Lord Inglewood – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Exiting the European Union

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Inglewood on 2016-07-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether holding a second referendum is an essential constitutional precondition to invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.

Lord Bridges of Headley

Article 50 explicitly recognises that a Member State may decide to withdraw “in accordance with its own constitutional requirements”. It is for the Member State concerned to determine what those constitutional requirements are. The Government does not consider that a second referendum is necessary, or required to invoke Article 50.