You Were Only Supposed To Blow The Bloody Doors Off

Quote from anon Leave MP

On July 6th, I wrote:

The UK is a parliamentary democracy, a form of government where voters elect the parliament, which then forms the government, and not a Direct (or pure democracy) which is where people decide on policy initiatives directly, and any triggering of Article 50 would thus need to be approved by a majority of MPs.

"The best argument against [direct] democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." - Winston Churchill

Now MPs make decisions based on many factors, of which constituency opinion is just one. If a vote to trigger Article 50 is ever actually held, an MP would, of course, take into consideration the opinions of their constituents, but they wouldn’t necessarily vote to reflect those opinions.

Three months later to the day, I wrote this:

A fair bit of money has traded in the 1.1x range for Article 50 to be triggered in the first half of next year, following Prime Minister May's comments at the weekend.

The current price is ~1.2 but as the Independent reports today, Theresa May's plan to invoke Article 50 without consulting Parliament is subject to legal challenges. The legal arguments can be read in the link, and while I find the choice of some of the "concerned individuals" in the case to be somewhat random, the argument that the PM should not take such a momentous decision alone, based on an advisory referendum, seems rational to me, or at least likely to be subject to legal challenges. There's already one in Northern Ireland, and more can be expected.

The proposed timing (prior to next year's French and German elections) is also rather odd, as is May's comment that "It's for the European Union - the remaining members of the EU - to decide what the process of the negotiation is".

Given all this uncertainty, ~1.2 looks a value lay to me at this time, with plenty more upside than downside.

That 1.2 is now out to the 1.7x range following the High Court's excellent decision today. Betfair have added a new market UK - Article 50 Supreme Court Ruling - Overrule / Do Not Overrule High Court, but no money matched there yet. 

A reminder to the declining number of Brexiteers that the EU referendum was advisory - the result was not legally binding. It was a glorified, and expensive, opinion poll.