The Supreme Court

[cromwell]

Brexit will go ahead and on schedule, and I have no problem with that, but it will be on the say-so of the "Sovereign" UK parliament. Good!

Will it though? It has to go through the Commons and the Lords.

[AliasAggers]

It looks that the Referendum seeking the wishes of the people was nothing but a waste of time.

I only wish we could get rid of these stupid judges, who are unelected, and nothing more than
over-promoted solicitors. I don't see that they have any worthwhile part to take in democracy.

[Workingman]

Brexit will go ahead and on schedule, and I have no problem with that, but it will be on the say-so of the "Sovereign" UK parliament. Good!

Will it though? It has to go through the Commons and the Lords.

Oh yes, the HoL could, under normal circumstances, delay a Bill for up to one year. Would it dare to do so under the current circumstances? There would be riots if it did.... and the government would introduce a new Parliamentary Act to prevent it ever happening again. There are already calls for reform of the HoL, from all sides, so a new Act would be a paperwork exercise.

There is also the option for the government to simply reintroduce the Bill at the start of the next session of parliament and pass it without recourse to the Hol. The current session ends on the 25th of May and the new one starts on the 5th of June, so the very worst the HoL could do is delay A50 for a little over two months.

I know that they are old duffers, but they are not stupid. Signing their own death warrants for a two month delay is as stupid as stupid gets.

Aggers, I understand your frustration with the judges, but they cannot be blamed in this case. They were asked by members of the public to make a judgement on a point of law. It is an option open to any one of the 65 million or so of us, and at any time. You could do it, I could do it, but once they get asked they have to make a decision, and whatever decision they make is usually open to appeal to the next highest court. That is the law as laid down by parliament and the judges have no option but to obey the law.

[Suff]

True WM but at least one of those supreme court judges judged that this was a political matter and should never have come to the courts.

Had all the judges been of that mindset, then they could simply have thrown it out.

The ironic part is that if the Supreme court threw it out, the next court they would have to take it to is the court of first instance in Brussels and that would absolutely throw it out.

Anyway, the judges have had their say and all they really have said is that parliament has to decide.

I was of the understanding that the Lords could refuse a bill twice but if it passed the commons a third time then it was passed into law. There is no obligation for the government to modify a bill rejected by the Lords if it keeps passing the Commons. Normally, of course, bills are all scheduled well ahead of time and might run out of time to be discussed and passed. However the Government does have the right to completely upend the schedule and keep working on one bill till it passes.

With the Labour MP's scared for their seats it would take at least 100 Tory MP's to rebel before it failed and I would expect a 3 line whip and a vote of confidence to be used.

We shall see.