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