After May’s speech last night, someone started a petition on the Government’s e-petitions site calling on the Government to Revoke the Article 50 notice to quit the EU.
The growth in signatures has been explosive, hitting the 100,000 in hours, having a rate of 50 minute at 3:30 am and hitting 2,000 a minute in the early morning (100 TPS) and then it crashed. It was restarted early morning and went down again, but is now up and states over ¾m signatures. … …
Carole Cadwalladr reports that the so-called “Bad Boys of Brexit” have been lobbying the Italian Government to veto an extension to the A50 notice period. If they succeed, our only response can be to call for a revoking of the Article 50 notice.
Last week @arron_banks & @andywigmore went to Veneto, the heartland of Italy's Lega Nord. Today, the plan is revealed. The fascists have agreed to help Britain exit without a deal. Salvini will block an extension of article 50. We're fucked. pic.twitter.com/06bNSrd9EJ
— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) March 13, 2019
If you look at the thread, she also points at “Putin’s party signs deal with Italy’s far-right Lega Nord” in the FT which documents the Lega Nord’s relationship with Putin’s “United Russia”, which let’s face it has a pretty cool logo but their politics cannot be considered to be for the betterment of the British or other European peoples. …
Here’s a glimmer of hope, Paul Coterill on his Medium account, in an article called “Hope for Revoke”, talks of Parliament changing the UK’s legal default from “No Deal” or more accurately whatever’s on the table on the 29th March, bit like a secret santa, to Revoking Article 50; I’d drop my support for a 2nd referendum in exchange for Revoking Article 50. …
What Jeremy Corbyn wrote to members and said about Labour’s i.e the PLP’s position on Brexit, …
In my report back from Labour Party Conference, I predicted that the fault lines caused by the Brexit Referendum would become a potential fatal debate for the Labour Party. Today the Independent reported on a speech by John McDonnell, in which he argued that Labour would not oppose an Article 50 bill and would use moral pressure to ensure that the Brexit terms negotiated were acceptable to Labour. Jolyen Maugham argues in the New Statesman that promising not to oppose Article 50, or not to amend it disarms the PLP, it will have no leverage on the Tories who are still putting the interests of their party before that of the country. …
The BBC reports that the High Court states that the Government needs Parliament’s permission to trigger the EU’s Article 50 Brexit process. The article is silent on whether Parliament has to express its will as a Law or joint house resolution; I’ll leave the last word to others more qualified, but I don’t think there is any other way to undo previous Parliamentary dispositions other than to pass a new law, which involves four readings and a committee stage in the Commons and the same in the Lords and potentially whatever we call the Conference process to resolve disagreements between the Houses. …