British Influence deputy director Jonathan Lis.Jonathan Lis
LONDON — The High Court has blocked a fresh Brexit legal challenge.
The Royal Courts of Justice said on Friday morning that it would not hear a legal argument relating to whether Britain will automatically leave the European single market after the two-year Article 50 process expires.
The case, brought by London-based think tank British Influence, argues that Theresa May cannot use Article 50 to pull Britain out of the single market as Britain is also a member of the single market as a member of the European Economic Arena (EEA), which, they argue, isn’t covered by Article 50’s remit.
The Court held a permissions hearing on Friday morning to decide whether the case has the legal grounds to be heard. The session lasted around 50 minutes before judges ruled that it would not hear the case.
Judge Clive Lewis said that the Court would not rule on the issue at this time as it’s not yet clear how the government intends to handle the EEA when it comes to negotiating Britain’s exit from the European Union.
“There is a third party in this marriage, Parliament, and you don’t know what they are going to do,” Lewis said.
James Eadie QC, who was representing the Department for Exiting the European Union (DexEU) in this morning’s hearing, told the Court: “It’s entirely possible that Parliament will take a whole series of steps in relation to this. This application is premature and should be dismissed for that reason.”
The claimants remain confident that the case will be heard at a later date, despite today’s ruling.
British Influence Deputy Director Jonathan Lis told Business Insider: “It’s been dismissed on grounds of prematurity rather than merits, which is positive. The case is clear.”
He added: “It would be a travesty of justice for the Govt to be able to act unlawfully. If the prime minister alone is empowered to throw our economy off a cliff by withdrawing us from the single market without Parliament’s consent, then the control we have taken back is worth very little indeed.”
The judges are set to publish the reasons for rejecting the application at 14:00 p.m. (GMT).
What is the EEA and why does it matter?
The EEA is an organisation which facilitates full access to the EU’s single market for all 28 EU member states, plus three members of the Economic Free Trade Association (EFTA) who are not EU member states: Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein. Britain signed up to the EEA as a contracting party of the EU in 1994.
The government’s current position is that by triggering Article 50 Britain will automatically depart from both the European Single Market and EEA — because Britain is part of the EEA as an EU member state. However, lawyers representing British Influence’s case claim that Article 50 does not extend to Britain’s EEA membership.
“Article 127 of the EEA agreement states that you have to give at least 12 months notice if you want to leave. This suggests that the withdrawal process is separate to that of Article 50,” British Influence director deputy Jonathan Lis told us in December.
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