PM is acting like a dodgy estate agent says Major

SIR John Major marched into the Supreme Court Brexit battle yesterday and effectively branded Boris Johnson a liar.

In an unprecedented PM-on-PM fight, the former Tory premier told judges that Mr Johnson was acting unlawfully and not ‘truthfully’.

Taking the side of Remainers challenging the Government’s suspension of Parliament, he compared the occupant of No 10 to a dodgy estate agent.

Via his lawyer, Sir John, 76 – who led Britain for seven years to 1997 – told the most senior judges in the country that Mr Johnson harboured ‘ulterior motives’ and was not being honest.

It came on the final day of the Supreme Court showdown between Mr Johnson and anti-Brexiteers over the prorogation of Parliament.

The 11 judges are being urged to stand up to Downing Street and rule that Mr Johnson acted unlawfully when he advised the Queen to prorogue Parliament for five weeks. Sir John’s highstakes intervention saw him immediately branded a hypocrite by critics who pointed out that he had prorogued Parliament himself in 1997.

The former Tory PM suspended the Commons 22 years ago to delay publication of a report into the cash-for-questions scandal that rocked his party.

Yesterday, Tory MP Iain Duncan Smith said: ‘The words “pot” and “kettle” do come to mind rather significantly here.’

The Government began the three-day Supreme Court case confident of success – but that has ebbed away and, as the hearings ended yesterday, experts were predicting victory for its opponents.

Sir John yesterday poured scorn on Mr Johnson, comparing him to an estate agent who was found to be in ‘breach of fiduciary duty’ for claiming the buyer of a home wanted to live in it, when in fact they wanted to sell it on for profit. Mr Johnson’s claim – that the prorogation was to give time for the Government to prepare a Queen’s Speech outlining a new legislative programme – ‘makes no sense and cannot be the true explanation’, said Sir John’s QC Lord Garnier in a written submission.

Sir John suggested the real reason Mr Johnson had advised the Queen to suspend Parliament was to stop MPs wrecking his Brexit plans, adding: ‘ Its effect is to deprive Parliament of a voice.’

Lord Keen QC, for the Prime Minister, advised the judges to keep off the ‘ill- defined minefield’ of prorogation which was purely a political matter between the Government and Parliament and was ‘forbidden territory’ for the courts.

The judges said they hope to publish their ruling ‘early next week’.

‘This cannot be the true explanation’