Top EU court rules UK can change mind over Brexit

The European Union's top court has ruled that Britain can change its mind over Brexit, boosting the hopes of people who want to stay in the EU that the process can be reversed.

In an emergency judgment delivered just a day before the British parliament is due to vote on a Brexit deal agreed with the EU by Prime Minister Theresa May, the Court of Justice (ECJ) said, "The United Kingdom is free to revoke unilaterally the notification of its intention to withdraw from the EU."

The ECJ said in its statement that Britain should suffer no penalties if it halts the Article 50 process which May triggered last year after a June 2016 referendum: "Such a revocation, decided in accordance with its own national constitutional requirements, would have the effect that the United Kingdom remains in the EU under terms that are unchanged."

Britain voted in 2016 to leave the 28-nation bloc, and invoked Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty in March 2017, triggering a two-year exit process.

Article 50 contains few details, in part because the idea of any country leaving was considered unlikely.

The ruling is in line with an opinion delivered last week by a Court legal adviser. 

That had boosted the hopes of British Brexit opponents that a new referendum could be held that would prevent Britain's scheduled departure on March 29, 2019.

May faces heavy opposition in parliament to her Brexit deal and many expect her quest for approval to be defeated, setting up further tense talks with the EU when she goes to Brussels on Thursday for a summit of national leaders.

Alyn Smith, a Scottish nationalist member of the European Parliament and one of those Brexit opponents who raised the case seeking clarification of Article 50 of the EU treaty to the European Union's supreme court in Luxembourg said:

"Today's ruling sends a clear message to UK MPs ahead of tomorrow's vote that there is a way out of this mess. 

May's environment minister Michael Gove, who campaigned for Brexit, dismissed the ruling by repeating the government's insistence that it would not reverse its decision to leave.