Boris Johnson news: Government lawyer refuses to say whether PM could suspend parliament again, as Supreme Court hears he 'committed worst abuse of power in decades'
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The legal battle over Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend parliament for five weeks is being heard at the Supreme Court, with Gina Miller’s legal representative arguing the prime minister “abused his power”.
Mr Johnson has pledged to “obey the law” but said he wanted to “wait and see what the judges say” before his government decides whether to recall parliament.
It comes as Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson claimed she is a “candidate for prime minister”, while Tory MPs condemned Luxembourg’s prime minister Xavier Bettel for conducting a press conference next to an empty lectern.
To follow events as they unfolded, see our live coverage below:
Lord Pannick is now pointing to Boris Johnson’s failure to provide a witness statement in any of the cases relating to the prime minister’s decision to prorogue parliament, our correspondent Ben Kentish reports from the court.
Lord Pannick says: “It’s a remarkable feature of these proceedings that the prime minister has not made a witness statement explaining why he advised Her Majesty to prorogue parliament for as long as five weeks.”
He suggests that this is because Johnson’s “advice to Her Majesty was motivated or at least strongly influenced by the prime minister’s desire to prevent the risk, as he saw it, of parliament damaging government policy.”
He says the consequence of Johnson providing a witness statement could have forced the prime minister to attend court because the outcome “would have been almost inevitably an application to cross-examine”.
It would also, he says, have been a contempt of court of such a witness statement not to tell the truth.
Liz Truss is not afraid of a photo shoot. The international trade secretary is in Australia and posing with a bike and an umbrella.
Lord Pannick is focusing on Boris Johnson’s motives for proroguing parliament, our correspondent Ben Kentish reports from the Supreme Court.
The QC says that there is no need for such a long suspension prior to a Queen’s Speech, which suggests other motives were at play.
Lord Pannick claims that, if this were the real reason, Johnson “would not have recommended to Her Majesty a prorogation for a period as long as five weeks. He would have recommended a substantially shorter period to allow for a Queen’s Speech, as has occurred on every occasion in the last 40 years”.
The peer suggests the real reason was that Johnson wanted to “silence” parliament.
Lord Pannick says: “The exceptional length in this case is strong evidence that the prime minister’s motive was to silence parliament for that period because he sees parliament as an obstacle to the furtherance of his political aims.”
He adds: “No prime minister has abused his power in the manner in which we allege in at least the last 50 years.”
The court is now debating whether it matters what Boris Johnson’s motives for suspending parliament were - or whether the real issue is the consequences of the decisions, our correspondent Ben Kentish reports from court.
Lord Pannick says prorogation “prevents parliament from performing its scrutinising function” and that it is “self-evident” that MPs and peers may have wished to have this power, as well as the option of passing new laws, given the looming Brexit deadline.
He says prorogation is more problematic in terms of scrutiny than a normally parliamentary recess because bills currently before parliament are dropped, committees do not sit and the government stops answering questions from MPs and peers.
Elsewhere this morning, Michael Gove has been asked to explain to MPs differences between Operation Yellowhammer documents.
Labour MP Hilary Benn, the chair of the Commons Select Committee on Exiting the EU, said the papers the committee received were called “Reasonable Worst Case Scenario", whereas a version obtained by The Sunday Times was called “Base Scenario”.
He urged Gove to share further documents about no-deal preparations with parliament.
Here’s the moment Lord Pannick, representing Gina Miller, said: “No prime minister has abused his powers in the manner in which we allege in at least the last 50 years.”
Lord Pannick says parliamentary sovereignty cannot only apply when the executive ignores the will of parliament, reports our correspondent Ben Kentish reports from the court.
Rather, says the QC, it “must also apply to cases where the executive takes the decision with the purpose or effect of removing the ability of parliament to legislate”.
He says it could even amount to a “greater breach of parliamentary sovereignty to prevent parliament from legislating than it is for the executive to defy a particular law”.
Lord Pannick only now gets to the question of whether the prorogation of parliament is justiciable (a matter for the courts), reports our correspondent Ben Kentish from the court.
The QC says it is “well-established that the executive is answerable to parliament for matters of politics and answerable to the courts for matters of law”.
Boris Johnson discussed efforts to “accelerate” Brexit negotiations with German Chancellor Angela Merkel this morning, Downing Street has confirmed.
The leaders agreed to meet at the UN General Assembly next week for further talks.
The PM’s official spokesman told a Westminster lobby briefing: “The PM reiterated that the UK and the EU have agreed to accelerate efforts to reach a deal without the backstop, which the UK parliament could support and that we would work with energy and determination to achieve this ahead of Brexit on 31 October.
“The leaders look forward to meeting to discuss these issues further at the upcoming UN General Assembly in New York.”
The Lib Dem conference continues today, with Jo Swinson having to compete with the historic court case for attention.
Unfortunately for the party, most of the social media attention at the moment is on a video captured by the FT’s George Parker of delegates singing very rude things about Tony Blair.
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