Lord Kerr: Meaningful Vote Is About Taking The Deal To Parliament
12 June 2018, 16:17 | Updated: 12 June 2018, 16:24
The man who wrote Article 50 says that it can "absolutely withdrawn" and the UK can resume its membership on "exactly the same terms", but that the vote to allow a meaningful vote is about taking the final Brexit deal to Parliament before the UK commits to leaving the EU.
Lord Kerr, who wrote Article 50, believes "Brexit is a terrible thing".
"I believe that we will all lose and be poorer when we have new friction in our links to our neighbours," he said.
"If there is no deal, then you don't get a vote at all because there's nothing to vote on.
"For me, the meaningful vote is about taking the deal or no deal to Parliament at a moment when Parliament could say 'go back and fix it', or put it to the people.
"But if we wait until right against 29th March 2019, we won't be able to do either of these things."
Lord Kerr told Shelagh that the UK has the right to pause the Brexit process, or to ask for an extension.
"We can decide that actually, that as the terms that have emerged are not very good, we'd rather stay and we have the absolute right to withdraw [Article 50] and resume our membership on the exact terms we had before."
