Know Your Enemy

"It is both illogical and ignorant to castigate the High Court for doing its job and stating the constitutionally obvious: that having passed the act, only parliament can override it by consenting to activate Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.

Yet castigating the judges and by extension, anybody who has the effrontery to agree with them, is exactly what the hard Tory Brexiters and their accomplices in the lie factories of Fleet Street have resorted to with a venom, vindictiveness and vituperation remarkable even by their standards. The will of the people has been thwarted by an 'activist' judiciary. These bewigged, closet Remainers, members of the fabled 'well-heeled liberal metropolitan elite', are 'enemies of the people', they shriek. Some of these sleaze-peddlers even dipped into homophobia, highlighting the sexual orientation of one of the judges. Inexcusable.

This is mendacious bile. It wilfully misunderstands the relationship between parliament, government and the judiciary. Partisanship is understandable, but this level of stupidity is unforgivable. It misleads and distorts - either deliberately or out of ignorance."

The Observer editorial quite rightly pulls no punches on the response of many Tories and particularly the right-wing press to the High Court's Brexit ruling.