The Government will need parliamentary approval to give Northern Ireland £1 billion in funding following a legal challenge from anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller.
Following the challenge on the release of funds, Treasury solicitor Jonathan Jones said the money will require “appropriate parliamentary authorisation”, reports The Guardian.
Mr. Jones, who heads the Government Legal Department, was responding to a letter from Ms. Miller and the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), writing that “long-established procedures” who be used “under which central government requests the grant of money by the House of Commons”.
The funds were negotiated between the Government and the Democratic Unionist Party in June as part of the Ulster party’s confidence and supply deal with the Conservatives. The deal would see their 10 MPs offer support to the Tories’ minority government in votes for key pieces of legislation in Parliament.
No timetable has been put in place for disbursement which is anticipated to take place over the course of the next two years.
Ms. Miller won a Supreme Court case against the Government earlier this year, challenging its right to trigger Article 50 and forcing it to hold a parliamentary vote before beginning the formal Brexit process.
The millionaire said: “It’s going to be very difficult to get the deal through Parliament because they don’t have a significant majority and many people are not happy about this payment.
“If they start to lose bills, and lose votes the toppling of this government seems to be a possible outcome.”
Despite telling Breitbart News Daily in March that she has never tried to stop Brexit, Ms. Miller launched a tactical voting campaign ahead of the general election and planned to tour marginal constituencies in an effort to keep out pro-Brexit MPs.
Opposing what she termed an “extreme Brexit”, the Europhile activist decried Prime Minister Theresa May as “inflexible, harsh and closed-minded” for promising to deliver Brexit, before alleging that an “emotional spasm” caused Brits to vote to leave the European Union.
MPs are due to vote late Monday or midnight on Tuesday on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill. The bill aims to convert around 12,000 EU laws and regulations into domestic statute on the day the country leaves the bloc in March 2019.
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