Brexit weekly briefing: hard exit prospects take hit after article 50 ruling

Decision that Tories cannot trigger Brexit alone had widespread impact. As sterling soared, the rightwing press was abhorred

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I worry that a betrayal may be near at hand " I now fear that every attempt will be made to block or delay the triggering of article 50. If this is so, they have no idea of the level of public anger they will provoke.

I believe in and value the independence of our judiciary. I also value the freedom of our press. These both underpin our democracy.

There's a balance between consulting parliament, and not undermining the government's negotiating position ... If parliament insists on setting out a detailed minimum negotiating position, that will quickly become the maximum possible offer from the negotiating partners ... In other words, the whole approach is designed to wreck the negotiation.

I hope this doesn't cause even more vagueness and more of a delay, because that's bad for the UK as well as for the EU ... One of the biggest risks of this process is that it will lead to a very long period of uncertainty.

Related: A 2017 general election? Here's why the Tories may not storm to victory | John Curtice

Until now, May has combined secretiveness with hinting that a tough negotiation stance on migration would make single market access difficult. That approach will not withstand the impact of the need to consult parliament. She must face the likelihood that both the Commons and the Lords will focus on securing single market access in ways that could split the cabinet and provoke resignations. The courts have left May little alternative but to change course on the most important issue of her premiership.

There are times when MPs need to rise above their party interests, their own interests and the views of their constituents. That may risk being voted out, but they may earn more respect by standing up for the national interest as best they can determine: that's what representative democracy is for. Brexit is the greatest threat to national wellbeing since the war, and this will test the mettle not just of individual MPs, but of the nature and purpose of a representative democratic system.

In March EU leaders will commemorate the 60th anniversary of the bloc's founding treaty of Rome. The 27 will pay tribute to the ideal of integration that has given Europe its longest era of peace and prosperity in history. They will affirm that the EU does not imprison or weaken nations but multiplies their strengths when they act together. Above all, they will pledge to save their marriage because they regard the alternative as unbearably worse.

No technicality will be found to stop Brexit, nobody will snap their fingers and wake us up. It's not enough to point to looming catastrophes and say what we don't want; it's not enough to concentrate on what we might lose. We need to consider what could be better, in a Brexited Britain. That is dauntingly open-ended until we establish whose and which interests we want to press.

I've written a basic law lesson for those criticising judges about the #brexit judgment. Judges are not #enemiesofthepeople pic.twitter.com/WMfZEkmzUq