A legal bid by politicians to bring a case to the European Court of Justice on whether the UK can unilaterally withdraw its Article 50 notification will be heard by the Inner House of the Court of Session next Wednesday.

Article 50 was triggered last year, committing the UK to leave the EU in March next year.

Green MSPs Andy Wightman and Ross Greer, along with SNP MEP Alyn Smith and MP Joanna Cherry, and Labour MEPs David Martin and Catherine Stihler, averred that as “a matter of law” the UK could “unilaterally withdraw” the Article 50(2) notification before 29 March 2019.

Last week, Lord Doherty in the Outer House, rejected the application for judicial review, saying that “neither Parliament nor the government has any wish to withdraw the notification” and that the question of unilateral withdrawal was “hypothetical and academic”.

He added: “In those circumstances it is not a matter which this court, or the Court of Justice of the European Union, require to adjudicate upon”.

At the Court of Session yesterday a new hearing was fixed for next week, when three judges will hear the appeal.

Lord Drummond Young said: “It is important to bear in mind what we are concerned with is not the substance of the application but with permission to proceed.”