Anti-Brexit legal case launched 

Pro-EU campaigners claim the government could be legally obliged to offer a third referendum on Brexit, with the first being held in 1975.

Best for Britain has launched a legal challenge trying to force UK Prime Minister Theresa May to concede another divisive referendum.

The group says Conservative legislation guarantees a plebiscite if May presses ahead with plans to keep Britain a part of EU agencies such as the European Medicines Agency.

The enfeebled May suggested she would seek ongoing membership of some bodies in her latest speech on Brexit.

Best for Britain claims this would amount to a transfer of powers to the EU, which should trigger a referendum under the 2011 European Union Act.

The group was founded by anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller, who won a court battle to force ministers to give MPs a vote before triggering Article 50 to leave the EU.

“This is not about leave or remain. It’s about making a democratic choice according to our constitution, given that many are worried about Brexit,” said Best for Britain boss Eloise Todd.

Ireland

Ireland’s prime minister has rejected the UK’s suggestion that citizens crossing the Irish border would have to pre-register to avoid personal checks.

In the US for St Patrick’s Day events, Leo Varadkar said: “It is not a solution that we envisage.”

Pre-registration for transit would affect more than 34,000 nurses, farmers and others who commute across the 500km border every day for work, as well as other casual visitors.

A research paper on smart border technology commissioned by the European Parliament, which May has reportedly asked officials to investigate, mentioned pre-registration. UK sources responded by saying pre-registration was not a proposal being considered.

Last week, a study by Queen’s University in Belfast concluded that technology could not make the border frictionless.

Any registration for travel would breach the common travel area deal already agreed at Brexit talks, which would allow British and Irish nationals to continue to move without passport checks.

Brexit “bulldog” David Davis has made one trip to Northern Ireland since the 2016 referendum, in September that year, while neither bungling foreign secretary Boris Johnson nor the Brexit negotiator, Oliver Robbins, has been to the border.

May has been to Northern Ireland twice since 2016 but has not visited the border. The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, has been twice, and the European Parliament’s representative at the talks, Guy Verhofstadt, visited in September.

“They would certainly be very welcome to visit the border,” Varadkar said in Austin, Texas. “I think it would be a good idea, I can’t see anything negative in a British cabinet minister viewing the border, seeing what it looks like.

“They would be very welcome to see it for themselves. And to see that it is invisible.”

 

Pro-EU campaigners in London last year. Picture credit: Eurasia Times