Mandy and another bid to block Brexit
A EUROPHILE lobby group yesterday threatened to use court action to delay Brexit before having to admit getting its key argument wrong.
British Influence, which was set up by Lord Mandelson, claims there is no mandate for leaving the European Economic Area.
It said it had now written to the Government threatening a judicial review of the decision to quit the bloc, which gives its members access to the EU’s single market. It even claimed a separate vote would be needed in Parliament to take Britain out of the EEA.
Peter Wilding, who heads British Influence, said staying in the EEA amounted to ‘smart Brexit’ as it allowed some control of borders.
Interviewed on the BBC, he gave the example of Switzerland – which he said was a member of the EEA but was about to introduce rules that permit it to give jobs exclusively to its own citizens in some circumstances. Shortly after the bullish interview, however, British Influence was forced to issue a ‘clarification’ on Twitter. It admitted that Switzerland was not in fact in the EEA but EFTA, the European Free Trade Association. ‘Swiss plans not about Swiss citizens but residents, so no discrimination,’ the clarification read.
Yesterday, it also emerged that Mr Wilding had written two articles last year that were deeply critical of the EEA, which he said created a ‘democratic deficit’.
On the Conservative Home website Mr Wilding wrote: ‘Joining the European Economic Area, for example, would leave the UK with no voice in crucial European decisions; Norway, an EEA member, has little impact on policy ultimately decided by the EU.’
Mr Wilding, who was an EU law solicitor, also contradicted himself on money. In yesterday’s interview, he said the ‘amazing’ thing about EEA membership is that there is ‘no direct contribution to Brussels’. But in July 2015, he wrote: ‘If the UK left the EU and joined the EEA, it would still need to make significant contributions to the EU budget assuming it would want access to the EU single market.’
The threat of a legal challenge comes in addition to the row that is raging in the Supreme Court over the two-year Article 50 process for quitting the EU. Dominic Raab, a Tory MP and leading Leave campaigner, said: ‘These are the increasingly desperate wrecking tactics from a small group of die-hard Remain campaigners who haven’t made their peace with the referendum, and have no respect for the will of the British people.
‘The public have spoken – we should respect the result and get on with it, not try to find new hurdles that undermine the democratic process.’
A Government spokesman said the UK would automatically stop being a member of the EEA once it left the EU. As the UK is party to the EEA agreement only in its capacity as an EU member state, once we leave the European Union we will automatically cease to be a member of the EEA,’ he said. ‘The future relationship between the UK and the EU will be subject to negotiations.’
RECENT history appeared to be repeating itself on the BBC yesterday, as copious airtime was given to another attempt to tie the Government’s hands on Brexit.
An organisation called British Influence – which was set up in 2012 to try to keep Britain in the EU – is launching a legal bid to force a vote in Parliament on our membership of the European Economic Area, which extends the single market to countries such as Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
With EEA membership – which ministers argue will end automatically with Brexit – comes adherence to EU court rulings, huge budget contributions and the continued free movement of migrants – almost everything 17.4million people voted against on June 23.
It is transparently a backdoor attempt to thwart the referendum result. If they fail to keep us in the EU by blocking Article 50, Labour and Lib Dem MPs could instead use a vote on the EEA to keep Britain in the single market. You wouldn’t know it from the BBC coverage, but among the figures behind this little- known ‘ think- tank’ is the unelected and unaccountable Labour peer Peter Mandelson. Having failed to convince the public of their arguments, he and the rest of the embittered Remoaners will clearly try any trick they can to thwart the will of the people.