United Kingdom
Related: About this forumDenzil_DC
(7,186 posts)It's gotten the online Brexiters cock-a-hoop tonight, but it's mainly a way of appearing to do something at the moment while continuing to kick a whole load of cans down the road.
May says the bill will be in the next Queen's speech (i.e. in spring 2017), and if passed during that session of parliament, it wouldn't come into effect until the day the UK actually leaves the EU, having been through the whole Article 50 negotiations, whenever that is (not least bearing in mind the threatened vetoes from some EU countries). It will then enshrine EU law into UK law, then she proposes parliament will prune the resulting legislation at its leisure to take out the distasteful bits.
There are early questions about how well thought through this has been, including the fact that EU legislation is already enshrined in UK law, otherwise we wouldn't have to observe it! Then there are issues of EU law where you can't just do a "find EU and replace with UK" operation. Then there's the fact that to be part of the single market, the UK must submit to the jurisdiction of European Court of Justice anyway. Add to that serious constitutional issues involving Scotland and Northern Ireland, and this may not be the breezy process some of the media are presenting it as at the moment.
Oh, I'm sure she doesn't!
LeftishBrit
(41,190 posts)muriel_volestrangler
(101,144 posts)(no vote if the Attorney General wins the case in the High Court next week in which others are trying to force one, that is)
(because the BBC story got extensively updated today)
LeftishBrit
(41,190 posts)which would not be sufficient mandate for a constitutional amendment in any other country?
You need a majority of *states* in almost any other country (in USA, 75% of states AND Congress has to pass it; in Canada 70% of provinces AND Parliament has to pass it). 50% of constituent countries, 52% of voters, and NO Parliamentary vote = no bloody mandate for such a drastic action.
I wonder who is sitting on May, because I doubt that it's all just her idea. Though it's fairly clear that if she has to choose between keeping the Tory Party united and keeping the UK united, she would always choose the first.
What an almighty mess, and how UNNECESSARY!!!!!!
Denzil_DC
(7,186 posts)not to parliament, which might have felt it had some grounds to hear about it first!
So no, it doesn't sound like she has much concern for representative democracy, just the craven self-serving populism to paper over Tory splits that we seem to have gotten used to.
Denzil_DC
(7,186 posts)It's barely the same article I first commented on! Maybe one good reason for quoting a few paragraphs in an OP rather than just giving the link ...