03 February 2017•Update: 03 February 2017
By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal
LONDON
The British government faced a fresh legal challenge to its Brexit plans on Friday as a new court action claimed the U.K. must legislate its exit from the European Economic Area (EEA) and the single market separately.
The High Court case has been brought against the government minister responsible for exiting the EU by Adrian Yalland and Peter Wilding, both from the pro-single market British Influence think tank.
They argue the EEA and the single market were joined with a parliamentary vote and they can only be left with new legislation passed by British lawmakers.
It also argues the question asked of British voters in a referendum on 23 June 2016 was not legal to make an automatic decision that the country would also leave the EEA and the single market.
British people were asked to vote yes or no to the question: "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?”
Friday’s case was joined by four more claimants who preferred to be identified only by their initials.
'Smart Brexit'
The director of British Influence Adrian Yalland, writing for the organization last November, claimed staying in the EEA and single market would be a win-win deal, regardless of leaving the EU.
He wrote: “Remaining in the EEA is fully compatible with the Brexit referendum ‘red lines’ of ending budget contributions to the EU, repatriating legal sovereignty and, to a significant extent, free movement of people.
“Clarity could both speed-up Brexit and deliver a ‘smart’, win-win Brexit.”
“Parliament, not government, took us into the treaty and so parliament, not government, must decide if and when we leave. I voted to leave the EU but parliament did not intend the referendum to cover the issue of membership of the EEA,” Yalland argued.
“The government should stop seeking to stretch the mandate to leave the EU to cover things parliament did not intend the referendum to cover,” he added.
The Secretary of State for Exiting the EU, David Davis, revealed the government’s White Paper on Brexit earlier this week.
Both Prime Minister Theresa May and Davis have said leaving the EU meant leaving the EEA and the single market.
Last June more than half of British voters (52 percent) opted to leave the union in a referendum pledged by former prime minister and then-Conservative Party leader David Cameron during the 2015 general election campaign, ending the U.K.’s 46-year EU membership.
A bill on Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty -- which allows a member state to leave the EU – was passed by lawmakers to parliament’s committee stage where it will be examined in detail on Wednesday.
The committee will go through more than 100 amendments before a final debate and vote set to be held at the House of Commons on Feb. 8.
May has set the end of March 2017 as the deadline for triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty for leaving the EU.
