ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now the government has said it will appeal against the High Court’s decision to give parliament a say over when Article 50 is invoked so what happens now?  Could the Supreme Court vote overturn the whole ruling?  Well I’m joined now from Stratford Upon Avon in actual fact by Michael Mansfield, very good to talk to you Michael.  First of all, your reaction to the reaction so to speak and if it does go to the Supreme Court and it is upheld there do you think the government ought to say something that it will abide by whatever decision they come to and that really tabloids shouldn’t criticise judges.

MICHAEL MANSFIELD: Well firstly I’m appalled by certain – well I hesitate to call them newspapers but the tabloids, in particular the Daily Mail.  It is totally irresponsible because the judges, whether you like them or you don’t like them is beside the point, they are an independent arm of our state, they are there and they are entitled to pass judgement on questions of law which is what they’ve just done.  So I think all that does is the flames of prejudice are fanned by that kind of headline.  So I am very dismayed and disappointed that the government itself hasn’t come out to defend the judiciary over this.  Secondly, I think the government at this point should recognise that it is most unlikely that the Supreme Court are going to go against – they could do but to go against three extremely senior judges including the Lord Chief Justice, is possible but most unlikely because it was a unanimous judgement and a very clear judgement almost saying we don’t understand the argument here because we have parliamentary sovereignty and really everybody recognises that.

DM: Of course it could be appealed beyond that couldn’t it?  It would be rather ironic if it ended up in the European Court.  

MICHAEL MANSFIELD: You are quite right, there is a European Court of Justice in Luxembourg which deals with points of law or interpretation of European law and I don't think, even if it got to the Supreme Court, that issues at the Supreme Court will invoke European law so I think it’s unlikely but it would be ironical that it can get to the European court.

DM: Now just tell us, the point of law here and we want your expertise on this, Michael Mansfield, Lord Kerr who was centrally involved in actually inserting Article 50 into the Lisbon Treaty, seems to have been saying that you actually could revoke it, you could untrigger it after having triggered it.  Wasn’t this what the whole case hinged on, that it was irrevocable?

MICHAEL MANSFIELD: Yes, I think from that point of view, because you’ve got parliamentary sovereignty clearly the government – there are all sorts of things that are possible.  The first thing is obviously this government having triggered it next March would then have to have had before that happens some form of legislation, that’s what the court is saying.  So between now and March there will have to be a statute or there will have to be a piece of legislation, it’s not very difficult to draft it, which authorises the government to trigger Article 50.  However, however having done that, obviously one of the other things that May is thinking about is well let’s have a general election, change the complexion of the House of Commons so that she can be sure that if there’s a vote  in relation to a statute being passed through to trigger Article 50, she’ll win it clearly.  I think that’s one of the dangers she’s worried about but of course future parliaments, because of parliamentary sovereignty, can undo everything, it’s just if you like a protocol that successive governments don’t do that because they recognise – well they don’t do it very often because they recognise that it would be undermining parliamentary sovereignty and in this case, seriously undermining the will of the British people so I think although it’s possible, it’s unlikely.

DM: So do you think, taking all that on board, that Theresa May can stick to her timetable if, as you say, she puts a fairly simple Bill before the House of Commons, even if the Supreme Court uphold the decision she could still trigger Article 50 by the end of March?

MICHAEL MANSFIELD: I think she could and what I think is dismaying, if I can use that pun on the word, it really dismays everybody that this hadn’t been thought through, probably by anyone but even once Theresa May became Prime Minister she must have known about the possibility of parliamentary sovereignty, I mean she’s a parliamentarian and it seems to me they’ve got hundreds of lawyers who draft legislation, to draft an act which can be two lines which authorises the government to trigger Article 50, that’s all it does, it can focus on that.  It could have been drafted in July, they could have had a vote when parliamentary reassembled in the autumn and they probably at this stage are looking at the way the Labour party and opposition parties are saying we’re not going to go against the British people on this one so we’re not going to block that vote, she’d have got it through by now.  So she could easily have done it and she could still do it, I think, by March 17th I think the date is.  

DM: Thank you very much for your input there, Michael.  Michael Mansfield there in Stratford Upon Avon.