Well, talk about mixed messages... last night Parliament said they liked Boris's deal, but.... then voted to delay implementing it until at least January.
And who among us believes that Parliament will agree to implement the deal in January?
Who amongst us believes that Parliament will instead request yet another delay if the EU haven't included the UK the new phase of the Lisbon treaty that comes into force in 2020?
Who among us are suspicious that the delay to January allows the full force of the Lisbon treaty to come into force and nullify article 50 and keep us in the EU indefinitely?
What I'm alluding to is the change that comes about in the Lisbon treaty in 2020. Instead of a country leaving unilaterally by implementing article 50, the method of exit changes to a country having to request an exit and the EU voting to allow the exit.
Despite the protests to the contrary by pro-EU websites, I suspect that this is the case and that the part of the backstop that removed the ability to exit unilaterally and instead required us to be subject to a unilateral vote in the EU was actually in place to align us with the Lisbon treaty post-2020.
It changes to being a permissive system: the country has to request permission to leave, which would almost always be refused.
Guess what? Although we have triggered article 50, we're still in the EU. Not only that, we are still in the EU well past the article 50 deadline of two years.
Now it can be argued legally that although we triggered article 50, we never (as a country) intended to leave, as witnessed by the multiple requests to extend and stay inside the EU.
So legally it can be argued that our article 50 request is null and void, thereby committing us to continued EU membership without a unilateral exit procedure.
Any ideas, Sherlock?
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