A FORMER Swindon parliamentary candidate has lost her latest court fight challenging Brexit after a judge threw out her case.

Liz Webster, the Liberal Democrat candidate for North Swindon in 2017, had applied for a judicial review into the way Article 50 was triggered, launching the process by which the UK will leave the European Union.

The campaign group led by Ms Webster say Article 50 is invalid because the Brexit referendum result was not ratified by an act of parliament.

But the High Court in London blocked attempts for the case to get a full hearing, saying the case should have been brought sooner.

Lord Justice Gross said the case was an example of a claim which needed to be made promptly.

“It is difficult to conceive of a challenge more detrimental to the conduct of a major issue of national and international importance, whatever political view is taken of the merits or demerits of Brexit,” he said.

Ms Webster, who campaigned for the UK to remain part of the EU, told the Swindon Advertiser she was speaking to her lawyers about whether to appeal the High Court ruling. Campaigners have seven days to lodge an appeal.

She said the High Court judges appeared to go against a ruling by the Supreme Court in 2017 on campaigner Gina Miller’s challenge to Article 50.

In that case, the court effectively found that an act of parliament was needed to invoke it. The referendum result was not binding on parliament only advisory, the court ruled.

The latest ruling had “left us perplexed”, Ms Webster said, adding: “In Miller it says parliament has to decide because of the loss of rights set out in UK laws.”

There were positives to the case, despite the result. “It’s keeping the debate alive,” said Ms Webster, a small business owner.

“It’s making people look at it and think about it.”

Her comments came as MPs debated the EU Withdrawal Bill, the law that will see existing EU laws transferred into UK law to make sure current rules that regulate businesses and the environment don’t disappear immediately after Brexit.

The House of Lords had tabled an amendment to the bill that would have seen parliament given powers to direct ministers’ plans in the event of no deal being reached with the EU.

Ministers managed to persuade pro-EU MPs in the own party not to back the amendment, but only after last minute talks.

Robert Buckland, solicitor general and MP for South Swindon, found himself in the media spotlight, after appearing to offer a compromise to pro-EU Tory rebels including former attorney general Dominic Grieve.

Mr Grieve had tabled a watered-down version of the peers’ amendment.

Mr Buckland told the BBC: “I am much more persuaded by an approach that allows ministers to bring resolutions to parliament to debate them on the floor of the house.”