Brexit extension: judge rejects court order for Johnson

A Scottish court has rejected the latest bid to force Boris Johnson to ask for a Brexit extension.

Lord Pentland, sitting in the court of session in Edinburgh, declined a request from anti-Brexit campaigners for a court order instructing the prime minister to seek an extension if he cannot get a deal passed by MPs by 31 October.

The judge said he was ruling on the basis of promises made by the Government last week that Johnson would write the letter seeking an extension on 19 October. He said the assurances that the PM would adhere to the Benn Act were unambiguous.

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“I approach matters on the basis that it would be destructive of one of the core principles of constitutional propriety and of the mutual trust that is the bedrock of the relationship between the court and the crown for the prime minister or the government to renege on what they have assured the court that the prime minister intends to do,” the judge ruled.

Aidan O’Neill QC, the lawyer for the anti-Brexit campaigners, claimed that Johnson was already conspiring to thwart the Benn Act. He added that a series of public statements by the prime minster indicated that he was planning to break the law by refusing to ask for an extension.

But the judge was not convinced. “I am not satisfied that the petitioners have made out their case based on reasonable apprehension of breach of statutory duty on the part of the prime minister,” he ruled, in what The Telegraph describes as a “boost for Boris Johnson”.

O’Neill had said he feared that Johnson might appeal in secret for a European Union member state to reject the UK’s request for an extension. The lawyer asked the court for an interdict blocking Johnson from frustrating the Benn Act. But the judge ruled that the terms of the interdict were not “sufficiently precise and clear” and were “too broad”.

Lawyers for the Government had told the court that Johnson promised not to thwart the act’s provisions by lobbying EU member states to reject calls for an extension to Article 50.

The campaigners behind the action were Dale Vince, an energy entrepreneur, anti-Brexit activist Jolyon Maugham QC and Joanna Cherry QC, a Scottish National Party MP.

Maugham tweeted: “As we have extracted promises from the government, the question whether this loss matters depends on whether you think I am right or the court is right.”

He and the other campaigners said they would appeal against the ruling. It is thought that the appeal could be heard later today.

The verdict follows the Supreme Court's ruling last month that Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend Parliament was unlawful.