Martin Meenagh blog

  The short answer to the question is that Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon allowed a state to leave. Such an answer raises the question of why the United Kingdom has, so far, been the only state to invoke and execute the right to leave under the article. The reasons why some of the poorest and most deprived areas of the United Kingdom led it out of the EU on June 23, 2016, are complicated and do not fit into an easy chronological or legal order. From the very broadest point of view, membership of the Union, and the Community before it, was a limitation on the freedom of the House of Commons to legislate and represented a second sovereignty in the UK. It is very tempting to take a ‘grand sweep of history’ approach and to note that the Westminster regime has never dealt well with alternative sovereignties. The claims of the Catholic church were expunged in 1533, for instance, as were those of Wales to separate treatment; the Irish parliament was subordinated to Poyning’s law, ...

  On June 23 rd 2016, a majority of voters in the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. This was effected after two general elections and a protracted debate on January 31 2020. The United Kingdom is now outside of the Union but in a Trade and Cooperation Agreement with it, parts of which are still not fully defined. This agreement carries with arrangements of mutual benefit to both sides but does not include the UK in EU decision structures, the customs union, the single market, or the free trade area. The UK is in a series of separate agreements with the Irish government which causes there to be a border issue on the island of Ireland.   Article 50 and Referenda in the UK The means by which the UK transitioned from the status of EU membership was initiated by the existence of Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon. This article was, ironically, inserted by the British permanent representative to the EC, Sir John Kerr, in the belief that it would not be invoke...

The 2021 May elections have not seen the overwhelming Scottish National Party ‘breakthrough’ that the nationalists were clearly hoping for, although this was arguably a matter of a few chance votes. The election did, however, see a significantly higher turnout than was present in other British elections, with 63.2% of eligible voters voting (as opposed to just over 42% in London, for example.) Despite this, only three out of seventy-three constituencies changed hands, and the winning party had single-digit majorities in sixteen seats. The second Party prioritising independence, Alba, did very badly, and the third, for whom independence was not an overwhelming priority, the Greens, gained seats. This leaves a mixed argument for those who claim that the vote was a ‘mandate’ for independence. The idea of a mandate is that an election is defined by one issue, and that a majority produced amongst diverse districts can be said to settle a question put by those who call the election. This is ...