Ms May is expected early next year to trigger Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty, which will start two years of Brexit negotiations. The Government has refused to promise MPs and peers a vote on the decision, fuelling speculation that it may use the Royal Prerogative, under which the monarch’s historic powers are exercised by ministers without needing Parliament’s approval.
About 480 of the 650 MPs backed Remain in the June referendum and there is a strong pro-European lobby in the House of Lords. Although many MPs and peers are wary of opposing the public’s decision, if they were consulted, they might push for negotiations to be delayed and for the fullest possible access for the UK to the EU single market after Brexit.
Grassroots campaigners who have launched the “People’s Challenge” claim that the rights they enjoy as British citizens inside the EU cannot be taken away unless the Acts of Parliament giving effect to EU law are repealed by Parliament. They include Grahame and Rob Pigney, who live in France; Christopher Formaggia, who lives in Wales, Paul Cartwright, who is from Gibraltar; Tahmid Chowdhury, who lives in London and Fergal McFerran from Belfast.
John Halford, a partner at law firm Bindmans which is representing the group, said: “The support the public have shown so far for this case is heartening. It demonstrates that people feel profoundly troubled by the prospect of having rights they have had for four decades stripped away in the democratic vacuum that will be created if the Prime Minister is allowed to use the Royal Prerogative to invoke Article 50. The People`s Challenge group`s stand against that happening is courageous and a critical means to ensure ordinary British citizens’ voices are heard and given real weight by the courts on this issue.”
More about:
