UK can cancel Brexit, says EU court

Geo News   December 10, 2018   Latest stories, News   Comment  

The European Court of Justice has ruled the UK can cancel Brexit without the permission of the other 27 EU members.

The ECJ judges ruled this could be done without altering the terms of Britain's membership.

A group of anti-Brexit politicians argued the UK should be able to unilaterally halt Brexit, but they were opposed by the government and EU.

The decision comes a day before MPs are due to vote on Theresa May's deal for leaving the EU.

MPs are already widely expected to reject the proposals during a vote in the House of Commons on Tuesday night.

BBC Brussels correspondent Adam Fleming said the ruling made staying in the EU "a real, viable option" and that may "sway a few MPs" in the way they vote.

But he said "a lot would have to change in British politics" to see the UK remain in the EU, with Mrs May and the government having to change its mind to make it a "political reality".

A senior ECJ official - the advocate general - said last week he agreed the UK should be able to change its mind about leaving. His opinion was not legally binding, but the court tends to follow his advice in the majority of cases.

On Monday a statement from the ECJ said the ability for a member state to change its mind after telling the EU it wanted to leave would last as long as a withdrawal agreement had not been entered into, or for the two-year period after it had notified the bloc it was leaving.

If that two-year period gets extended, then a member state could change its mind during that extra time too.

But the court said the decision must "follow a democratic process", so in the UK's case, it would have to be approved by Parliament.

The member state would then have to write to the EU to notify them of the "unequivocal and unconditional" decision.

The ECJ said it made the ruling to "clarify the options open to MPs" ahead of voting on Mrs May's deal.

The case was brought by a cross-party group of politicians, including Scottish Green MSPs Andy Wightman and Ross Greer, SNP MEP Alyn Smith and MP Joanna Cherry and Labour MEPs David Martin and Catherine Stihler, who have been supported by Jolyon Maugham QC of the Good Law Project.

They received a major boost last week when one of the ECJ's advocate generals, Manuel Campos Sanchez-Bordona, issued a statement which backed their position.

Mr Campos Sanchez-Bordona said it was his opinion that if a country decided to leave the EU, it should also have the power to change its mind during the two-year exit process specified in Article 50 of the EU treaty.

Crucially, he also said it should be able to do so without the consent of the other EU states.

But he said the possibility of revoking the decision would be subject to "certain conditions and limits". This includes the withdrawal being a parliamentary decision, and observing "the principles of good faith and sincere co-operation... to prevent abuse of the procedure".

Dangerous precedent

This was despite the EU warning during a previous court hearing that it would set a dangerous precedent by encouraging other countries to announce they are leaving in an attempt to secure better membership terms, before cancelling their withdrawal.

The UK government's lawyers argued that the case was purely hypothetical as "the UK does not intend to revoke its notification", and ECJ judges should therefore have refused to rule on it.

They also claimed that the politicians behind it wanted to use the case as "political ammunition to be used in, and to pressure, the UK Parliament".

The case was initially taken to the Court of Session in Edinburgh, which ultimately agreed to pass it to the ECJ.

Two attempts by the UK government to appeal against the referral to the European court were rejected, and the case was heard by all 27 ECJ judges last month.