The UK Supreme Court has ruled that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s prorogation of Parliament for five weeks was unlawful and is therefore not in effect.
The outcome means that Parliament will reconvene on Wednesday at 11:30am, although there will be no Prime Minister’s Questions at Noon. Instead, Speaker Bercow confirmed that there would be time for urgent statements and urgent questions.
It is expected that, at the time of writing, that there will be a government motion to adjourn for the remainder of the conference season – it will be interesting to see if that gets through, but I very much doubt it will.
Labour are curtailing their party conference in Brighton in order to hightail it back to Westminster.
My view? Based on the verdict of the Supreme Court, and considering that much was made of the submission by former Prime Minister John Major, there should now be a retrospective look at previous prorogation’s. More specifically, the lawfulness of previous prorogation. The reason I say this is because Mr Major himself prorogued Parliament in dubious circumstances back in 1997.
In any case, much is being played on how much the Supreme Court ruling will affect Brexit. Frankly, and as the Justices outlined themselves, the case has no influence on Brexit, and the outcome will not have any influence on Brexit.
One thing that is being overlooked here, is the Attorney General’s advice to the cabinet on the legality of prorogation. That surely must be a critical factor in reviewing the what’s and why’s of this affair?
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