UK Supreme Court President Lord Reed has pushed back on campaign groups challenging legislation in the courts – typically by exploiting the loose definition of ‘differential treatment‘ – as a last-ditch effort to derail policies they don’t like. What a coincidence. Guido wonders which learned ears will been listening…

Writing in the Supreme Court’s judgement on the ‘two child limit’ legislation (which ‘restricts payment of amounts of subsistence benefit for children to the first two children in a family‘), Reed said:

“In practice, challenges to legislation on the ground of discrimination have become increasingly common in the United Kingdom. They are usually brought by campaigning organisations which lobbied unsuccessfully against the measure when it was being considered in Parliament, and then act as solicitors for persons affected by the legislation, or otherwise support legal challenges brought in their names, as a means of continuing their campaign.”

The legislature legislates, not the judiciary. Of course, some leftie lawyers are already squawking about how this is a “worrying” development because Reed has refused to drag a domestic court into what is ultimately a political question over the jurisdiction of the ECHR. Lawyers need to learn you can’t litigate every political decision you disagree with, try to win an election, like that lawyer Keir Starmer is trying…