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Comment by michaelt | Hacker News Reader

The article says parliament will get a vote on whether to invoke Article 50.

As I understand things, there was a vote on leaving the EU, and the UK voted to leave. And as I understand things, there's only one way to leave the EU, and that's by invoking Article 50.

Seems to me that means there was a referendum on whether to invoke Article 50, and people voted to invoke it. Why should MPs get to block the referendum result?

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Article 50 states that "Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements." It's the "constitutional requirements" clause that's the problem. Britain does not have a written constitution, but it has traditions that are considered an unwritten constitution, eg. the government (ie. the ruling party) cannot take away rights of the citizens without the consent of Parliament. How exactly this interacts with the Brexit vote is a difficult question, hence the need for this court case.

And if Theresa May thinks that taking back board control is worth leaving the single market, can she do that, just because of the referendum?

People also gave Tories majority in the Parliament and Tories' manifesto committed to stay in the single market.

>As I understand things, there was a vote on leaving the EU, and the UK voted to leave. And as I understand things, there's only one way to leave the EU, and that's by invoking Article 50.

You are interpreting people's reasoning here, as Article 50 was not mentioned in the referendum (another option to leave the EU is to declare war to it, is that what they voted for, then?) and as I understand things, in UK, that is the Parliament's job.

Whether the UK remains or leaves the single market isn't really relevant. Triggering Article 50 opens up the possibility of leaving the single market, but doesn't necessarily result in it.

Triggering Article 50 is one of the simplest ways of leaving the EU, and it was almost universally agreed across both sides of the referendum campaign that Brexit (if that was to be the outcome) would be achieved through the triggering of Article 50.

I don't think those who want to leave the EU are especially hung up on Article 50 -- it's just a means to an end. How the UK leaves the EU isn't vital. What's important is that the UK does leave. Those who oppose the triggering of Article 50 aren't doing so because they want another method of leaving the EU -- they don't want to leave at all!

The question is ultimately about whether the UK should leave the EU or not. And the decision was already made on 23rd June.

The referendum was an opinion poll, with no legal effect.

The effect comes from what the government does with that poll, and the high court has ruled that the government cannot act without parliament's consent. To be absolutely clear: The referendum had no legal effect beyond being an opinion poll.

37.5% of the population voted to "Leave the EU". The definition of what "Leave the EU" actually meant and the way in which the leaving would actually take place was never discussed.

If the EU was just a group of people holding hands, and after deciding to leave you were informed that instead of just letting go, the only way out was to cut off both of your arms, I imagine you might want to re-think your decision?

Because the referendum was only advisory, something that was stated clearly at the start. Both sides were aware going into the referendum that invoking article 50 would ultimately be decided by parliament.

and people voted to invoke it Because apparently that's not how the UK system of government works. Parliament has a sovereignty different than that of the people.

> As I understand things, there was a vote on leaving the EU

You understand incorrectly. A referendum has no legal binding in the UK, it is essentially the government asking the population what to do - it might decide to ignore the results altogether.

Because it's an advisory referendum. Also, UK is not a direct democracy.

The court has said that the government can't constitutionally send a notification under Article 50 without Parliament passing new legislation.

It's not about voting, it's about the law on the statute books.

I 'm pretty sure the Courts know better than any of us.

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