COULD BORIS STOP COMMONS AGAIN?
He’ll try once more if judges rule against him ‘Abuse of power is worst in 50 years’
BORIS Johnson yesterday warned Britain’s most senior judges not to intervene in his decision to suspend Parliament, as Government lawyers admitted he could do it again.
The Prime Minister has given an undertaking to comply with any ruling by the Supreme Court to recall MPs.
But Lord Keen QC, a justice minister who is representing Mr Johnson at the Supreme Court, refused to rule out a second prorogation of Parliament if the court decides the first was unlawful. It came as lawyers for anti-Brexit activists described Mr Johnson’s decision to prorogue as the greatest abuse of power by a Prime Minister in five decades.
Earlier, Justice Secretary Robert Buckland also declined to eliminate the possibility of a second suspension – an idea raised by the Prime Minister’s chief adviser Dominic Cummings last week.
Remain campaigners accused Mr Johnson of using ‘weasel words’ as it was revealed he told Supreme Court judges they had no jurisdiction over the prorogation and risked ‘entering the political arena’ if they blocked it.
Mr Johnson’s decision to advise the Queen to prorogue Parliament for five weeks was yesterday challenged in the highest court in the country. The legal showdown will decide two separate cases, brought in England and in Scotland, against the suspension, which saw senior judges make opposing rulings.
Scotland’s highest court ruled that the Prime Minister effectively misled the Queen and that the suspension was unlawful, while the High Court in London ruled it was ‘purely political’ and not a matter for the courts. In a written submission to the Supreme Court, lawyers for Mr Johnson and Lord Keen said it would be inappropriate for Britain’s top judges to intervene.
Lord Keen, the Advocate General for Scotland, told the court the Government was entitled to prorogue Parliament, and said suspensions had previously been used for political reasons. He said Mr Johnson
‘Bizarre dystopian universe’ ‘Extraordinary circumstance’
would comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling even if it concluded the suspension was unlawful. But he warned that such a decision would be ‘constitutionally inappropriate’ and would ‘drag the courts into areas of the most acute political controversy’.
Mr Johnson has insisted he has the ‘greatest respect for the judiciary’ and said the independence of the courts was ‘one of the glories of the UK’. But Labour’s shadow attorney general, Shami Chakrabarti, said his assurances were ‘weasel words’ from a Prime Minister desperate to avoid scrutiny. She accused Mr Johnson of operating in a ‘bizarre dystopian universe’ in which ministers felt they were above the law.
Former attorney general Dominic Grieve, one of 21 rebel Tories who backed a law to stop No Deal, said: ‘The Prime Minister should stop trying to find ways of slipping around the law and just obey it.’
Remain campaigner Gina Miller – backed by Sir John Major – took the case to the Supreme Court after she lost a High Court challenge. Her lawyer Lord Pannick QC yesterday said the suspension was the biggest abuse of power by a Prime Minister for 50 years.
He told the court that Mr Johnson had advised the Queen to prorogue Parliament because he feared MPs would ‘frustrate or damage’ his Brexit plans.
That was an ‘improper purpose’, Lord Pannick said, adding: ‘The Prime Minister’s motive was to silence Parliament for that period because he sees Parliament as an obstacle for the furtherance of his aims.’ Both QCs faced pointed questions from the 11 Supreme Court justices who heard the case.
Lord Reed, the Supreme Court’s deputy president, asked if Parliament could have blocked the prorogation by passing a motion of no confidence in the Government.
Lord Pannick replied saying the court had to decide if Mr Johnson’s advice to the Queen was legal, and said it was for the court to hold him to account. Lord Keen, for the Government, said Parliament could have chosen to block the prorogation, but failed to do so. He said MPs had ‘adequate mechanisms’ and opportunities to pass new laws to prevent suspension.
Earlier, the president of the Supreme Court, Lady Hale, said the outcome of the case would have no effect on Britain leaving the EU. She told the packed courtroom: ‘The determination of this legal issue will not determine when and how the United Kingdom leaves the EU.’
Protesters outside included a man wearing an Incredible Hulk costume with a Johnson-esque floppy blond wig – a reference to the Prime Minister’s remarks that the UK would break out of the EU’s ‘manacles’ like the cartoon Hulk.
Millions watched the case live on the Supreme Court website. The livestream page usually gets around 20,000 views a month, but hit 4.4million yesterday morning.
A Government insider said last night: ‘We are not going to prorogue again unless there is some extraordinary circumstance.’
WITH the current hearing in the Supreme Court, Brexit tragedy is turning into Brexit farce. This pointless legal theatre is shredding what remains of this country’s reputation for the sober and mature conduct of public affairs.
No fewer than 11 of our most distinguished judges are wasting time trying to work out whether or not the PM misled the Queen over the prorogation of Parliament to curtail debate on our exit from the EU. Except that neither Her Majesty nor Boris Johnson are there to enlighten them.
First, the Supreme Court is trying to find out what motivated Mr Johnson. It can’t.
Second, it is trying to decide if he had the right to suspend Parliament for five weeks rather than three. He did.
Third, it is examining its own right to rule on subjective matters of high politics. It doesn’t have one. Sorted.
This hearing is nothing more than a gigantic diversion from the colossal task of delivering Brexit and healing the nation.