Jolyon Maugham


Jolyon Toby Dennis Maugham is a British barrister, as of 2019 practising in tax law at Devereux Chambers. He is the founder and director of the Good Law Project, through which he has played a key role in bringing to court a number of legal challenges to the Brexit process, which he opposes. He has written extensively on Brexit and legal issues for publications such as The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and the New Statesman.

Life

Early life

He is the son of David Benedictus, although they did not meet until Maugham was seventeen. He was brought up in New Zealand by his mother, Lynne Joyce Maugham, and his adoptive father, Alan Barker.

Education

He went to Wellington High School, New Zealand. He graduated with a first-class LLB in European Legal Studies from Durham University in 1995. He also spent some time studying in Belgium at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, and later completed an MA at Birkbeck, University of London. As a student he was sent by a temping agency to carry out secretarial work at a law firm, but was sent back for being a man. Maugham sued, claiming to be a victim of sexism, and was awarded damages.

Career

Maugham completed his pupillage in the chambers of Lord Irvine. He became a QC in 2015.

Involvement in politics

Legal challenges to Brexit

Maugham's cases include defending the rights of British expatriates in Europe, a case to clarify whether the Brexit process can be reversed by Parliament, and a legal challenge to referendum spending by Vote Leave.

Affiliations to political parties

Maugham had advised the Labour Party on tax policy under Ed Miliband. He is last known for being on the advisory council of liberal conservative think tank Bright Blue, which advises the Conservative Party.
In April 2017, Maugham reportedly contemplated forming a new centrist political party, "Spring", and standing for election against Prime Minister Theresa May in her constituency of Maidenhead, but decided against it.

Controversies

Doxing of home address

In late 2019 Maugham accused the talkRADIO presenter Julia Hartley-Brewer of revealing his home address at a time when he was receiving death threats. He also criticised the television programme Question Time for allowing Hartley-Brewer to appear as a panellist. Hartley-Brewer defended herself by saying Maugham's address was already easily available online and that he had previously revealed it himself in published interviews.

Killing of a fox

On the morning of 26 December 2019, Maugham stated in a Twitter post that he had killed a fox by means of a baseball bat. Maugham claimed that the fox was entrapped by the netting surrounding a hen house in his garden. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals investigated the matter, but decided not to prosecute because a post-mortem showed the fox had been killed swiftly, meaning that "the evidential threshold needed to take a prosecution under the CPS code was not met".