There will be headlines. There will be letters. There will be alternative facts.
Brace yourself for a bumpy ride folks, try not to let your head explode. Tomorrow morning there will be headlines that are wild and untamed, opinion pieces that are unhinged and mean-spirited. I’m prepared to wager that the word “betrayal” will feature, along with an unfounded assertion that “unelected judges” are trying to “overturn the democratic will”.
These are lies, or as we know describe them (with thanks to Kellyanne Conway), “alternative facts”.
The truth, orthodox and unfashionably “mainstream” facts, are very simple. Today, the Supreme Court gave their decision that the process to begin leaving the EU should start with Parliament.
Here we need a brief constitutional class:
- in the UK the executive branch of government is the Prime Minister and her appointed ministers. They make decision and execute them. Amongst other things, they can start wars and they can make and break treaties.
- the Prime Minister and her ministers do this using the prerogative powers, powers that belong to the Crown.
- one thing the Crown does not have the power to do is to take away rights of British subjects. We had revolutions and wars over this, twice in the 17th century. The reason why the Crown’s prerogative powers are used by the Prime Minister, who is a Member of Parliament, is because Parliament won.
- these powers go back to Magna Carta (which in 2015 Tory MPs were proud to tell us was the foundation of the rule of law in the UK – Michael Gove even wrote a book about it) and the Glorious Revolution (the second revolution/war of the 17th century).
The Supreme Court’s decision today resolved a paradox in the points above – if the PM and her ministers are the ones who have the power to break a treaty, what happens when using that power would mean taking away certain rights of British subjects, which can only be done by Parliament. The Court decided that, in this situation, Parliament is the body responsible. The process for breaking a treaty that would remove the rights of British subjects begins there.
Leaving the EU is a difficult and complex process that begins when a member state triggers Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty by notifying the European Council that it wants to leave and start negotiating an agreement to get out.
Despite the general idea put about by many politicians and newspapers, just voting to leave in June doesn’t lead to an easy break where “Brexit means Brexit”. Britain can’t just wave good by and go its own merry way.
The politicians like Nigel Farage or newspapers like the Daily Mail or Daily Express who want you to believe this is just a simple thing, are either ill-informed and ignorant, or simply dishonestly trying to benefit from claiming that complications are just part of a conspiracy. They want to tell us that “mainstream” “elites” are trying to subvert democracy and they want us to put faith in them, to give them power. Telling us that leaving the EU is easy and that anyone who says it isn’t just wants to take away your democratic power is “alternative fact”, a lie.
Big chunks of UK law (including, for example, regulations that allow us to hold insurance companies to account if they try to screw us over) are covered by EU regulations and laws. When we joined the EEC in 1972, Parliament passed a law that made European law part of UK law. Leaving the EU means cutting away big chunks of UK law that most of the economy and society operates under.
Trade relationships with other EU states and the rest of world need to be unpicked and reorganised. Deals made with other countries that depended on our EU membership need to be ironed out – if something is being made in part by a company in Birmingham in partnership with a company in Turin, using Chinese steel, leaving the EU will cause problems. Jobs and businesses depend on this being sorted out properly.
You and I have certain rights and privileges that come from Britain’s EU membership. For example, we can work and trade freely across the EU, from Dublin to Dubrovnik. Leaving the EU means that we lose that right. Today the Supreme Court told us that only Parliament has the authority to take that right away. Tomorrow some of the papers will tell us that a bunch of unelected judges decided that your vote in the EU referendum didn’t matter. Alternative fact.
We were told lots of things in the referendum campaign, many facts turned out to be alternative. The NHS would have £350m more a week, money it desperately needs thanks to the Tory Government, and their earlier coalition with the sainted Lib Dems. We were told that sovereignty would be given back to Britain, power would be returned to the people.
Today the Supreme Court reminded us that there is British sovereignty and it is held by Parliament, by our representatives, and as they represent us they are the ones who will have to take away our rights. When we wonder why we lost them in the future, they can remind us that they were simply carrying out the wishes we expressed at the referendum.
We’ve been sold many alternative facts by Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Nigel Farage, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express, as well as others. They’ve lied to us constantly and they will keep lying to us. Since the vote, the Daily Express keeps coming up with alternative factual headlines telling us how wonderful things are and how special they will be.
When we laugh at Donald Trump’s press secretary trying to convince us that his inauguration was the biggest ever and compare him to Sadaam Hussein’s equivalent, Comical Ali, telling us how Iraq was winning the war in 2003, we should drop the laughter and realise the insanity of our own British fantasy world at the same time. Recognise our own alternative facts.
David Carrington 