X” and vote against “Y” because it is effectively shooting yourself in the foot. I can understand why someone would cast a protest vote in a general election but the consequences are not the same and you have another opportunity to vote in 5 years’ time.

      Having spoken to many Leave voters and read various comments made by them, it is plain to see that most of them didn’t have a clue what they were voting against or the consequences of leaving the single market and the customs union for example. One person I spoke to recently from the north of England started banging on about Somalis living in his area and when I pointed out that this is non-EU immigration and had nothing to do with the EU, he just looked at me blankly.

      It’s a hollow victory, it won’t deliver and they are unlikely to find themselves living in the UK of yesteryear that they so desperately crave. There is no point in chasing a fantasy world that never has and never will exist.

      • I find your comment offensive and arrogant so say that most people that voted leave did not have a clue what they were voting for. Everyone voted for a reason, now whether the reason they voted were because of the lies told by both sides or the reason were valid as they were clued up on the situation who are you to decide that the people who voted leave were all wrong whilst the people who voted stay were all fully aware of the decision they were making.

        • OK, so tell us how you voted and why. You might also want to explain how leaving the EU will improve peoples’ lives. The onus is on those who want to change the status quo to do the hard sell.

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