Brexit: Ben Habib claims UK 'clearly isn't sovereign'

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The judicial review is due to get underway at the High Court of Northern Ireland in Belfast this morning, with organisers including former Brexit Party MEP Mr Habib having raised more than £80,000 towards the estimated £150,000 cost via a Crowdfunding appeal. Both the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) are backing the case, which stems from their belief that the arrangements, aimed at preventing a hard border on the island of Ireland, instead amount to a border down the Irish Sea which effectively drives a wedge between the region and the rest of the United Kingdom.

In a forensic analysis of the situation, Mr Habib told Express.co.uk: “I cannot see how we could lose.

“Consider the following: the Prime Minister has repeatedly said the Protocol avoids a so-called hard border on the island of Ireland, for which read a customs border.

“At the same time he claims the Protocol does not put a border down the Irish Sea and that Northern Ireland remains part of the UK’s customs union.

“So, for the same arrangements which amount to a hard border on the island of Ireland, they amount to no border at all in the Irish Sea.”

Mr Habib added: “For these claims to stack up he would have to be a constitutional alchemist.

“He would also have to have done away with all borders on our Western flank.”

The fact of the matter is that the “Boris Border” had partitioned the UK, Mr Habib said, creating the potential for a very serious constitutional crisis.

He explained: “In doing so it breaches the Act of Union of 1800 by making British citizens in Northern Ireland second class citizens.

“It breaches the Northern Ireland Act 1998 and the Belfast Agreement by imposing a separate constitutional arrangement on Northern Ireland without cross-community consent.

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“It even breaches the Withdrawal Agreement Act 2018 which prohibits any variation to the Northern Ireland Act 1998.

“Ironically, the Protocol also breaches the Article 50 process for leaving the EU.

“That provides for entire countries to leave, not for partial exits.”

Mr Habib, who earlier this year called for Mr Johnson to offer his resignation over his handling of the situation, warned: “Northern Ireland has been hived off without the remotest whiff of a democratic process.

“No, the Prime Minister does not possess magical powers.

“He is, like all apparent magicians, perpetrating a deception.

“This is what we will reveal in court. The Boris Border is an affront to the United Kingdom. It must go.”

Mr Johnson is also facing the prospect of another legal challenge, from the EU itself, over London’s decision unilaterally to change trading arrangements for Northern Ireland which Brussels claims breach the terms of the trade deal the UK and the bloc agreed last year.

The UK, which denies being in breach of the agreement, has asked for more time to respond.

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