IT IS entirely possible that, for good or for bad, Britain would have left the EU by now if it weren’t for Gina Miller – making her arguably the greatest influence of any non-politician on British politics this century.
Before her successful High Court challenge to Theresa May over Article 50 in 2016, there was a tacit assumption by the government that the Brexit process could be triggered without the consent of MPs. When the High Court and then the Supreme Court subsequently ruled that only parliament could take away the EU rights from citizens it had originally conferred on them, it underlined the fact that parliamentary sovereignty lay at the heart of the British constitution.
And though MPs did subsequently vote to invoke article 50, setting in motion the Brexit process, Miller’s action had helped pave the way for the Meaningful Vote, giving MPs the final say over the terms of any deal, leading to the blocking of Mrs May’s deal and her departure from office. On 28 August 2019, Prime Minister Boris Johnson asked the Queen to prorogue parliament from 10 September, which would have left no time to debate or vote on any amended Brexit deal prior to the October 31 cut-off.
Miller immediately issued a challenge which was first heard in Scotland, where judges ruled Johnson’s action unlawful. Subsequently, on September 24, the 11 Supreme Court judges of England and Wales also ruled against the prime minister, unanimously, and the proroguing was cancelled. Parliament reconvened the following day. “Today is not a win for any individual or cause,” said Miller after the ruling.
“It is a win for Parliamentary sovereignty, the separation of powers and independence of our British courts. Crucially, today’s ruling confirms that we are a nation governed by the rule of law – laws that everyone, even the Prime Minister, are subject to.”
Through her legal team, Miller had written to Johnson warning that suspending parliament to force through a no-deal Brexit would fly in the face of the constitutional principle of parliamentary supremacy and would lead her to mount an urgent legal challenge in the courts. Miller declared that the attempt to prorogue was “was a breach of the central constitutional principle of Parliamentary Sovereignty to gain political advantage.”
Given the divisiveness of Brexit, Miller had become a highly controversial figure, admired by Remainers but loathed by many Brexiteers who regard her interventions as an attempt to usurp the will of the British people.
The torrent of criticism against her has included racial abuse and death threats. One man was jailed for three months after referring to her on Facebook as a “boat jumper” and adding: “If this is what we should expect from immigrants, send them back to their stinking jungles”.
The man had offered a reward of “£5,000 for the first person to ‘accidentally’ run over this bloody troublesome first-generation immigrant.” Other people have been issued with cease and desist notices by the police while Miller herself says she has been threatened with acid attacks and beheading: “I was aware there would be nastiness because anything to do with the word Brexit, people lose their minds and it’s all about heart. Actually it is about your head and your heart,” she says. Born in Guyana where her father, Doodnauth Singh was Attorney General, she was sent to Britain at the age of 10, accompanied by her brother, and attended the private and much-lauded Roedean school, near Brighton, and then Moira House Girls school in Eastbourne.
“Whilst we missed our parents dreadfully, and it was difficult juggling our home lives with homework and school, it made us who we are today,” she says. She studied law at the Polytechnic of East London (now University of East London) but did not sit her final exams.
She subsequently gained a degree in marketing and an MSc in human resource management at the University of London and set up her own marketing agency in the 1990s. In 2009, she co-founded the investment company SCM Private and launched the True and Fair Foundation, a philanthropic venture that would provide funding and help to small charities. In 2012, she launched the True and Fair Campaign aimed at increasing transparency in the investment and pension funds sector.
Her high-end activism was resented by some fund managers who gave her the nickname ‘black widow spider’, reportedly warning that her efforts could “bring down the entire City.” In a letter sent to Boris Johnson in July 2019, Miller’s legal team at Mishcon de Reya (the late Princess Diana’s lawyers) warned that prorogation of parliament would be contrary to fundamental constitutional principles, The letter added: “It would seriously undermine parliamentary sovereignty for you, as prime minister, to prorogue parliament to prevent it from considering whether to legislate to prevent a nodeal Brexit.
“You would be closing the doors of parliament to prevent it from legislating on the most important political issue of the day, when time is of the essence. In such circumstances it would be unlawful for you as prime minister to advise Her Majesty to prorogue parliament for the purpose of preventing parliament from considering the enactment of a law to stop the UK leaving the EU without a deal.”
Miller has cited concerns for ‘democracy and parliamentary supremacy’ as being the motivating force behind her Brexit activism coupled with her many years of commitment to “campaigning for transparency and accountability”. She has always claimed it is not so much the idea of Brexit itself that fires her ire as “the idea of an unchallenged, unanswerable government taking us back to 1610 and ripping a hole through our democratic structures”.
