British Prime Minister Theresa May and her Conservative government seem to have been caught by surprise by the decision of the country’s High Court that the British parliament must give its formal approval to the country’s departure from the European Union (EU). And Guyanese interested in matters of this kind will probably have been especially interested that an individual of Guyanese origin was central to taking the matter to the court.
The British government clearly seems to have felt that having had approval from the British people in a referendum (though by the relatively narrow margin of 51.9% to 48.1%), this sufficed to allow it to proceed to invoke Article 50 of the European Union treaty as the necessary method of initiating negotiations with the EU for what has now become known as Brexit – Britain’s Exit from the European Union. But the court’s decision now insists on a necessary preliminary step of formal approval by the British parliament.
In effect, in spite of the referendum, the court has reinforced what has been perhaps a well recognised doctrine of the supremacy of parliament, the agency through which the will of the people is properly expressed. However, the government had indicated almost immediately following the ruling that it intended to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, and the date of that hearing has now been set as December 5.
Various members of the government have expressed confidence that the appeal would be won, but should it be lost, the parliamentary debate will expose the extent of similarities and differences both within and between the political parties, and in particular within the main Conservative and Labour parties.
In addition, a debate in Parliament would probably bring into focus the differences of approach among expressions of political opinion in the four geographical sections of the United Kingdom ‒ England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, with all indications presently being that the most concerned is the Scottish administration. And speculation would appear to have increased there, where there has already been much controversy separate from the EU issue, as to the political status which that region should now have, with an emphasis on the extent of autonomy that is now deemed necessary by the ruling party in Scotland.
But the issue of Britain’s exit from the EU, now recognized as a substantial actor in international economic and political affairs will, obviously, also necessarily be of major concern to the Caribbean Community. For it will be recalled that our relationship with the EU (then the European Community) has essentially been a function of the decision taken by Britain to join that organization, this leading in turn to the negotiating and cooperation mechanism of the African, Caribbean and Pacific grouping as a collective for pursuing our relationship with a united Europe.
There will have already been preliminary interpretations being explored within Caricom, concerning the implications of the present situation. From the perspective of Caricom, the essential rationale for the establishment of the ACP grouping was to ensure a consistency of approach among the countries which had had a colonial relationship with the United Kingdom. This option was deemed particularly important to us, given our relatively minimal geopolitical and geo-economic significance, and consequent limited scope for autonomous long-term negotiation.
In effect, it was felt that our situation could be enhanced by a relationship with those different components of the former British colonial system, a perception that has proved relatively valid, even as the scope for regionalism and autonomous diplomatic activity on the African components of the system has increased.
We can assume, even as the British government has now been constrained to reconstruct the domestic constitutional basis of its diplomatic strategy, that the odds are that if it has to go to parliament it will receive the necessary approval for its initiative, and that it is necessary to seek to continue to explore what the implications of its reorganized arrangements might be in the event of an eventual British departure from the EU.
The indications are that Caricom governments, through the Caricom Secretariat, will already have been contemplating the various possible outcomes of a British departure, including the implications for the future of the ACP-EU arrangement.
In that connection, Caricom will certainly have to pursue extensive discussions with the African and Pacific countries of the ACP system, as well as begin to explore with the British government, that government’s assumptions as to Caricom-United Kingdom relations in terms of a departure from the EU.
And in that context too, it would not be unwise for Caricom governments to begin to give some indication to the citizens of the member-states of the community where their thinking and consultations are moving, in regard to the present and future situation of a Brexit and, consequently, the future of the ACP relationship itself.
