Remainers have predictably been salivating all over the ECJ’s ruling this morning that the UK can “unilaterally” revoke Article 50. The notoriously slow-moving EU Court discovered a remarkable turn of speed to deliver their judgement just in time for it to land one day before the crucial parliamentary vote in the UK. Definitely not a political court…

There’s just one problem – it’s not what the judgement actually says:

“…the revocation of the notification of the intention to withdraw must, first, be submitted in writing to the European Council and, secondly, be unequivocal and unconditional…”

So it is not as simple as the UK simply telling the European Council it wants to withdraw Article 50 – the EU specifically reserves the power to rule on whether the UK’s notification is truly “unequivocal and unconditional”. Guido isn’t aware of any definitions of “unilateral” which include having to explicitly gain the approval of someone else. As ever, the ECJ marks its own homework to ensure that it always has the ultimate say over anything a member state can do…

The bottom line is that Article 50 is not going to be withdrawn unless there is a government in place that is prepared to table an Act of Parliament to unequivocally revoke it, and a Parliament that is prepared to vote this through. Even in today’s heavily Remainer-loaded Parliament, this is simply not going to happen…