I will be as brief as I can. I rise to speak in support of new clause 6 on the legal standing of article 50. I voted in the last Parliament to invoke
article 50 because I believed it was the duty of the House to seek to deliver Brexit in the form in which it was sold to the British people, but it was conditional on it being in that form. I said that if it turned out to be materially different at the end of the process, the people would be entitled to keep an open mind on what should then happen. By that I meant they were entitled to halt the process and revoke the article 50 notification given by the Prime Minister to the President of the European Council, if that was what the people decided to do.
The core purpose of new clause 6 is to clear up this matter. On the issue of revocability—halting the process or extending article 50—Ministers have sought deliberately to pull the wool over the eyes not just of this House but of the people. They have given the misleading impression that legally we are not free to keep an open mind and that we cannot revoke article 50 if we so wish. For example, on 9 October 2017, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) asked the Prime Minister if it was possible to halt the article 50 process, she implied that it was not and said:
“The position was made clear in a case that went through the Supreme Court in relation to article 50.”—[Official Report, 9 October 2017; Vol. 629, c. 51.]
But it was not. The case she was referring to was brought by Gina Miller to stop this Government seeking to take back control for Ministers instead of for Parliament, as was intended.
The Prime Minster was pressed again on the same day by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) and my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie) and each time gave a similar response. This gave a completely false impression of the reality, because what she said was not factually correct. The Supreme Court did not and has not opined on this issue in the Miller or any other case before it, though the author of article 50, the noble Lord Kerr, has made it clear that it may be revoked.