The Forthcoming Brexit Decision of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom

British newspapers in the past few days (e.g. The Telegraph) have reported that the decision of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom on the Article 50 'Brexit' Appeal is scheduled to be issued to the public at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday.

Expert expectations regarding the Supreme Court decision are that a Parliament vote on Brexit will be required to trigger an Article 50 exit, i.e. it is expected that the Justices will rule that Prime Minister Theresa May's government does not have the prerogative power to trigger Article 50 and that this can only be done by an Act of Parliament.

We posted previously that Brexit is Likely Not a Legal EU Exit Without UK Parliament Approval as Required by British Constitutional Law Principles.

Achieving that objective after the court's pending decision may be easier said than done. The Court might even create more requirements.

Quick approval for Brexit from the House of Commons is considered likely, but gaining such approval from the House of Lords will be more difficult.

British Prime Minister Theresa May already backed down last year from alienating the House of Lords. Rob Merrick at The Independent wrote an article last year headlined: Theresa May backs out of fight to curb House of Lords power over Article 50 delay fears: A move to strip peers of their right to veto 'statutory instruments' has been abandoned, sources say - in an attempt to calm their anger over Brexit.

We do not expect the House of Lords to "rubber stamp" Brexit. They are the powerful "unknowns" in the entire Brexit equation.

Many people have assumed that the UK exit from the EU was settled by the Brexit referendum, but they have greatly underestimated the massive long-term legal, economic and political infrastructure that any political and economic alliance involves, especially something as massive as the European Union.

One need remember that the Brexit referendum has no direct force of law and is considered politically "advisory" only. Of course, its populist "yes" result has strong political force as regards the prevailing government in power, but that is not the same as the rule of law. Indeed, political referendums have been ignored by governments before.

Indeed, even if Brexit actually occurs down the road, the long-term negative repercussions on the United Kingdom will be severe for many years.

That is why democracies have "representative" governments -- to assure the continuity of policies and the orderly handling of things, according to the law.

Many people in the United Kingdom have already incurred large, unexpected financial losses as a consequence of the negative expectations raised by the prospect of Brexit.

We recently talked to someone who attends a (previously) very popular "European" trade fair in the UK every year. This time around that same trade fair was "virtually empty".

Similarly, tourism to the UK has in the past been composed to 67% of visitors from the European Union, who spend billions in the UK. Many tourist-dependent enterprises worry that the future will bring fewer EU visitors.

The inevitable solution in such a case of course will be to recruit tourists from far-off lands, meaning that the goal of having fewer foreigners or less foreign influence in the UK, a main objective of Brexit, may not be achieved at all.

It is also no coincidence that British Prime Minister May will be the first foreign dignitary to visit newly inaugurated U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington D.C. and that trade is scheduled to be a big topic. Brexit will put the UK into a more isolated position economically, so that they will have to find new markets.

It all reminds a bit of the problems faced by the former Queen Elizabeth I, daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth was excommunicated by Pope Pius V, barring England economically from then predominantly Roman Catholic Europe. Elizabeth had to turn to establishing economic relations with non-Christian empires in the Near East to supplant the lost European trade, which brought much foreign influence into Britain.

If the majority of people in the United Kingdom continue to support disengagement from the European Union, obviously, democratic principles require that Brexit ultimately be implemented, but it is a complicated business that can not be executed until the future-necessitated legal details have been correctly legislated and the existing legal obligations fulfilled.

It will in any case be interesting to see how the drama unfolds.