What Cabinet members previously said about prorogation
Sajid Javid - Chancellor During a Channel 4 Tory leadership debate: “You don’t deliver on democracy by trashing democracy. We are not selecting a dictator of our country, we are selecting a prime minister of our country.”
Matt Hancock – Health Secretary
Said during the Tory leadership campaign that proroguing Parliament “would mean the end of the Conservative Party as a serious party of government”. At his campaign launch, he added: “That goes against everything that those men who waded on to those beaches fought and died for and I will not have it”
Michael Gove - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Told the BBC’S Andrew Marr show: “I think it will be wrong for many reasons. I think it would not be true to the best traditions of British democracy.”
Amber Rudd – Work and Pensions Secretary
On Sky’s Ridge on Sunday, she said: “The idea of leaving the EU to take back more control into Parliament and to consider the idea of closing Parliament to do that is the most extraordinary idea I’ve ever heard. It is a ridiculous suggestion to consider proroguing Parliament.”
Nicky Morgan – Culture Secretary
On Question Time, she said: “You cannot say you are going to take back control... and then go: ‘Oh, by the way, we are just going to shut Parliament down for a couple of months, so we are just going to drift out on a no deal’.” She also warned proroguing Parliament “would lead to a constitutional crisis,” and backed a threat from former prime minister John Major to challenge a suspension in the courts. “I’m very pleased that we have a past prime minister like Sir John who is still willing to stick his head above the parapet and say ‘I would not put up with this,” she told ITV news.
Andrea Leadsom - Business Secretary
Asked on the Today programme if she would support proroguing Parliament: “No I don’t believe I would and I don’t believe it would happen... it’s certainly not something I would seek to do. I’m passionate about Parliament democracy.”
Boris Johnson – Prime Minister
During the leadership campaign, he wrote a letter to the One Nation group of Tory MPS saying: “I would also like to make absolutely clear that I am not attracted to arcane procedures such as the prorogation of Parliament. As someone who aspires to be prime minister of a democratic nation, I believe in finding consensus in the House of Commons.”