Remainers try the courts again, Toynbee still hopes for a CV

You have to take your hat off to J Maugham QC and his legal campaigns. This latest is a beauty.  Maugham is applying to a Scottish court for review, which means delay which means Benn Act extension. As usual I want to ask -- what drives this man?

Lawyers for Maugham will tell the court on Friday morning the deal contravenes section 55 of the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Act 2018, which states that it is “unlawful for Her Majesty’s government to enter into arrangements under which Northern Ireland forms part of a separate customs territory to Great Britain”....On Twitter, Maugham confirmed that he would ask the inner house of the court on Monday to order the prime minister to apply for an extension to article 50 until 31 January under the Benn Act, or send the letter itself.

Meanwhile P Toynbee, sounding a bit weary and sour I thought, bangs on rather desperately. The DUP won't support the deal (so they are now magically restored to her good books?), nor will the 19 Labour MPs who want a deal if it continues alignment with EU regulations. Farage is still against. Happily, she thinks:

This deal unites Labour, and even fires up Jeremy Corbyn to cast aside his ancient scepticism and at last put his shoulder to the cause of killing it off. Today [and for some time] Labour was calling for a confirmatory referendum: ask the voters if this is really what they want?

What about Brexit weariness?

Is the Get It Done sentiment so strong at Westminster that it will sweep aside doubters on all sides? MPs know that nothing is “done” if they sign up to Johnson’s deal: it’s only the beginning of unending torment over the economy-defining negotiations on customs, tariffs and regulations, where as an outsider the UK will have the weakest hand.

Toynbee has been arguing all along that the UK has the weaker hand in any EU negotiations, of course, and so should abandon the whole idea..

The last chance to get his deal agreed would be to accept the Kyle-Wilson amendment for a confirmatory referendum ballot, which would see the Commons overwhelmingly pass it.  

Many shudder at the prospect of five long months of a referendum campaign that would be more bitter, more mendacious and savage than the last. But as hundreds of thousands of People’s Vote marchers file past parliament as it sits on Saturday, the worthwhile prize is a vote to stop Brexit dead:...A packed Labour for a Public Vote meeting in the Commons last night discussed ways to run a grassroots campaign, making the remain side a fiery insurgency, with greater input from young people and women [That will go down well, the day after pissed-off commuters pulled down an XR protester from the roof of a Tube]

In the least convincing of all her points:

But if leave were to win, that too would be a necessary catharsis. Remainers would just have to live with it, in the hope of drawing gradually closer to Europe again over the years.