Allowing a legal challenge to implementing the EU referendum result would amount to saying the government could not “give effect to the will of the people”, according to a court argument lodged in the high court on behalf of the Brexit secretary, David Davis.
The government’s skeleton argument for the case, due to begin next week, dismisses the argument by a series of claimants that parliament must have a vote on article 50, which sets in motion departure from the EU, before it is triggered.
The 28-page outline, submitted by the attorney general, Jeremy Wright, and the legal team who will make the case in court on behalf of Davis, gives the clearest clue yet of the government’s arguments as to why it believes Theresa May and her ministers alone have the authority to implement Brexit.
