The High Court has ruled that the government does not have Royal Prerogative Powers to trigger Article 50 to start the Brexit process, without a parliamentary vote authorizing it do to so, not least because it was parliament that authorised our original joining of the Common Market and subsequently ratified successive treaties, which upgraded the original grouping into the modern EU. The Lord Chief Justice ruled that parliament alone is sovereign. In other words, the people elect the parliament and the parliament decides what to do.
The referendum was authorized by parliament, but it was an advisory referendum not a binding one, because it is the basis of the democratic settlement underpinned by the UK’s unwritten constitution, itself a compromise between crown and parliament, that parliament is sovereign. In this case the referendum was advisory to parliament, which authorized it, not to the government which proposed it. Therefore parliament must be consulted both on the process and the outcome. If the government had called the referendum using the royal prerogative it could have argued that it could act outside parliament, but it did not do that. Perhaps that was another Cameron blunder.
So the government has decided to appeal to the Supreme Court. This is madness. If it loses it is arguable that it should resign. Certainly it will be severely damaged and the whole Brexit process will begin to look increasingly uncertain. If it wins it will by doing so cast fundamental questions over the workings of our democracy and the viability of our laws. Because the principle will have been established that the Monarch (i.e. the government using the royal prerogative) can bypass parliament and appeal directly to the people. That will cause uproar. It will also open a Pandora’s box of whether we are in fact a democracy under the law, or a democracy under the whim of whoever is King or Queen.