If the noble Lord allows me to develop my argument he will see exactly what the problem with what he is saying is, because no agreement is by far the most likely outcome. As the Prime Minister made clear in her excellent Lancaster House speech and as the subsequent White Paper reiterated, no agreement would be better than a bad agreement. Sadly—and it is sad—a bad agreement is all that is likely to be on offer. However, the mischief of subsection (4) of this proposed new clause is that it would not merely give Parliament the power to reject a bad deal but enable it to prevent Brexit altogether by refusing to allow the UK to leave the European Union without an agreement. This not only is in diametric opposition to the Pannick thesis on which the Bill rests but, more importantly, would be an unconscionable rejection of the referendum result that would drive a far greater wedge between the political class and the British people than the dangerous gulf that already exists.
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It might be argued that all Parliament would be doing would be instructing the Government to go back to Brussels and accept whatever agreement, however bad, the 27 were prepared to offer. That is clearly unacceptable, and indeed constitutionally improper. The only practical effect of subsection (4) would be to create a political crisis, causing highly damaging uncertainty to business and the economy, which could in practice be resolved only by a dissolution of Parliament and a general election—something the Opposition can always try to achieve, if that is what they wish, without this clause, simply by moving and carrying a vote of no confidence in the Government. This mischievous proposed new clause, masquerading as an assertion of parliamentary sovereignty, deserves to be rejected out of hand.