UK Edition
Four versions of Brexit law prepared as Government braced for Supreme Court defeat in Article 50 case
Four different versions of the law giving Theresa May the power to start Brexit have already been prepared as ministers brace themselves for Supreme Court defeat this week.
Drafts have been circulating in an attempt to make sure the Government is ready for every eventuality when the 11 Supreme Court judges announce their ruling on Tuesday.
The Acts of Parliament have been kept as short as possible to make sure Mrs May is given the power to trigger Article 50 as soon as possible if needed.
They range from a “belt and braces” law that will make explicit that Britain is leaving more than a dozen EU agencies – such as Euratom, which controls the nuclear energy market – to the simplest wording possible.
The drafts will only be needed if the Supreme Court decides that MPs and peers must approve the start of Brexit talks before the Government can trigger talks.
The ruling, to be announced at 9.30am on Tuesday, marks the culmination of months of uncertainty about Mrs May’s ability to start Brexit of her own accord.
Senior lawyers involved in the case will hear the judgement privately at 8am and can only communicate the result to the Prime Minister at 9.15am, just 15 minutes before it is made public.
While the ruling still hangs in the balance, ministers are privately resigned to losing the case and will announce plans for a new law within hours of a defeat.
Drafts for the Acts of Parliament giving Mrs May the power to trigger Brexit have been circulating around Whitehall since before Christmas.
David Davis, the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU, plans to address MPs in the House of Commons after the ruling and would announce legislation is coming if there is a defeat.
However the exact wording of the new law will not be published until later in the week when ministers have studied the judgement in full, according to government sources.
“There are around four drafts. They all basically say the same thing – giving the government the power to affect withdrawal from the European Union,” a government minister said.
“Even though the draftsmen have prepared drafts, we’re not regarding any of them as final until we know what the judgement says.
“We have no idea what the judges are going to say. The wording of the judgments is of extreme importance.”
Another minister said the proposed law will be just a few sentences long: “It was never going to be a magnums opus. It was always going to be a short, tight Bill."
Ministers will face a race against time if they are to get approval from the Commons and the Lords by the end of March – Mrs May’s self-imposed deadline for triggering talks.
They hope legislation can clear the Commons with just a few days debate and reach the Lords by the end of February, leaving a full month for it to pass.
A rebellion is brewing on the Labour benches, with dozens of MPs including some shadow ministers expected defy Jeremy Corbyn and vote against triggering Article 50.
However pro-EU Tory rebels have privately said they will vote through the legislation – with the exception of Ken Clarke, the veteran former cabinet minister – meaning defeat is unlikely.
It is in the Lords, where the Tories have no majority, where approval could be held up as peers table amendments demanding protections to workers’ rights and more clarity.
Government sources close to the Supreme Court case have two other concerns about the ruling.
The first is that judges could demand that Britain’s devolved administrations – Holyrood, Stormont and the Welsh Assembly – must consider starting Brexit talks before it happens.
That could throw Mrs May’s timeline for starting talks into uncertainty because there currently is no executive in Northern Ireland.
New elections will not be held until March 2 with weeks of coalition talks likely before a new power-sharing agreement is agreed.
The second concern is that the judges could fundamentally restrict how “prerogative powers” – which allow the Government to make decisions without the approval of parliament – can be applied in the future.