Britain can cancel Brexit without condition: legal advice to ECJ

The UK should be able to revoke its decision to leave the EU without costs or conditions, legal advice to Europe’s highest court concludes.

Theresa May leaves Downing Street to address parliament. Picture: AP.

Britain should be able to revoke its decision to leave the EU without costs or conditions, legal advice given to Europe’s highest court has concluded.

In a victory for campaigners seeking to reverse Brexit, an advocate general to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) recommended giving the British parliament the right to reverse the withdrawal process without the agreement of Brussels. The move undermined claims by ministers that the decision to trigger Article 50 could not be reversed.

While the full court does not always follow advice of the advocate general it increases the likelihood that it would rule that Brexit was reversible.

In his opinion Manuel Campos Sanchez-Bordona made it clear that he intended to “open a third way, namely remaining in the EU in the face of an unsatisfactory Brexit”. He added: “The answer to the question … will enable MPs to know whether there is a third way available to them, not only the alternatives open to them at present. [Such a] ruling may produce legal effects, in so far as it would authorise the litigants … to take an initiative, based on EU law, in favour of unilaterally revoking the notification of the intention to withdraw”.

The case was brought by a cross-party group of Remain MPs and Scottish politicians and referred to the ECJ from the Court of Session, Scotland’s highest civil court. Alyn Smith, a Scottish National Party MEP and one of the litigants, said that the legal opinion was a “huge win”, adding: “We now have a road map out of the Brexit shambles.”

Dominic Grieve, the former Attorney-General who backs a second referendum, told Today on BBC Radio 4: “It is certainly helpful because it removes one of the arguments, which is, ‘Oh well, they would never allow us to change our minds.’ ”

Lawyers for the government said that judges should dismiss the challenge because the question of revoking article 50 was a hypothetical one and the government had no intention of doing so.

The Times