The latest strange coincidence of a court judgment going the way that pleases Remainers
Sir – So it is unlawful for the Prime Minister to advise the Queen to prorogue Parliament prior to a Queen’s speech because Scottish judges say it was for too long and they don’t like what they believe to be the true motives.
One judge said that the Government and the Prime Minister wish to restrict Parliament. Isn’t that what prime ministers and governments always do, using all manner of tools, with the backing of precedent?
Meanwhile, against precedent, Parliament seeks to restrict the Government by writing a letter for it in a matter of foreign affairs, which the Speaker enables by ignoring precedent, while at the same time Parliament blocks the route of taking the matter back to the ultimate source of sovereignty – the electorate.
The Supreme Court has already set its own precedent in relation to the “meaningful vote”, telling Parliament what its procedures should be.
Presumably it is just a coincidence that constitutional precedents that suit Remainers are lawful, whereas actions are ruled unlawful if they might get in their way. Alec Findlater
Reigate, Surrey
Sir – John Longworth (Comment, telegraph.co.uk, September 11) suggests that constitutional democracy can gain only when the Tory party is represented to the electorate as the underdog.
Boris Johnson should present himself as tribune of the people. After all, more than 20 years in prison did no harm to Nelson Mandela. Paul Trewhela
Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire
Sir – Now that the prorogation of Parliament has been ruled unlawful by Scottish judges, is the absence from Parliament of MPS away at their party conferences also unlawful, under Scottish law, at least? Christopher Sharp
Kenilworth, Warwickshire Sir – The general election that must shortly be held will be fascinating – a choice between the Conservatives standing to uphold the result of the democratic referendum, the Liberal “democrats” wishing to overturn the result of that referendum, and Labour.
It seems to me that Labour intends to stand for Leave in the North and Remain in the South East. Geoffrey Wyartt
Newent, Gloucestershire
Sir – At the TUC Congress, Jeremy Corbyn promised to “unleash the biggest people-powered campaign ever seen”. He’s missed the boat. The 2016 referendum was just that, and he ignores it at his peril. Simon Roxborough
St Helens, Lancashire
Sir – At the risk of seeming pedantic, or as we historians say, accurate, I wish to make some small corrections to the amusing but misleading letter of Dr Huw Alban Davies (September 10).
Bishop Walter de Stapledon, the founder of Exeter College, was nothing to do with King John, or with the loss of the king of England’s French dominions, but was the Lord Treasurer of Edward II.
He did meet a sticky end at the hands of the London mob, but in 1326, 110 years after the death of King John. And soon after the bishop’s demise, his master was deposed by his wife and her lover, and subsequently murdered. I assume Boris Johnson would prefer to avoid that fate. Graham A Loud
Professor of Medieval History University of Leeds
Sir – As a classicist, Boris Johnson should take heart from Deiphobus’ words to Aeneas in Virgil’s Aeneid (Book 6, line 546): “I decus, i, nostrum, melioribus utere fatis!” (“Go onward, glory of the Trojan race, and enjoy better luck than I had!”)
Aeneas didn’t give up, and the foundation of Rome was the result. Tim Hudson
Chichester, West Sussex