Richard Spurr 1am - 4am
Man Who Wrote Article 50 Says It Should Be Revoked
13 April 2019, 11:58 | Updated: 16 April 2019, 15:39
The man who authored Article 50, the process to leave the EU, said he had only intended to create an 'orderly process' to remove a dictator, not for a country like the United Kingdom.
Promises made by those campaigning for the UK to leave the European Union "have turned out to be not quite true"
But Lord Kerr, who authored Article 50, believes that whilst revocation is the right move for the country that it should only be done as a result of a second referendum.
Matt Frei asked the peer: "You're one of those people who want to revoke Article 50, is that right?"
"I do," Lord Kerr replied.
Matt said: "Whatever you say about what was first posited in the first referendum, the fact is you want to revoke an article that goes against the grain of this enormous democratic exercise. That is politically explosive isn't it?"
Lord Kerr replied: "I don't think politically you can't overturn the result of the 2016 referendum other than by another referendum.
"I believe it is a huge act of economic self half and we should to try to avoid doing it, but I think we need to explain more clearly than we did last time."
The cross-party peer also said that in writing the article he was "creating a procedure for the orderly departure of a dictator" and that he "did not have in mind the UK".
"We didn't think a country would trigger the process without deciding in advance where it wanted to fetch up," he said.
Watch above.