A SCOTTISH judge was to be asked yesterday to consider whether Boris Johnson could be jailed if he takes the UK out of the EU without a deal, and whether a court-nominated person should sign the postponement letter to the EU in his place.
The UK is due to leave the EU on October 31, but Johnson had said that he would sooner be ‘dead in a ditch’ than sign a surrender letter to the EU.
The court case was to allow the judiciary to decide what must be done if Johnson refused to sign a ‘surrender letter’.
The solution being sought by the SNP and other ‘Remain’ parties was that refusal would see Johnson jailed by the court which would then sign the letter to EU leaders on behalf of Johnson, asking for a fresh extension of the leaving date.
Thus the scene was set for a showdown in the UK between the 17.4 million majority who voted to leave the EU and the majority of MPs, state officials and the boss class who are desperate to stay at any cost.
The new legal case was been initiated by businessman Dale Vince, QC Jolyon Maugham and SNP MP and QC Joanna Cherry.
However, the ‘no surrender’ Johnson pose did not last the day.
Maugham, QC, one of the three main petitioners, said outside the court just after 1pm: ‘What we learned today is that the Prime Minister has promised the court in his own name that he will ask for an extension under the Benn Act if the conditions are satisfied.
‘In other words, if Parliament has not before the 19 October agreed a Withdrawal Agreement.
‘He has also promised the court that he will not frustrate the Benn Act, by which is meant he will not send two letters, one saying, “can I have an extension?” the other saying, “please don’t give me one”; he won’t collude with foreign governments to attempt to pursuade those foreign governments to veto the extension.
‘So those are undertakings, those are statements he has made to the court. The court has said that in those circumstances it is contempt jurisdiction might be engaged …’
Maugham continued: ‘Then on Tuesday we now know that we will have a full hearing before the Inner House of the Court of Session in which the Inner House will consider whether or not, if the Prime Minister refuses to do what he has today told the court that he will do, the court can sign the letter for the Prime Minister, the letter mandated by the Benn Act.’
Maugham added: ‘The Prime Minister is playing a very odd game. It is a very difficult game to understand.
‘He told the House of Commons yesterday that we will leave on October 31 come what may. And I do not understand how that statement can be reconciled with the promises that he has made to the court today.
‘There is no way to square that circle. He will have to come clean either to Parliament or the courts.’
When News Line asked Downing Street to confirm that this is the case, the press officer said that they have been told to say, ‘We will not comment on ongoing legal cases.’
Johnson’s capitulation is a warning to the working class that it must take matters into its own hands.
What is required is that workers in the trade unions must organise a general strike to take the UK out of the EU on October 31st and to go forward to a workers government and the expropriation of the bosses to bring in socialism and a nationalised socialist planned economy.
Such an example will spread like wildfire throughout Europe.
