by Sir Michael Ellis, Telegraph
Should the courts intervene, the Prime Minister could face yet another humiliation
The Government’s defeat in court over migrants being housed at the Bell Hotel in Epping seems to have alarmed the Government and shocked some commentators, particularly on the Left. But really it shouldn’t. In case anyone else had not noticed, the expansion of judicial review over the years means that judges regularly block ministers from doing things. It usually boils down to whether the court thinks the government is being “irrational”. Housing migrants in a way that breaches planning laws will have that effect.
Other cases might potentially prove the same point. The Prime Minister’s move to formally recognise Palestine as a sovereign state, goes beyond political misjudgement. It is administratively incompetent for the UK to recognise a state which has two rival Palestinian governments; in the West Bank where Mahmoud Abbas has not held elections for 20 years and which is in a state of fierce enmity with the terrorists who are the controlling force in Gaza. It is irrational and bitterly inconsistent with British post-war policy to empower Hamas to such an extent that they have been crowing loudly that the recognition being promised is justification for the most murderous pogrom against Jews since the Second World War, their savage slaughter of over a thousand civilians on October 7, 2023.