Innovation and some constitutional acrobatics could be required if Parliament takes over control of the Brexit process, according to a senior lawyer and Brexit commentator.
MPs have tabled a series of amendments ahead of the vote next week, when Prime Minister Theresa May will renew attempts to persuade the House of Commons to back her withdrawal deal.
They include Labour’s Yvette Cooper and Conservative Nick Boles’s request for a one-day debate on a bill requiring the Prime Minister to seek an Art 50 extension until the end of the year if MPs have not approved a Brexit deal by 26 February.
Former Attorney General Dominic Grieve, meanwhile, has asked for six days of Brexit debate with backbenchers rather than the government in control.
Writing in this week’s NLJ, David Greene, senior partner at Edwin Coe & NLJ consultant editor, says: ‘Parliament is not particularly structured to draft legislation or to drive it through the process, which needs a governmental dynamic.
‘This is not its constitutional role, and it is difficult to see how this will work without innovative machinations of the speaker, whose own role as a neutral may also present constitutional problems.
‘Further, constitutionally the government retains the whip hand, reinforced by Parliament’s own legislation.’
Greene says such moves would ‘turn the legislative process on its head’.
He concludes: ‘Rejection of the prime minister’s proposals has, as she rightly said, put us into uncharted territory constitutionally. Where we go from here might rebalance the UK constitution and its workings forever.’
Meanwhile, the Bar has published its latest Brexit Paper, this time examining how environmental laws will be enforced after Brexit. It is authored by Bar Council EU Law Committee member Celina Colquhoun.
Currently, EU institutions can fine the UK for breaches of EU pollution limits or refer the UK to the European Court of Justice, forcing the government to take action. Post-Brexit, Colquhoun says, the new watchdog proposed by DEFRA, the Office of Environmental Protection, will have far less power.
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