Speaker 1: I'm Greg's store in Washington with June Grasso in New York.
Speaker 1: Brexit is now poised to happen. Britain's Parliament yesterday voted
Speaker 1: to let the government invoke Article fifty of the Lisbon
Speaker 1: Treaty and begin two years of withdrawal talks with the
Speaker 1: European Union. The measure gives Prime Minister Theresa May unrestricted
Speaker 1: authority to negotiate the terms of the UK's departure. May
Speaker 1: plans to trigger Article fifty in the last week of March,
Speaker 1: according to officials familiar with her plans. With us to
Speaker 1: discuss the latest Brexit developments and what might happen next.
Speaker 1: Is Stephen Pierce, a professor at the University of Essex
Speaker 1: School of Law. Steve, thanks for joining us. Tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit more about what exactly it was that
Speaker 1: Parliament voted on yesterday. Well, what Parliament had to do
Speaker 1: in order for Article fifty to be triggered was to
Speaker 1: pass a putty slide actor Parliament saying that the government
Speaker 1: could go ahead and do it. And this is a
Speaker 1: very very short ultimately one of the shortest stack to
Speaker 1: Parliament I imagine, which says basic the government can go
Speaker 1: ahead and do it and decided not to attach any
Speaker 1: conditions that some members upon them I wanted to attach.
Speaker 1: So the government can now add to its own discretion,
Speaker 1: go ahead and send the Article fifty notice and start
Speaker 1: everything running. Now there's been a little complication. The Scottish
Speaker 1: Parliament is getting involved with the the the Head of
Speaker 1: Scotland saying that they would like to leave the EU
Speaker 1: and saying that the Scottish Parliament is going to vote
Speaker 1: on second independence referendum next Wednesday. How does that complicate matters? Well, yes,
Speaker 1: it's uh. The idea is that Scotland would have a
Speaker 1: referenum on learning the UK and then seeking to stay
Speaker 1: in the EU, will probably leading along with the UK
Speaker 1: and then ending up applying to go back in. So
Speaker 1: I might have shot gap when Scotland is out. But
Speaker 1: if all this goes ahead with that plan, So what
Speaker 1: that would mean if an independence referendum goes ahead, and
Speaker 1: of course it the independent side winds is that Scotland
Speaker 1: could end up being back in the EU fairly soon
Speaker 1: or it may not. Actually what they might just have
Speaker 1: to win the referendum they have to get back in
Speaker 1: the EU and the several things that have to take
Speaker 1: place and the British government probably arguably have to say
Speaker 1: yes to the referendum going ahead anyway, and it's not
Speaker 1: quite clear if they'll do that yet. Steve, how important
Speaker 1: is it that Theresa May goes into these discussions without
Speaker 1: any restrictions on her as a practical matter? Uh? Does it?
Speaker 1: Does it improve her leverage in those talks? Well, there's
Speaker 1: different points of view, and there's certainly the government and
Speaker 1: the people who back Prexit felt that it was very
Speaker 1: important not to have any kind of conditions in the
Speaker 1: Article fifty bills. But a lot of people argued that
Speaker 1: at least some of the can claus as they wanted
Speaker 1: to add it to the bill would have really have
Speaker 1: restricted her, but they would have done other things like
Speaker 1: guaranteeing EU citizens rights to stay, and that would have
Speaker 1: been separate from other things that you I want to
Speaker 1: negotiate or coming back to Parliament with reports and things
Speaker 1: like that. They wouldn't really have necessarily restricted term. But
Speaker 1: obviously the government got its way and said there's nothing
Speaker 1: in the law so far that's an actual legal restriction.
Speaker 1: There might be political problems, and of course this whole
Speaker 1: prospect of a Scottish independence referendum is a sort of
Speaker 1: parallel political complication to the talks, because it's going to
Speaker 1: intersect in a way if the referenducers ahead with the
Speaker 1: Blexit talks. Steve Lawmakers published a report on Sunday which
Speaker 1: warned that the government's failure to prepare for a scenario
Speaker 1: in which no deal is reached with the EU over
Speaker 1: Brexit would be a serious dereliction of duty. Is there
Speaker 1: a real prospect that this two year negotiation period might
Speaker 1: end in a deadlock? Well, I think it's a growing possibility.
Speaker 1: You know, six months ago would have said you know
Speaker 1: about a one present possibility. Now I would say more
Speaker 1: like hurty or forty percenting getting bigger. I think some
Speaker 1: people on the Brexit support in side would quite like
Speaker 1: that to be no deal because they had to think
Speaker 1: it would have no impact, or they really quite dislike
Speaker 1: to EU so strong and ters of ideologically that they
Speaker 1: really don't want anything to do with it, even as
Speaker 1: a contracting party to a treat you with it. The
Speaker 1: majority of think the government and certainly in the country
Speaker 1: as a whole, would like that to be a deal
Speaker 1: because it's still Britain's biggest trading conner by thought, and
Speaker 1: there will be a big impact if we left without
Speaker 1: a deal on a bigger fact as a proportion of
Speaker 1: the economy, a bigger impact on the UK. And it might,
Speaker 1: for instance, the reason why scottlan will be more likely
Speaker 1: to lead the in the UK um if there if
Speaker 1: there's no good deal, for instance. So it's one of
Speaker 1: the ways it was this Scottish independence referendum put intersect
Speaker 1: with the Brexit talks. Steve, we only have about thirty
Speaker 1: seconds left. But in any other big issues that you
Speaker 1: see going forward forward, what do you think is going
Speaker 1: to be the biggest pivot point in the next few months. Well,
Speaker 1: we're waiting for the elections in various countries. Once, you know,
Speaker 1: I was in charge in France and Germany and the Netherlands.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow we'll have a pretty good idea of who the
Speaker 1: UK's negotiating partners are and some people are going to
Speaker 1: be used going to collapse. We should know within a
Speaker 1: few months if that's realistic or or a fairly ridiculous suggestion. Okay,
Speaker 1: thank thank you so much. Steven Pierce, professor at the
Speaker 1: University of Essex School of Law, talking about the latest
Speaker 1: developments in Brexit