The EU’s top court yesterday ruled that the UK could unilaterally revoke its divorce notice, while British Prime Minister Theresa May on Sunday said that if parliament rejects her Brexit deal, it could leave Britain in the EU and bring the opposition Labour Party to power.
The EU Court of Justice said in an emergency judgement that London could revoke its Article 50 formal divorce notice with no penalty.
May’s government said the ruling means nothing, because it has no intention of reversing its decision to leave the EU on March 29.
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The timing of the ruling on the eve of the British parliamentary vote was not a coincidence: The court said it had ruled with unprecedented haste to ensure that British lawmakers would understand their options.
It also defied the EU’s own executive, which had argued that permission was needed from other EU states to stop Brexit.
Britain could stay in the EU with no penalty, the Court of Justice ruled, despite some European leaders saying it should have to give up perks agreed to over the years, such as a rebate on its dues.
“The United Kingdom is free to revoke unilaterally the notification of its intention to withdraw from the EU,” the Court of Justice said. “Such a revocation, decided in accordance with its own national constitutional requirements, would have the effect that the United Kingdom remains in the EU under terms that are unchanged.”
Arriving to meet EU counterparts in Brussels, British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Jeremy Hunt called the ruling “irrelevant.”
The majority of British voters, who decided in a 2016 referendum to leave the EU, would be “shocked and very angry” if Brexit were halted, Hunt said.
Alyn Smith, a Scottish nationalist member of the European Parliament and one of the Brexit opponents who had brought the case to the top EU court in Luxembourg, said the ruling “sends a clear message to UK [members of parliament] ahead of today’s vote that there is a way out of this mess.”
Media reports said May is under pressure from her Cabinet to delay today’s vote on the draft Brexit plan and fly to Brussels to secure more concessions ahead of a planned summit with the other 27 EU leaders on Thursday and Friday.
However, British Secretary of State for Exiting the EU Stephen Barclay told the BBC: “The vote is going ahead.”
May said that Britain “would truly be in uncharted waters” if the text agreed on after nearly two years of tortuous negotiations is voted down less than four months before the Brexit date.
“It would mean grave uncertainty for the nation with a very real risk of no Brexit,” she told the Mail on Sunday. “We have a leader of the opposition who thinks of nothing but attempting to bring about a general election... I believe Jeremy Corbyn getting his hands on power is a risk we cannot afford to take.”
May is facing her biggest crisis since coming to power a month after the UK voted 52 percent to 48 percent in June 2016 to leave the world’s largest single market after 46 years.
Opponents are seeking either a second referendum or a pact that maintains stronger UK-EU ties than the one offered by May.
The febrile political atmosphere was reinforced by rival rallies that drew thousands in different parts of London over the weekend.
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