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Considering the developments of the last few days,
T. S. Eliot comes to mind and these lines from
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock:
In a minute there is time
For decision and revisions which a minute will reverse.
So far this year, the House of Commons has twice voted down the withdrawal agreement negotiated by Prime Minister May, first in January and then again last week. And today, the Speaker of the House of Commons
John Bercow ruled that Mrs. May cannot ask the House to vote again on the same measure absent some meaningful change to the proposed agreement. Also last week, the House voted in favor of extending Article 50 - that is, the negotiations with the EU - until June 30, 2019. For that to have any effect, however, the other members of the European Union - all 27 of them - would have to agree.
Will they? We don't know. But there is the growing sense one gets that the EU itself is beginning to see the downsides to delay. Last Thursday, for example,
Guy Verhofstadt spoke passionately against extension in the European Parliament. Yes, there was a caveat. An extension based on a clear statement of objectives from the British Parliament might be considered he said. But that was almost a throwaway thought. What Mr. Verhofstadt, a Member of the European Parliament from Belgium, does not want is political debate in Europe that is forever hijacked by the Brexit issue. He also doesn't want a fresh infusion of Eurosceptics in the European Parliament, lined up behind
Nigel Farage.
Considering just those few developments, we're not about to make any new Brexit predictions. The exception is this. We do expect to be talking about Brexit and the British-EU relationship for a long time to come.
That should give us an opportunity to correct this last speculation should further research or a knowledgeable colleague point out an error. The speculation. It seemed to us that the law in question an "Act to Confer power on the Prime Minister to notify, under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, the United Kingdom's intention to withdraw from the EU," was effectively forced on the government by those in the remain camp. Prime Minister May's original thought was to trigger Article 50 on the government's own authority. It is after all a treaty, and we assume - we don't know but we assume - that the British government has on previous occasions withdrawn from treaties without the benefit of specific legislation. But this withdrawal is special, and it has its own law.
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