Miller has rattled Team Brexit more than I expected. Here’s why.

Assuming the Government loses in the Supreme Court...

Parliament will vote through Article 50 (probably in the form of a Bill) when the time comes. The vast majority of Parliamentary constituencies (as opposed to voters) voted to Leave so electoral logic dictates MPs will have to respect that. The March deadline for triggering Art 50 is somewhat arbitrary. So if the Government misses the 'deadline' by a few weeks because a piece of legislation of has to go through both houses, it will be embarrassing but ultimately no more than that. Brexit will still mean Brexit.

Yet on news of the High Court decision, a number of prominent Brexiters took to the air to express their outrage that Gina Miller and the judges were seeking to overturn the settled, definitive will of the people. (For reference, I have illustrated scientifically in the chart below the will of the British people as of June 23).

Why has the Miller result rattled Team Brexit so much? I think the outrage about the court decision is a red herring which draws attention away from fundamental political problem the ruling presents for Brexiteers, namely that having won the referendum, they could be outmanoeuvred on the manner of Brexit. This fear is surely well grounded. For a start – at the risk of stating the bleedin’ obvious - the referendum didn’t say anything about the UK’s future relationship with the EU, so it remains an open question. And though the result was clear and should be respected, it can hardly be described as emphatic even on the very basic point about whether we should Leave.

At a practical level there is a further problem for Team Brexit, namely that even if they could persuade Theresa May to pursue a hard Brexit, she is in no position to steamroller this through Parliament without an election that gives her a bigger and more biddable majority. Unhelpfully for the Government, the ruling also shines a bright light on just how precarious the Parliamentary situation is: Mrs May inherits a slim majority and not one but two sets of Bastards to deal with (the Bremoaners and the Leave taleban). That's before you add in the opposition parties. This increases the Brexit fudge factor massively.   

So why is it the case that Parliamentary involvement makes a fudgey Brexit more likely? Well, while the country is divided straight down the middle and the government is also divided, Parliament as a body is not nearly so divided. Parliament backed Remain, and it did so overwhelmingly (perhaps by 3 to 1). If I remember correctly, more than half of Tory MPs backed Remain. Miller has rattled the Brexit purists because anything that shifts the balance of power back towards Parliament means a clean break with the EU is less likely. It’s not about high ideals, or the rule of law or sovereignty, it’s about arithmetic. And while the maths do stack up for Article 50 being triggered, it doesn’t stack up for a hard Brexit. That is a fact that will not change unless there is an election – which Theresa May has ruled out, I would wager the public doesn’t want, and the Conservative party isn’t ready for.

So, ultimately, the fury with which the judgement was greeted signals just how sensitive Brexit campaigners are to the possibility that the quick, clean Brexit which they hoped for will get bogged down in the Reamainy Parliamentary mire. It will be Brexit Nigel, but perhaps not as you know it.