Kill Brexit Now!

Phillip Mott QC, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, today refused permission for Judicial Review in CO/5012/2017. CO/5012/2017 is subject to an application for a confidentiality order so I have redacted the applicant's name in the documents that I have put online. See Refusal of Permission for Judicial Review in CO/5012/2017 for scanned copies of the decision by Phillip Mott QC.

Many readers of this blog will be aware of the so-called Article 50 Challenge whose Claim for Judicial Review is numbered CO/5929/2017. The Government Legal Department has made available to me the Secretary of State's Summary Grounds of Resistance to the Article 50 Challenge. The Secretary of State's Summary Grounds of Resistance are to be found here: Secretary of State's Summary Grounds of Resistance in CO/5929/2017 Reading between the lines Elizabeth Webster's Claim corresponds broadly to Ground C of my Claim CO/5050/2017. Ms. Webster and those behind her have on several occasions refused me sight of their Claim documents so I can't currently make the substance of her Claim publicly available. The secrecy surrounding the substance of Elizabeth Webster's Claim puzzles me. Surely she should be making such documents publicly available at the earliest opportunity to inform those who might donate to her cause? A request has been made to the Administ...

A number of people have been asking about the outcome of my Claim for Judicial Review mentioned in earlier posts on this blog. On 15th January 2018 Mr. Justice Walker refused permission for me to apply for Judicial Review. The documents sent to me on 17th January 2018 by the Administrative Court can be found on the following link: Documents on Refusal of Permission for JR in CO/5050/2017 I have many thoughts about the content of Mr. Justice Walker's decision. Watch this space.

In the last few days I've learned of a fourth application for Judicial Review of Brexit. I refer to the application as the "fourth" application but it is in fact the first of the four applications of which I'm aware in date order. The four applications of which I'm aware are: CO/3008/2017 CO/5012/2017 - which is subject to an application for a confidentiality order CO/5050/2017 - my own Claim CO/5929/2017 - the Claim of Elizabeth Margaret Webster Here are some basic facts about the Claim for Judicial Review CO/3008/2017. The Claimant was Martyn Truss. Martyn Truss's Claim was issued on 26th June 2017. The Government Legal Department's Summary Grounds of Resistance authored by the barrister Tom Cross was dated 13th July 2107. It appears that Martyn Truss made an application on 24th July 2017. I assume that application was for urgency but it's unclear from the limited documents that I have seen so far. Another possibility is that Ma...

Yesterday (30th November) at the High Court in London my Claim for Judicial Review of Brexit made its first, low-key appearance before Mr. Justice Stuart-Smith. When I submitted my Claim a few weeks ago I had asked that my Claim for Judicial Review of Brexit be considered by the Administrative Court as an urgent Claim. On 7th November Mr. Justice Supperstone after consideration of the papers refused to consider the Claim on an urgent basis. I then lodged an Application for Reconsideration. On 30th November Mr. Justice Stuart-Smith dismissed my application for reconsideration. The refusal to allow urgency and interim injunctive relief is, perhaps, unsurprising since I asked the Court for an interim injunction preventing the Prime Minister from carrying forward the Brexit negotiations. Since I believe that no lawful Article 50 decision has been taken it follows that, if I'm correct, the Prime Minister has no lawful basis on which to carry out the Brexit negotiations....

I know that lots of people who are horrified by Brexit can feel helpless as to how to make any impact to stop the Brexit Madness. Today I have written to two MPs, Dominic Grieve QC MP and Joanna Cherry QC MP, asking them to ask one or more Urgent Parliamentary Questions about the Prime Minister's Brexit strategy. Will they ask a Parliamentary Question? Or find it expedient to duck such potentially controversial issues? I don't know. So, to me, it makes sense to try to make sure that as many MPs as possible know about the legal challenges in the High Court and the legal issues which the Prime Minister will need to address. The letter and its attachments can be freely distributed to other MPs and it's by doing that you could help spread awareness in Parliament that the Prime Minister's Brexit strategy is legally fatally flawed. The letter to Dominic Grieve and Joanna Cherry is publicly available here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1bYTOJ3XLPIypD54Dw...

Things took an interesting turn yesterday when I was contacted with information that my legal challenge to Brexit,  Brexit Legal Challenge: The Prime Minister has three weeks to respond , is not the only active legal challenge to Brexit. Before yesterday I was totally unaware of the other Claim for Judicial Review. Due to confidentiality considerations I can't disclose much about the other Claim for Judicial Review. The other Claim has a single Defendant, the Prime Minister. The other Claim was sealed by the Court on 31st October 2017. My own Claim was sealed by the Court on 1st November 2017. By chance, both Claims were served on the Government Legal Department on 6th November 2017. The effect is that the Government Legal Department must respond with its Grounds of Resistance to my Claim and the other Claim by 27th November 2017. Things are getting really interesting for the Prime Minister. Watch this space.