Author Of Article 50 Reveals The Road To A Second EU Referendum
9 January 2019, 14:11
Lord Kerr knows everything there is to know about Article 50 - he wrote it. With what will happen up in the air, he told James O'Brien the road to a second referendum.
Parliament will vote on Theresa May's withdrawal deal on Tuesday, with the government currently looking unlikely to secure enough votes.
That will leave the UK in unchartered waters - even Theresa May has admitted that he doesn't know what would happen if she loses the vote.
But Lord Kerr outlined how he believes the country can get out of the current deadlock with a People's Vote on the final deal.
He told LBC: "There's no point the House of Commons inventing some new unicorn, some magic solution. The Prime Minister is right. There is one deal the European Union have signed up to. The alternative to that is the disaster of the cliff edge on 29th March.
"But the Court of Justice said there is a third option that if we want to, we can decide to retain exactly the deal we've got."
When James asked how that could come about, the peer said: "Stage one: next week, I think it is inevitable that the deal Mrs May has negotiated fails in the House of Commons.
"Stage two: within a finite number of days, she has to come forward with a motion saying what it is she wants to do. At some stage, the Labour Party may want to try a vote of no confidence and see if it can bring about an election. In my view that is unlikely to work, but it is Labour policy.
"If that doesn't work, it seems to me that the amendable motion which the government is required to produce is likely to be amended to allow for checking with the public which of the three options that are available they want.
"Do they want the deal, do they want no deal or do they want our existing deal with the European Union?"
