BrexitNov 16 2016

Gina Miller: ‘It is about doing what is right; it is much bigger than Brexit’

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Gina Miller: ‘It is about doing what is right; it is much bigger than Brexit’

Ms Miller said that similar to the True and Fair Campaign, she fought for MPs’ votes on Article 50 because she believed it to be the right thing to do.

She said: “The more I heard [about] the government using the royal prerogative [to trigger Article 50] – I knew what that meant. If it happened with Brexit, we would be setting a precedent, with a handful of ministers deciding people rights, and to me that’s such a fundamental breach of sovereignty.

I could not understand why nobody was worrying about it

“I could not understand why nobody was worrying about it. [It is a basic point about the British constitution that] any first-year law student would know about. It’s like the emperor’s new clothes. 

“I thought there would be lots of people lining up behind me and it didn’t happen.”

She added: “Everything to do with Brexit is so emotionally charged that nobody was prepared to put their head above the parapet. It’s about doing what’s right; it’s much bigger than Brexit, it’s the fundamental undermining of parliamentary sovereignty, which is the most dangerous thing to do.”

As is well documented, Ms Miller, who is co-founder of investment manager SCM Private, was the lead claimant in a campaign to take a lawsuit to the High Court, arguing that the government’s intention to trigger Article 50, presaging the start of the divorce process, was a breach of the rights of the British public without a parliamentary vote.

The government contested it, saying that Article 50 can be triggered by the prime minister, citing the use of royal prerogative. On 3 November, the three judges hearing the case ruled in Ms Miller’s favour, but such was the sensitivity of the case that the judges went against convention and only informed Ms Miller of their decision in open court, rather than giving her warning beforehand.

She said: “We couldn’t believe what we had heard – all the judges agreed together. We had always hoped we could win, and the courts were independent and ruled purely on law.”

So is she against Brexit? “This is a redundant question,” she said. “Brexit needs to be executed along the letter of the law and along the lines of Parliamentary sovereignty.  It is my view that Article 50 should not be triggered until there is a coherent, pragmatic plan in place, one that Parliament can debate, vote upon – then enact primary legislation.”

The fact that Ms Miller upset prevailing orthodoxy is unlikely to be news to the industry’s fund managers. She has run the True and Fair Campaign herself for four  years, after launching it with husband Alan Miller.

It is a campaign for increased transparency and scrutiny of the costs involved in the fund management industry to make investment funds fairer for investors. So what was the industry’s response? 

Predictably negative, she said. 

“They’re making big profit margins, why would they want to attract transparency? But it’s about treating customers fairly and being the best industry that they can so people can get the best return. There was a push back when we did our report on closet indexing.”

She said fund managers were selling active funds that closely followed the index and they “pushed back because of the transparency. In its former guise, the FSA wrote a report 16 years ago saying 50 per cent of costs are hidden.” She added that this is evidence of a lack of inclination on the investment industry’s part as nothing seems to have changed.

In fact, she achieved some success with the campaign, she said. Ms Miller and her team contributed to the Article in Mifid II on total cost transparency, which will come into effect before we leave the EU. 

But her decision to take a stand was not easy. She said: “We’ve almost had to do the regulator’s job. What’s really disappointing is I’m having to use my own money and keeping everything going. We haven’t put everything aside; we’re doing this as well as keeping our usual workload.”

And there are the death threats following the Brexit ruling – to her, her family, and her staff – that make Ms Miller fearful of the direction the country is heading.

She said there were “a few minor things” said about her in the investment sector about being a woman of colour, but she added: “I’m shocked about the society we live in, the level of death threats to my family, my staff and my assistants. They are being bombarded with emails and calls. I’m worried that Britain has moved to a dark place.”

The Supreme Court will rule on the government’s appeal in early December, with the potential to overturn the High Court decision. She said: “It is my opinion that they will not [overturn the decision] for a number of reasons – including the weakness of the legal argument.”

This time she has some big guns on her side, notably the Scottish and Welsh governments. This is only the start of the fight.

Melanie Tringham is features editor of Financial Adviser