Given that the ECJ often takes years to give an opinion, the speed of its Brexit judgement is unprecedented. Now and again, the mask slips: in theory the ECJ’s court judicial, cares only about good law. In practise this is nakedly political – explicitly so this time, given the vote tomorrow.
It’s being breathlessly reported that ECJ has said Britain can now abandon Brexit unilaterally, without permission. This is just wrong. Unilateral means on our own. We can’t do that under this judgement. Instead, see paras 73 to 75, the ECJ gets to sign off on whether or not we can revoke. The test is not abuse, as proposed by the AG. The test is instead whether we are being “unequivocal and unconditional” the end result is the same – the ECJ decides whether any revocation is valid. This is not in Article 50, the ECJ is just making this up.
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