The Noes Have It

[vetuste_ennemi]

Ayes: 242
Noes: 391

[jim360]

The EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018 set March 29th as "Exit Day", on which day most of its provisions come into effect; most notably, the repeal of the European Communities Act 1972, which is the Act that gave legal force to the UK's joining the EEC in the first place.

This is defined in Section 20, Subsections 1 and 2 of the Act, and is primary legislation. There are therefore only two ways to change this: primary legislation, for which there is no time anyway, or statutory instrument, which would need approval from both Houses (see EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018, Section (20), Subsection (4), and Schedule 7, Section (14)).

But even then it's clearly academic: the UK is currently only able to avoid exiting from the EU on March 29th if it also either agrees to an extension with the unanimous approval of the EU27 or revokes Article 50 notification altogether. The first is becoming actually tricky to envisage:

-- what is the actual point of a short extension when there are still no signs that Parliament can agree on a given version of Brexit that avoids a No Deal exit?
-- Would a longer extension, which, among other things, implies that the UK has to elect new MEPs, be any more acceptable to Brexiters, or to the EU, who would presumably rather see us go now if we are actually going?

And the second option, revoking A50 notification altogether, would have to be a "good faith" withdrawal anyway, because if it is just a cheap way of buying two more years then that undermines the spirit of the recent ruling from the ECJ on the matter.

Anyway, the net effect is that the UK has roughly speaking a week to decide what it wants, two days to ensure that the EU is at least in principle on board with that, and then needs another week to make sure that both Houses agree to the given extension too, so that the necessary changes to the EU (Withdrawal) Act can be implemented.

[jim360]

TTT, I was just wanting to post an amusing picture before actually answering the question (see above post).

[vetuste_ennemi]

"one of those voting for the Deal this time was David Davis"

Really, Jim?

"Who knows what that says about his beliefs?".

You've got me there. The difference between this deal and the previous one he voted against is the EU's new and "legally binding" assurance about the backstop: "Trust us".

[jim360]

Yes, really. It's been confirmed across a tonne of sources that David Davis was one of the 40(ish) Tory MPs that voted for the deal this time, having voted against against it in January.

It is especially odd because, even this morning, Davis was making it known that his vote would depend on the legal advice of Geoffrey Cox. Since that has not changed in any fundamentals, it was a surprise to see Davis's vote in particular change.

Perhaps it will be more revealing to see how he votes tomorrow.

[ichkeria]

There were quite a few surprise turnarounds of which Davis was probably the most notable.
But a few also changed back from originally deciding to support the deal.

[ichkeria]

So your answer Jim is more or less what I said less expansively.
Thanks for helping me ;-)

[jim360]

On a slightly different note, it is a shame that on this critical day Theresa May had lost her voice, but credit to her for pushing through with what she had to say anyway, and to the Commons for keeping quiet as she spoke.

[ToraToraTora]

ich: "So your answer Jim is more or less what I said less expansively.
Thanks for helping me ;-) " - err no, see this:
jim: "But even then it's clearly academic: the UK is currently only able to avoid exiting from the EU on March 29th if it ALSO either agrees to an extension with the unanimous approval of the EU27 or revokes Article 50 notification altogether. The first is becoming actually tricky to envisage: " - note the word "also" my caps above. The also refers to the previous paragraph:
"This is defined in Section 20, Subsections 1 and 2 of the Act, and is primary legislation. There are therefore only two ways to change this: primary legislation, for which there is no time anyway, or statutory instrument, which would need approval from both Houses (see EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018, Section (20), Subsection (4), and Schedule 7, Section (14)" - so revoking or extending A50 is meaningless with the afore mentioned repeal or statutory instrument. So only both things can avoid the default of leaving on 29th March.

[ToraToraTora]

for "with" mean "without" after "meaningless" above.

[ToraToraTora]

mean = read above, dam keyboard!

[ichkeria]

There’s an amendment up tomorrow that WOULD kill No Deal forever.
The main motion is just to postpone it.

[ToraToraTora]

no it wont ich, have you grasped any of the above?

[jim360]

No Amendment Parliament can pass tomorrow kills no deal outright. So in that regard TTT is correct and ich is simply wrong. More in a coming post but I wanted to make it short and sweet to start with.

[ichkeria]

The quote above you quote Tora talks of only being able to avoid leaving on March 29 by getting an extension or revoking article 50.
That is exactly what I said albeit perhaps not very clearly because I was not exactly sure. I never claimed that the vote tomorrow took no deal off the table, in fact I pointed out that it didn’t.
Tho see my previous post.

[Zacs-Master]

If there is a majority vote By MPs against no deal this will not kill it (a no deal). They will also need to prove there is a majority in favour of an alternative outcome. Agreeing what that alternative outcome Is would be like herding cats.

[ichkeria]

Jim the amendment tomorrow cannot automatically do that but effectively it would.

[ichkeria]

... and there’s no guarantee it would pass or even that it would be called.

[Zacs-Master]

The theory is that ‘we’ would need to persuade the EU that something significant had happened to validate a request for an extension. Something like an election, a 2nd referendum say. Anything else would be scoffed at.

[jim360]

In order to revoke Article 50 altogether, in fact, Parliament will surely need to pass Primary legislation. This is for the same reason that legislation was needed to give notification of withdrawal in the first place.

This is for two reasons: either the UK and the EU must agree in the terms of any extension, or the UK must unilaterally withdraw notification altogether. The first is therefore entirely conditional on the EU's consent, and whilst the second is not, I don't believe that it can be achieved in time for March 29th -- even setting aside the points I make later, there is currently no will in Parliament for such a drastic approach anyway. Everything is pointing towards a second referendum or General Election before that could be taken seriously.

But, setting that aside, the PM cannot rule out No Deal on her own free will, and Parliament can only do so with new Primary Legislation, which therefore will require rather a lot more than two weeks.

It goes back to the Supreme Court ruling of early 2017: the Crown (ie, the Prime Minister) has no powers to revoke primary legislation by Royal Prerogative. Since the effect of the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018 is that the UK must leave on "exit day", and since the only powers within that act that can happen more quickly than Primary Legislation are to change the date of exit day but not remove it altogether, then it must follow that the only way to undo this is via Primary Legislation. Nothing else will do. Nor, as I say, can the PM just go ahead and revoke notification. The EU (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017 was constitutionally required to give the PM the power to notify in the first place, and, by symmetry, a further act will be required in order to undo the effect of that Act.

The 2017 Act was, moreover, rushed through about as fact as possible, and it *still* took nearly two months from presentation to Royal Assent. The UK Constitution effectively demands that at least this much time is spent scrutinising a bill, and it has to go through three readings in both Houses as well as extensive committee stages.

This took a while to make a fairly simple point, but there we have it. No Deal can only now be avoided with the EU's consent. If we want to skip that step then we needed to start planning for it in January.

[ToraToraTora]

yes jim as I have been saying, no deal is now much more likely.