Only @PiersMorgan would remind the Defence Secretary live on air that he owes him £1,000 in a bet…https://t.co/wfi4l6YfqN

— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) July 18, 2016

Both Michael Fallon and John Whittingdale made pre-referendum bets that, should Cameron lose the vote, he wouldn’t resign. Now Piers is calling in his bets, promising to donate the winnings to charity. Pay up, Fallon…

People occasionally ask Guido, with a sense of foreboding, when will the pundit and polling analyst Dan Hodges do his naked Brexit run? Guido will be negotiating the time and location with the sagacious streaker this week. Stay tuned…

UPDATE: Piers wants Guido to remind Whitto as well:

@GuidoFawkes @PiersMorgan Whittingdale too: https://t.co/EkRsLfH0x0

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) July 18, 2016

Having waited 23 years to win independence Nigel Farage may not be in much of a rush to collect on his bet on Brexit from Ladbrokes. He has won £2,500 on his £1,000 at 5/2 bet on Leave.

The bookies are bemused that he hasn’t collected. Perhaps Nigel is too busy enjoying a round of celebratory PFLs…

Last week Guido reported that lap dancing lawyer Philip Kolvin QC is coordinating a letter from barristers to the Prime Minister trying to block Brexit. This morning City AM reveals over 1,000 bad loser barristers are putting their names to the hilariously pompous letter, which includes such cringeworthy pearls of £500-an-hour wisdom as:

Our legal opinion is that the referendum is advisory. The European Referendum Act does not make it legally binding.

Our opinion is that in order to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, there must first be primary legislation.

It is of the utmost importance that the legislative process is informed by an objective understanding as to the benefits, costs and risks of triggering Article 50. The reasons for this include the following:

There is evidence that the result of the referendum result was influenced by misrepresentations of fact and promises that could not be delivered. Since the result was only narrowly in favour of Brexit, it cannot be discounted that the misrepresentations and promises were a decisive or contributory factor in the result.

The outcome of the exit process will affect a generation of people who were not old enough to vote in the importance, e.g. 60% of those voting or 40% of the electorate. 

Essentially writing to David Cameron (PPE, Oxon) to tell him what every GCSE politics student knows: “parliament is sovereign”. Hopefully they were not doing so on billable time…

Chuka Umunna has set up Vote Leave Watch, a “grassroots campaign dedicated to holding the Vote Leave campaign and their allies to account”. The aim of the group is to pressure Leave campaigners into carrying out the pledges made during the campaign.

Of course, the main promise of the Leave campaigns was to get Britain out of the EU – something Chuka appeared to play down. So will Vote Leave Watch be pushing hard for Brexit too? Because if Theresa May is PM we may not get to leave the EU anytime soon…

It’s not just Mishcon who want to block Brexit through the courts – now city silks are writing to the PM to demand Article 50 is not triggered. The pompous letter complains the “referendum did not set a threshold necessary to leave the EU”, whinges “the result of the referendum result was influenced by misrepresentations of fact” and moans “the outcome of the exit process will affect a generation of people who were not old enough to vote”. It tells Cameron to launch a Royal Commission and free vote in parliament. Who is behind this drivel?

Philip Kolvin QC, a silk who judging by his Chambers profile seems to do a lot of EU-law related work. His expertise is in licencing rather than constitutional law – specifically acting for “leading lap dance operators in London and the provinces” as well as “the sex shop industry in Soho”. Kolvin appears to have spammed his round-robin letter out across the whole Bar. Something tells Guido he won’t have a happy ending.

City law firm Mishcon de Reya are launching a legal challenge to Brexit with the backing of a number of businesses who for some reason haven’t been named publicly. Guido can reveal one of the CEOs behind the action is CEO of the property website Zoopla. In an email to other businesses, CEO Alex Chesterman claimed:

“If the correct constitutional process is not followed then the notice to withdraw from the EU would be unlawful and open to legal challenge…

With this in mind, Mishcon de Reya, on behalf of a number of clients have commenced a legal process to ensure the UK Government will not trigger the procedure for withdrawal from the EU without parliamentary approval and have, subsequent to his article, retained Lord Pannick QC to act as counsel in this action. These steps seek to ensure that any Article 50 notification process is lawful.

I strongly encourage you to support this important issue. We want to ensure that this once-in-a-generation issue is handled properly under UK law with the correct constitutional process applied to an irreversible decision of this magnitude.

Please can I ask you to action as follows below:
 
1. Email Mishcon to lend your support/name to this process
2. Please use the hashtag: #mpstodecide and share/tweet the link to the Mishcon press release
3. Use this email as a basis to send your own version to your network to encourage wider support

If the referendum had been decided by FPTP, Leave would have won 440 seats to Remain’s 220. Good luck…