Green MEP Working with Jolyon Maugham QC to Demand UK Government Release Studies on Economic Impact of Brexit

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Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP for the South West, and Green Party speaker on Brexit, wrote an opinion piece for the Independent over the weekend. In it Scott Cato describes how she has teamed up with barrister Jolyon Maugham QC, of The Good Law Project, to demand that the UK Government releases studies that show the impact that leaving the EU will have on Britain’s economy. She also writes that Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, David Davis, has been reluctant to release the findings despite numerous attempts to get him to do so, including a letter with 120 signatures from cross-party MPs.

Scott Cato lays down a challenge in her piece that if the Government does not release the studies within 14 days then legal action will have to be taken in the form of “judicial review proceedings before the High Court,which would seek to compel the Government to release them.” According to her this challenge has been recognised by the Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights and that she and Maugham have the advice and representation from experts in the field of information law on their side. At one point she writes that: “Taking back control was meant to be about achieving greater control over decision making, not a power grab by a small elite intent on deliberately leaving the rest of us in the dark about the future of our own country.”

Scott Cato says that there is a need to know whether the country’s situation has changed since the Liberal Democrat/Conservative coalition government ordered an analysis of the UK’s relationship with the European Union (the Balance of Competences). This concluded that Britain’s membership of the single market resulted in the GDP of both the EU and United Kingdom being “appreciably greater than they otherwise would be” and that “integration has brought … appreciable economic benefits”.

Click the following link to read Scott Cato’s piece in full:

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/david-davis-brexit-european-union-studies-economic-effects-treasury-a8000326.html

And click below to learn more about the Balance of Competences:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/review-of-the-balance-of-competences

 

Image source: www.ukstudentlife.com

Text source: www.independent.co.uk – 14th October 2017

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