Brexit: Inevitable or Not?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/26/opinion/brexit-inevitable-or-not.html

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To the Editor:

Re “May’s ‘Brexit’ waiting game’’ (Memo From Britain, Page Two, Sept. 16): Steven Erlanger sets out the many daunting decisions faced by Prime Minister Theresa May as she leads Britain toward Brexit, which is considered all but universally inevitable, both by British politicians of all parties, and other European Union leaders.

However, in the final quarter of this year, there will be a last chance to avoid Brexit: when the High Court — and likely, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom — will hear the challenges to Mrs. May’s claim that she alone can invoke Article 50. (She has said she will probably do so early in 2017, without a prior vote in Parliament). As it stands, 479 out of 637 MPs who declared their position should be enough of a clear majority to block the invocation of Article 50. But that majority is undoubtedly so ingrained with the mistaken belief that to oppose Brexit would be to flout democracy because — by just 52 percent — “the British people have spoken.” So now it falls to the media to inform those in Britain, the European Union and the world who believe it to be possible that Brexit could be avoided.

JOHN PEDLER

Sarlat, France