Why is the High Court ruling on political consultations?

No one came out very well from the government’s High Court defeat yesterday morning over planned changes to long-term sickness benefit. A botched, hasty, penny-pinching wheeze, promoted by the Tories but ultimately backed by Labour, came unstuck. But there is a rather more profound difficulty with this episode. Even after reading the news, most people will still be very much in the dark about what was decided, why it matters, or what happens now. Judgments that leave us with this degree of uncertainty are perhaps an indication that something is straying into the legal field that shouldn’t be there.

To clarify matters, in the summer of 2023 the government wanted to find ways to reduce the numbers of those seen, for social security purposes, as unable to work or do work-related activities (and hence entitled to long term benefits).