Gina Miller: how I won against the government and what you can do next – The Guardian

This summer was my third without a holiday, spent instead in legal communications with the government. In the summer of 2016, I was doing the same over Theresa Mays decision to trigger Article 50 without consulting parliament. In the summer of 2017, it was regarding what then first minister of Wales Carwyn Jones referred to as her 1 billion bung to the DUP. And this summer it was over Boris Johnsons attempt to prorogue parliament that is shut it down for five weeks and deny elected members of parliament their legal voice over Brexit.

My communication with the prime minister started on 11 July, as a warning shot, to say if rumours of his plans to close down parliament were true, this, in my view, was illegal and I would not hesitate to seek clarification from the courts. All through the summer, I received letters from the government, in which they went to great lengths to assure me they would abide by the law. So much so that there was something fishy about it. My legal team and I continued preparing the case.

The final letter from the governments legal department arrived on 27 August at 5pm, promising that I need not go to court because prime minister Johnson would not be proroguing parliament. The next morning the decision to prorogue was announced: we filed the case at 4.30pm that afternoon. Presumably they had hoped their assurances would lull us into a false sense of security and we wouldnt have time to pull a case together. Whistleblowers said the government had been given advice that our case would fail, that it was not justiciable that it would never get to the supreme court as they would be too afraid to touch it.

Others were telling me there had been discussions about the possibility of the five-week closure of parliament being extended, had I not got permission to have the case heard, or if we had lost the case. That would have allowed Johnson to push through No Deal.

We had three weeks to prepare a supreme court case, with my legal team in different countries, different time zones. To add to the drama, a normal supreme court term starts in October, and we needed the judges back in September to stand a chance of stopping Johnsons action; but most were also travelling around the globe with various commitments. As required for a verdict, we needed an odd number of judges, and thought the efficient supreme court team would manage five. At no time did we envisage as eventually happened all 11 back in time to hear our case.

When the day of judgment came and Lady Hale started to read the decision, she stated that it was unanimous; the team looked at each other in dread, thinking we had lost. It wasnt until she had neared the end of her summary that it slowly dawned on us that we had won. A unanimous judgment was extraordinary: my legal team were extraordinary. Interestingly, in the aftermath of the case, Lady Hale and I were the only ones who received a torrent of abuse. Everyone seemed to have forgotten there were 10 other judges. It was amusing that Lady Hale became famous for her spider brooch when I had been referred to as the Black Widow Spider in the past. Yet at the same time, here you had the first female president of a UK supreme court and, rather than talk about her expertise, reputation and grace, all the media could fixate on was her brooch.

It was also notable that Lady Hale was portrayed as the face of the case. I have spoken to political advisers and commentators who referred to this and asked why they thought it happened. You cant have a woman of colour beating Boris, was the general reply. There was also a fear of a backlash calling for Johnson to stand down, hence the need to underplay the significance of the case and dismiss the roles of the judges and me. Even the fuss over the brooch smacked of attempts to distract from the implications of the ruling.

The UKs top court confirmed its official live stream attracted more than 29m views over the course of the hearing, beating its previous record of roughly 520,000 views, which was from my first case. More importantly, something seemed to have shifted in the global response. Against a backdrop of courts in many different modern democracies being challenged by autocratic, rightwing politicians, legal professionals around the globe were looking to the UK to set an example in defence of democracy. We have had messages from judges around the world saying the case has steeled their resolve and given them confidence; it demonstrated that the rule of law cannot be bullied or diminished by the rise of dictatorial power-grabbing regimes.

As I tried to get into my security car, themen reached the car doors yelling: Cut her filthy tongue out

On a personal level, the abuse was much worse this time. Most notably the men standing outside the supreme court with a noose, with posters calling me a traitor, who were present throughout the entire case. I had to enter and leave each day through the throng shouting hang her, send her back home. As I quickly tried to get into my security car one day, they broke ranks, reaching the car doors and yelling: Cut her filthy tongue out. The police should never have allowed them to be there. They said it was freedom of speech, but inciting violence or making threats against me exercising my civil, lawful rights should not have been allowed. You cant hide behind freedom of speech when violence is being advocated and inciting violence is a criminal offence.

I do understand my friends and family who say, Enough, Gina. But for too long, too many politicians from across the spectrum have got away with weaponising language, with adversarial soundbites that have turned interviews and articles into propaganda rather than fact-based arguments or policy scrutiny. And I cannot stand by while that happens.

The path to a more hopeful future will be one step at a time and we need to persuade individuals, corporations and politicians to do their part. Successful societies and cultures evolve against the backdrop of their contemporary issues and I am afraid what that means for politicians is having to speak truth to power. Were not ever going to go back to the way it was before. Whatever happens, there have to be new conversations, with a new regard for honesty and what we are as a country. What are our faults, our strengths, our opportunities, our sense of identity? Our identity tends to be too closely linked to a past viewed through rose-tinted glasses, rather than the truth of who we are now; and who were likely to be in the future.

And that leads me back to the deeper, thornier issues at the heart of Brexit. Its hard to complain about the world we live in when we dont take an active part in shaping it. We all have a responsibility. That doesnt have to mean thinking in big thoughts or gestures. Its as simple as stopping to give your neighbour five minutes if theyre isolated and cant go out shopping. Speaking to someone from a different part of your community. Its a lack of empathy towards other ethnic groups and social classes that makes oppression and inequality possible.

Gina Millers Rise: Life Lessons in Speaking Out, Standing Tall & Leading the Way is published in paperback by Canongate. To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com.

See the rest here:

Gina Miller: how I won against the government and what you can do next - The Guardian