A thousand lawyers send letter to Cameron over EU Referendum

[BrexitThunderbolt]

It starts:
TO THE PRIME MINISTER AND ALL MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT

9 July 2016

Dear Prime Minister and Members of Parliament

Re: Brexit

We are all individual members of the Bars of England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. We are writing to propose a way forward which reconciles the legal, constitutional and political issues which arise following the Brexit referendum.

The result of the referendum must be acknowledged. Our legal opinion is that the referendum is advisory.

The European Referendum Act does not make it legally binding. We believe that in order to trigger Article 50, there must first be primary legislation. It is of the utmost importance that the legislative process is informed by an objective understanding as to the benefits, costs and risks of triggering Article 50.

link to the whole letter here

I am particularly pleased to see this included in their reasons for writing as they do:
There is evidence that the referendum result was influenced by misrepresentations of fact and promises that could not be delivered.

Since the result was only narrowly in favour of Brexit, it cannot be discounted that the misrepresentations and promises were a decisive or contributory factor in the result.

I think the Referendum was very much a vote on the political class, and the EU was something of a convenient peg to hang it on.

Exactly, Peregrina - both your points.

Greenwood, you need to listen to Tiggytape who (as usual, particularly when I disagree with her, which is often) puts things well.

Also Greenwood, language like "heavyweight lawyers" sounds really strong but here we are just talking about an online petition started by an expert on licensing law and supported on here by a family lawyer. Going to bar school in the '90s does not make you an expert on constitutional law, but anyone with an undergrad. degree in law can understand the arguments on the Article 50 trigger - they aren't complex arguments in the least. So what has happened in this particular petition is, as tiggy says, "overreach". It's lawyers failing to recognise a side issue as a side issue.

Whereas what I desperately hope is that there is a dark arts plan b being forged...

"heavyweight lawyers" was taken from the Lord's speeches. Not my words - I did make this clear.

The government is going to court to argue the case with Mishcon de Reya, a prominent law firm

I daresay the government will win the right to use the royal prerogative - but I agree with Chris Bryant MP in the HOC:

Why are the Government wasting money on trying to assert that this is just a matter of royal prerogative, rather than accepting the political fact that while, yes, Brexit is Brexit—that may be the case—the Minister is far more likely to get a good deal from other European countries if he has managed to bind both sides of this House and both Houses of Parliament into a strong negotiating position?"

Pushing through on the royal prerogative does not, imo, bode well - parliament needs to be behind this, which is what I've said all along.

fair enough.

The Lords are doing their job.
The folk who signed this letter weren't, hence the annoyance of people like addtobasket.

I agree with you on the dark arts plan b though

infuriatingly, I agree with Tiggytape

(tiggy, it's the summer born debates that we know each other from, just in case I sound like a weird stalker)

Roll on the dark arts, that's what I say :). I'm going to distract addtobastket into focussing on her complaint about the naive barristers so I can progress the dark arts project :)

Mmm, this is interesting. www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexit-legality-challenged-in-court-judicial-review-eu-referendum-a7144171.html

Despite Tiggy's posts I remain unchanged ( ) I think I would like to see a parliamentary vote on this, I think pushing it through without one risks being constitutionally unsound - and I don't know why anyone would wish to take that risk, after the Chilcot report. Whether I get my wish or not remains to be seen, and it is most definitely out of my hands.

I'm inclined to agree with this: “If his rights are going to be taken away, he wants it done in a proper and lawful manner,” Dominic Chambers, Dos Santos’s lawyer, said.

On another note, www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexit-horrible-city-fund-manager-richard-buxton-mark-carney-a7143216.html this is also in the Independent today - and I just love that it reads almost like a Daily Mash article

Pretty much sums up how I feel about the whole bastard brexit.

As I said on my other thread today the High Court has its first hearing of the legal challenge today - just to set the timetable etc. The Government's barristers have said Art 50 would not be triggered until next year at earliest anyway and it looks like there will be a court hearing by 3rd week in October or shortly after that. I do not think we need Parliamentary approval and plenty of lawyers agree with me to and in practice we will probably seek to obtain it anyway (Scotland also say they need their own parliament to approve it).

I do not have a problem with people exercising their rights to go to court - I think Santos the person on one of the actions is a foreign hairdresser - Spanish? As we remainers have always known it is the Brexit voters who will suffer from the result of the referendum in the main but that is their democratic choice and if you have nothing (or very little - I am not suggesting having state benefits is nothing as many people abroad risk their lives to have the "nothing" some of our citizens have) you have nothing to lose or so many of them thought.

" I think I would like to see a parliamentary vote on this, I think pushing it through without one risks being constitutionally unsound - and I don't know why anyone would wish to take that risk, "

what risk?

the risk that we start the process, decide it's a disaster, and conveniently use the lack of Parliamentary vote as an excuse to stop the whole thing?

that risk?

because I would love take that risk.

I feel like I need to send my fellow remainers on a "tactics" course.... you're just not getting the dark arts thing are you?