Clearly developing trade links is a key part of any Brexit strategy. The UK needs to move fast. Big responsibility on Liam Fox and his team. There is absolutely no guarantee that the UK will have access to the single market. The price may be too high. The UK needs to develop effective trade arrangements with the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, India, China, Columbia, Brazil, Africa etc.. Progress on these arrangements may well make it easier to reach agreements in Europe. But this is just one aspect of Brexit, and not the subject of this post.
Let us consider the law instead. If I have to choose one reason why I voted to 'Leave' it would be about how UK law is made. And it seems to me it's the behaviour of Court of Justice of the EU over many years which more than anything else delivered the vote to leave. Up with the CJEU the British people would not put.
The majority of British people are committed to self-government, to parliamentary democracy and the prerogatives of the nation-state. Over many years, the EU has misused judicial power, and given every indication it intended to misuse it further. This is not about the European Court of Human Rights, which is often blamed and which may well not be effected. It is about the Court of Justice of the EU, which has become, in effect, a 'political court' - guilty of unacceptable 'overreach' pursuing the political objectives of 'ever closer union'. This approach to law is not British, and has been rejected by the British people. We do not want our Parliament to be effectively subjected to a foreign court.
Brexit will free the UK from rule imposed by the CJEU. She will recover parliamentary democracy, though remaining subject to the Human Rights Act and the European Court of Human Rights (which it should). In time Brexit will change the way our leading lawyers behave. Over recent years many have caught the European tendency to see common law as being secondary to law emanating from the EU. As a result of Brexit, we will see a change in how lawyers think about the British constitution. Parliament is sovereign (unless it knowingly agrees not to be), it is constitutionally entitled to decide on our laws, and the courts should faithfully uphold that principle. This principle, fundamental to Brexit, must lead to a rebalancing between the powers of the courts and the powers of Parliament. If not Brexit would not have been worth it.
I know lots of lawyers. And mostly I like them. But I fear they have become far too big for their boots. Since the referendum vote, I've received hundreds of emails from constituents asking me to agree with some Cambridge lawyer that the referendum result should be regarded as unlawful and should be ignored. Must admit I consider this to be utterly ridiculous - politically impossible. Others 'advise' that the vote should be just one of the considerations influencing Govt, because the referendum was 'advisory'. I'm afraid I thought that to be equally nonsensical - and hugely damaging to the British constitution if acted on. There are other lawyers arguing that an Act of Parliament is needed before Article 50 is involved. This looks like a simple delaying stunt. As David Cameron actually promised to do before June 23rd, it would have entirely lawful for him to invoke Article 50 on the 24th. And then we had 1000 lawyers writing to the media refusing to accept the decision of the public vote. They do not realise the destructive damage they would do to democracy, if we took the slightest notice of them. Thank goodness we seem to have a Prime Minister who grasps fully what the vote to 'Leave' meant.
I am likely to amend this when I re-read it tomorrow. I'm open to be persuaded as well if arguments are based on accepting the will and voice of the 17.4 million voters who were not fooled by the often outrageous promises of Armageddon if they voted 'Leave'. They did and it must be respected.
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