“Parliament voted by a majority of six to one to give the British people the decision on our membership of the European Union in a referendum”.
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It comes after the House of Lords Constitution Committee said it would be “inappropriate” and “set a disturbing precedent” if the Government ploughed ahead with triggering Article 50 without explicit parliamentary approval.
‘Parliament should be asked to approve the decision to trigger Article 50-a decision which will start the formal process of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union and set a deadline for the UK’s exit.
But appearing before the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr Davis said the outcome of the European Union referendum had been clear and that any vote against invoking Article 50 would set Parliament against the people. This is a prerogative power, and therefore one that should be exercised by the Government. “The theory of it is the Crown represents the nation”, he said. What the government is doing is carrying out the biggest mandate that has ever been given to a government by the British people.
In other evidence, Mr Davis said that if Britain were unable to reach a new trade agreement with the remaining 27 member states, it would have to fall back on World Trade Organisation rules; although these only covered tariffs and not non-tariff barriers.
“The largest number of people, almost 17-and-a-half million people, with a majority of over one-and-a-quarter million I think”.
Brexit secretary David Davis has put the government on collision course with the House of Lords after slapping down demands from a committee of peers for a parliamentary vote on Brexit.
“It is a very, very, very clear mandate and I think the House of Lords would be quite unwise not to take that mandate seriously”, he said. “That is not to stop Brexit happening but to ensure that it happens in the right way”.
Lord Lang of Monkton, the committee chair, said parliamentary assent could be sought by legislation or through resolutions in both Houses of Parliament.
He said the government needs time to assess negotiating aims and tactics and the legalities of Article 50.
However there have been many prominent voices calling for MPs to vote on Brexit after the referendum decision was returned.
In a separate development, the Home Office signalled the possibility of a return to the traditional British blue passport once Britain left the EU.
Davis’s Department for Exiting the European Union will need to double staff numbers from 200, meet with business leaders and study data on how Brexit will affect the United Kingdom economy before Prime Minister Theresa May triggers the exit mechanism, he said.
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And she added: “On the timings of these negotiations, there is no update to our position that we won’t trigger Article 50 until the end of the year and then there will need to be a negotiation process that follows”.
