Last week saw a number of developments on the legal front. Firstly, The People's Challenge reported that the government has attempted to get an early site of The Supreme Court's judgement but were rebuffed (HERE). It rather looks as if they are starting to panic. The excuse was that they wanted to put contingencies in place! Amazing.
Then, in Ireland Jolyon Maughan QC (HERE) has released the "letter before action" which is the precursor to starting a legal challenge to get the ECJ to give a ruling on whether or not Article 50 can be revoked. This may mean we will get the chance to vote on the new settlement and reject it if we do not like it.
And finally, and again in Ireland but this time north of the border, the executive has collapsed with the resignation of Martin McGuiness and this has led to suggestions from NI politicians that Mrs May cannot trigger Article 50 until a new executive is in place (HERE). To do so, they say, would be illegal (HERE). New elections will almost certainly be required and this will take at least eight weeks, meaning Article 50 may be delayed by a few weeks or even months.
On top of this Mrs May is to set out the government's thinking on brexit next week and MPs are pressing her to set out her objectives on the single market and the customs union. If she hints that we are to leave one or both the pound is likely to come under increased pressure. She is in an impossible position. I wouldn't like to be her speech writer.
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