Newspaper front pages, 4/11/2016
The government of Theresa May has made such bad calls as on Heathrow and Hinkley Point it is hard to believe it will survive long enough to suffer their consequences. Now it has made another appalling mistake but this time one it will surely rue. It has decided to appeal the High Court’s ruling that it cannot activate Article 50 without the backing of parliament.
You can see why May’s team took the initial decision to claim that they could activate Article 50 - the formal mechanism that starts a country's exit from the EU - at a time of their chosing, using the Crown Prerogative. They claimed this power based on the legitimacy of the referendum’s outcome and the fact that international treaties are a prerogative of the executive and not a matter for parliament. Behind this firmness of purpose was the need to display strength given their weakness. They did not know what sort of Brexit they wanted, what the consequences of different options might be, how to hold together the differences within their own party, or how the EU might respond. To add to this the uncertainty of saying they wanted MPs and peers to chuck in their views, demand answers to questions they did not want asked, and have the chance for wrecking or even delaying amendments, would make it look as if the Prime Minister was not committed.
