Judges should never have been allowed to rule on how Brexit should be triggered because it is a matter for politicians and not the courts, one of the Supreme Court Justices said.

Lord Carnwath, one of three Justices who sided with Theresa May, said the courts had taken “too narrow a view” of the issues at stake and should have left it to Parliament to settle its own affairs.

Together with fellow dissenters Lord Reed and Lord Hughes, he said the Prime Minister was within her rights to use the power of royal prerogative to trigger Article 50, but the three men were overruled by the eight other Justices, who all concluded that the law required a Parliamentary vote on the matter.