Video by Jeff Taylor on Youtube
Legal papers are being served against the government to bring the case that, under the law, the UK did leave the European Union at 11 pm on Friday the 29th March 2019.
Links: Jeff Taylor on Youtube
Robin Tilbrook - Leader of the English Democrats
Robin Tilbrook's case, which is based on the Judicial Review process, claims that, due to the Miller case that forced the government to use statute law to trigger Article 50 in the first place, the government had no powers to request the extension in the manner it did.
That is, the government had no power under the royal prerogative that would allow the Prime Minister to formally request or formally accept an extension to the article 50 process.
It therefore had no power to instruct Sir Tim Barrow, the UK permanent representative to the EU, to send the letter that did purport to accept the offer of an extension.
Before the government could actually trigger Article 50, Gina Miller and others won a court case against the government that forced them to take a bill through parliament to get Royal Assent for a statute that would allow them to actually send the letter to the EU starting the Article 50 process.
That statute allowed for only one thing, the triggering of Article 50, it conferred no other powers on the government.
Once the letter had been sent, under Article 50 the UK exit date from the EU was set unless Article 50 was extended or the original letter has been revoked.
Tilbrook is saying that, because of that judgement in the Miller case and the resulting EU Withdrawal Notification Act of 2017, the government has no power to change the leaving date by extending the process unless it has obtained a full act of parliament to do it.
And that has not been done.
So, dependent on any High Court judgement, which would probably be fought tooth and nail by the government and appealed by them if necessary, we left the European Union at 11 pm on Friday the 29th March 2019 as originally planned.
