other affected stakeholders, such as internationally focused businesses and the consideration of EU workers.59 The government has announced the contours of its Brexit negotiating plan, including the Great Repeal Bill60 and the rejection of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union61 (the Charter), ostensibly on the grounds it created no new rights, freedoms or principles 59 See e.g. UK, Department for Exiting the European Union (DEEU), News Release, “Minister Robin Walker visits the South West: Government engages with sectors at the heart of the region’s economy” (31 July 2017), online: ; UK, DEEU, News Release, “Brexit Minister concludes two day tour of Scotland: the visit comes as the UK Government has stepped up its engagement with businesses from all parts of the UK” (28 July 2017), online: ; UK, Home Office, News Release, “The Home Secretary has today (27 July) commissioned the Migration Advisory Committee to examine the role EU nationals play in the UK economy and society” (27 July 2017), online: . The government site offers the following helpful notice: “There is no need for EU citizens living in the UK to do anything now. There will be no change to the status of EU citizens living in the UK while the UK remains in the EU. If you would like to find out the latest information you can sign up for email updates.” See UK, Home Office, UK Visas and Immigration & DEEU, “Status of EU citizens in the UK: what you need to know”, online: . 60 UK, DEEU, “Factsheet 4: Power to implement the withdrawal agreement” in Information about the Repeal Bill, (London, UK: DEEU, 2017), online: . 61 The Charter was given legal effect by the Lisbon Treaty on its entry into force in December 2009. Article 6(1) of the TEU provides for the Charter to have the same legal status as the EU treaties. See UK, DEEU, “Factsheet 6: Charter of Fundamental Rights” in Information about the Repeal Bill (London, UK: DEEU, 2017), online: . Other considerations for this decision may have been the Tory government’s desire not to be subject to the European Court of Justice or to expand human rights. Meanwhile, a proposal to repeal the UK Human Rights Act was criticized as likely to have a negative impact in the “devolved nations”: “Human rights are entrenched in the devolution settlements of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in a way that they are not under the UK’s constitution: acts of the devolved legislatures can, for example, be quashed by courts for non-compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights or the EU Charter.” See UK, House of Lords European Union Committee, “The UK, the EU and a British Bill of Rights” HL Paper 139, 9 May 2016 at para 180, online: . and added considerable complexity.62 The Department for Exiting the European Union website reads like a community bulletin board in a (self-generated) state of emergency as it attempts to provide updates and answers to a wide array of increasingly anxious stakeholders.63 While the Secession Reference envisioned the possibility that good faith negotiations could fail to result in satisfactory terms of separation, article 50 suggests that even if negotiations fail, exit from the European Union may happen automatically. To state the obvious, there is no guarantee that the European Union will accept the terms that the United Kingdom proposes. The more the UK government adheres to constitutional principles of democracy, rule of law and respect for minorities, the more likely it will be able to ascertain whether Brexit is indeed a viable path for the United Kingdom, or whether it is a road leading toward the breakup of not only the European Union but also the United Kingdom itself. If, through a more 62 In the UCL Brexit Blog, Ronan McCrea opined: The most likely means through which a withdrawal agreement under Article 50 could be challenged is by means of a referral of the agreement to the Court of Justice under Article 218(11) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Under this article, any Member State, the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission are all entitled under to seek the opinion of the Court of Justice “as to whether an agreement envisaged is compatible with the Treaties”. The same Article makes it clear what occurs if incompatibility is found between the proposed agreement and the Treaties: “Where the opinion of the Court is adverse, the agreement envisaged may not enter into force unless it is amended or the Treaties are revised”. As with so many elements of the Brexit process, the means by which the UK can attain what may have seemed rather clear objectives, are very unclear. Escaping from the control of the Court of Justice and avoiding the prospect of decisions of UK authorities being overturned on the basis that they violate EU fundamental rights norms was one of the key goals of those who supported Brexit....Compliance with EU fundamental rights, and indeed with the basic constitutional norms of the EU, will be part of any withdrawal agreement under Article 50. See Ronan McCrea, “Can a Brexit Deal Provide a Clean Break with the Court of Justice and EU Fundamental Rights Norms?” (17 October 2016), UCL Brexit Blog (blog), online: . See also Albert SanchezGraells, “Why an Appeal of the High Court Parliamentary Approval of Brexit Judgment Will Bring the Litigation to CJEU” (3 November 2016), How to Crack a Nut (blog), online: , in which Sanchez-Graells argues that “the UKSC has an absolute and inexcusable obligation to request a preliminary ruling on the interpretation of Article 50 TEU from the CJEU the moment the appeal against the High Court’s Judgment (eventually) reaches its docket. Otherwise, the UKSC risks triggering an infringement of EU law and eventually creating liability in damages under the Kobler/Traghetti del Mediterraneo strand of case law on State liability.” 63 UK, DEEU, online: . Lessons from Brexit: Reconciling International and Constitutional Aspirations 11