Martin Howe has given Article 50 a forensic treatment.
It underscores what we already knew, namely that the Article 50 route for the EU was nothing less than a trap for the UK – or perhaps more aptly given developments recently, could be called an area of lethal quicksand.
It starkly reveals how the “transition” not only enables us to leave the EU in name only after March 2019, but that we would be involved in extremely complex and unnecessary arrangements open to more protracted disputes which could possibly delay almost indefinitely a real Brexit (in spite of Mrs May’s repeated assurances about “leave means leave & etc”)
In my view this is a hugely important piece, though long is worth reading and understanding the basic message – it is a noose being prepared for the UK and given enough rope, we know what our devious political class are capable of.
If you would kindly circulate this to your list then it would do a great service in providing a sound analysis of the acute danger we face from the ‘remainers’ by one of the best legal minds today in the UK on matters EU. (some of the emphases in bold are mine below)
In this first part of his analysis of the legal and treaty ramifications of the Florence speech ‘implementation period’ proposal, Martin Howe QC explains that:
The EU only has the legal power under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union to agree transitional or interim arrangements once the destination to which the transition leads has been agreed, at least as a framework. There is no power under Article 50 for the EU to agree an open ended transitional period of the kind which many business leaders seem to expect in order to allow time for negotiation about the future relationship.
Because the EU cannot agree to a transitional period until the framework of the future relationship has been agreed, it is impossible for the EU to agree to a transitional period until late 2018 at the earliest. Hopes that such a transition can be agreed ‘by the end of this year’ are naive and totally unrealistic.