Politics

BREXIT SHOCK: Legal expert says UK ‘has ALREADY LEFT EU’ because Brexit delay is ILLEGAL


The date the UK was meant to leave the Brussels bloc was March 29 but an extension has been granted until April 12. However, English Democrats leader Robin Tilbrook claims the new exit date should have been passed by the House of Commons and the House of Lords before it was approved. Mr Tilbrook has launched a High Court battle claiming the UK has already left the EU and in the judicial review application, the English Democrats claim that Mrs May did not have the power to extend the exit date past March 29.

This comes as the former appeal judge Sir Richard Aikens has said the way in which the Article 50 extension was organised is “highly unsatisfactory” and “arguably illegal”.

He told the Daily Mail: “If the argument is correct, then it would mean that, under UK law, we left the EU last Friday at 11pm.

“The Treaties would no longer be binding and the UK would no longer be subject to EU law.

“The argument obviously becomes much more important if there is any attempt at a longer “extension”, but, logically, if the argument is correct, then any attempt at a further extension would be a legal nonsense as the UK would already be “out”.”

Four Tory MPs also wrote to Mrs May last weeks suggesting delaying Brexit in the way she did was illegal.

One of those MPs, Bill Cash, said: “We ask that you fully explain the actions taken by your Government and why you say that what it has done and is doing is legal.

“We are gravely concerned that you are unlawfully seeking to extend the UK’s membership of the EU.”

A spokesman for the Department for Exiting the European Union said: “As a matter of international law, the date of the UK’s exit from the EU was changed following the decision of the EU Council held on 22 March and the exchange of letters between the UK and EU on 25 March.

“We reflected this change in domestic law when we made the relevant statutory instrument on Thursday 28 March.”

The Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl told the Today programme today it is “very difficult to imagine” how an extension beyond the European elections is “feasible” and warned the EU27 may oppose to it.



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