Lawyers petition PM for a ‘People’s Vote’

More than 1,500 lawyers signed a letter urging Theresa May to hold a second referendum on the final Brexit deal.

Organised by the group, Lawyers for A People’s Vote, the letter said: ‘A People’s Vote is the most credible and democratic way to ensure the legitimacy of a decision that will profoundly impact generations to come.’

It argued that ‘democratic government is not frozen in time’ and that Parliament should not be bound by the 2016 vote any more than it should be by the 1975 referendum that took Britain into the EU, especially when there were ‘serious questions about the validity’ of the 2016 vote. They also said that voters are entitled to know what they are voting for.

Among the signatories were peers Helena Kennedy and Anthony Lester, more than 40 other QCs including Philippe Sands, Helen Mountfield, Henry Blaxland, Schona Jolly, Ben Emmerson and Hugh Tomlinson, former judge of the European Court of Justice Sir Konrad Schiemann, David Edward, a former judge of the Court of Justice of the European Communities and a smattering of City lawyers.

Meanwhile, a Brexit report from the Bar Council warned that the government’s moves to strip British terrorists of their citizenship was counter-productive, contrary to EU law and deprived the families of British victims of their right to see justice done in the UK courts.

The paper on human rights, the 27th of the Bar Council’s Brexit Papers, pointed to government figures published as a result of a freedom of information request showing that between 2013 and 2015, 60 British citizens were stripped of their nationality, mostly as a result of alleged terrorist activities, and estimated that since then, about 20 people a year have had their nationality removed by the Home Office.