Brexit news: UK can revoke Article 50

The EU’s law chief has advised that the UK should unilaterally be able to reverse Brexit in what could prove to be a landmark legal case.

On Tuesday, the European Court of Justice’s Advocate General Campos Sanchez-Bordona proposed that the ECJ should declare that Article 50 — the legal mechanism which kickstarted Brexit — allows the “unilateral revocation” of the UK’s intention to withdraw from the EU.

He rejected the argument that it can only be stopped following a unanimous decision by the European Council. The opinion hinges on Article 68 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, an international convention that, he said, allows countries to revoke notifications of withdrawal from international treaties at any time before they take effect.

The advocate general says Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty allows the “unilateral revocation of the notification of the intention to withdraw from the EU, until such time as the Withdrawal Agreement is formally concluded”.

The opinion, which is not binding on the court, comes just a week after the case was heard at the ECJ following a referral from Scotland’s highest civil court, the Court of Session.

Lawyers representing the Council of the European Union and from the European Commission had argued that revocation is possible but would require unanimous agreement from all member states.

Sanchez-Bordona’s opinion came in response to a referral by Scotland’s highest court to the top EU court last week. The court case was taken by a pro-EU, cross-party group of Scottish politicians, seeking to determine whether Article 50 could be unilaterally revoked.

The group raised close to £200,000 in donations to fund the case and was assisted by campaigning pro-EU lawyer Jolyon Maugham QC.

The UK government had argued that the group was using the case as “political ammunition” to pressure parliament, and should not risk opening Pandora’s box.

That latter point was echoed by the EU’s top lawyer, Hubert Legal, who said that if Article 50 could be unilaterally revoked, it might be triggered tactically by other governments who want to use it as leverage to win better terms of membership.