A court has ruled that the 2016 EU referendum should be voided because of criminal activity by the Brexit campaign. – Only it can’t be because of this loophole: it wasn’t a binding referendum.
Yet Theresa May is still treating it as legally binding.
You couldn’t make it up.
Barrister Jessica Simor took May’s government to court for proceeding with Brexit on the basis that the referendum was lawful, despite their full knowledge of the illegal behaviour of the campaign to leave the EU.
Based on the Electoral Commission’s rulings of last minute overspending by Vote Leave on a highly targeted Facebook campaign, Brits affected by Brexit living in Europe launched a legal case arguing the referendum result should not stand.
But last week, the Court of Appeal denied the ex pats and Jessica Simor representing them permission to appeal.
She appeared on James O’Brien’s LBC show to explain the appalling contradictions of the case.
As O’Brien repeated in disbelief: “if the referendum had been legally binding, then the findings of the Electoral Commission would have rendered it invalid. Because if it’s been corruptly delivered, how on earth can we be held to it?
“But because it wasn’t binding, we can be held to something that is corruptly delivered. Woah!
“The will of the people is meaningless if the people were victims of corrupt practices or lied to.
“The court essentially found that the Prime Minister is not obliged to take account of the mounting evidence that casts doubt on the legitimacy of the referendum.”
But Jessica Simor replied: “It’s slightly worse than that. The High Court found that we were too late. They said we should have brought the claim three months after the expenses had been lodged at the Electoral Commission, which was December 2016.
“But at that point, nobody knew anything about this.
“We’ve been told we had to do something which was impossible. And would have failed at that point because it was impossible.”
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