Sorry thegimble - no it wont.thegimble wrote:
Sorry Spartacus as it stand the act does not. It needs to be ratified.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 05181.html
I've read the entire case put forward by three academics and supported by the gentleman in the article you quote, and quite frankly the argument is fundamentally flawed from the outset. The argument starts on false premise; to quote from the article itself
"A new bill to repeal the 1972 European Communities Act that took Britain into the EU must now be passed by parliament" and
"The 1972 communities act ... is still good law and remains so until repealed. In November, Prime Minister [Boris] Johnson will have to introduce into parliament the European communities repeal bill," (he was wrong on Boris as well)
The whole argument is predicated on those statements.
The problem is in fact that there is absolutely no need to repeal the European Communities Act at all.
Section 2(1) of that Act states;
All such rights, powers, liabilities, obligations and restrictions from time to time created or arising by or under the Treaties, and all such remedies and procedures from time to time provided for by or under the Treaties, as in accordance with the Treaties are without further enactment to be given legal effect or used in the United Kingdom shall be recognised and available in law, and be enforced, allowed and followed accordingly; and the expression “enforceable EU right” and similar expressions shall be read as referring to one to which this subsection applies.
This is an Act past by Parliament which makes all EU treaties directly applicable as law in the UK. Article 50 is contained in the Treaty of Lisbon and is therefore directly effective law within the UK. In short the European Communities Act is an Act of Parliament which allows Article 50 to invoked, thus the constitutional requirements are already met. That Act can remain until such time as we have left the Union at which point it will be redundant.
The Government (specifically the Prime Minister) can, at the international level, use the Royal Prerogative power of foreign affairs to trigger the Article 50 process. This is because our constitutional arrangements leave it to the Government to conduct foreign affairs. Prerogative power has always contained powers relating to foreign affairs and this has historically involved the making of treaties at international level. Under the European Communities Act, the Government has used Prerogative power to sign up all of the various EU Treaties. Including those that the Labour Government signed up to after promising in 2005 that they would not transfer any more power to Brussels without a referendum
In isolation, the exiting process would be a case of conducting international affairs through the prerogative power. In this way, the Government can activate Article 50 today, tomorrow, or in ten years