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:
Tory MP and staunch Brexiteer Mark Francois has been making waves this lunchtime, arguing that: “If we don’t leave on the 31st of October, this country will explode.”
Yikes. He also had quite the quarrel with Tory defector Sam Gyimah, who joined the Lib Dems at the weekend.
In the Supreme Court, Lord Keen, speaking on behalf of the government, is arguing from the start that this is not a matter for the courts.
He is asked what will happen if the court rules that the decision to prorogue Parliament was unlawful.
Asked to confirm that Boris Johnson would then recall parliament, he says only that the prime minister will "respond by all necessary means to any declaration that the original prorogation was affected by any unlawful advice that he may have given". It is, of course, not at all clear what that response would be.
Asked if the prime minister could simply prorogue parliament again, he says simply:
"I'm not in a position to comment on that."
Wow.
Lord Keen says there is a precedent for using the prime minister's prerogative powers for political reasons.
He says that, in September 1914, Parliament was prorogued until late October at the start of the First World War.
In 1930, he says, Parliament was again prorogued, this time for 87 days, by the new government of Ramsay Macdonald for reasons that were "clearly not for the purpose of delivering a King's Speech".
A similar event took place in 1948, Lord Keen continues, where the government wanted to avoid scrutiny in the House of Lords.
These are cases where, he suggests, Parliament was suspended because the government wanted to "avoid unnecessary scrutiny in circumstances where they did not, on the face of it, command the confidence of the House".
Jo Swinson has begun her keynote speech at the Lib Dem conference in Bournemouth.
To huge cheers from the hall, she says she is a “candidate for prime minister”.
Jo Swinson addresses Lib Dem conference (PA)
Jo Swinson tells Lib Dem delegates: “I’m standing here as your candidate for prime minister.”
The Liberal Democrat leader has pointedly asked her party to welcome newcomers, saying the party cannot be satisfied with a place in the fringes of British politics, "narrow and pure...small and irrelevant".
"We must be welcoming and inclusive, recognising the journey our fellow travellers are on," Ms Swinson said.
Many Lib Dems are furious over the defection of Philip Lee to the party. The former Tory MP has been criticised over his record on LGBT rights.
Meanwhile the EU has said there are no Brexit talks planned in the coming days, despite Downing Street insisting that daily meetings will soon begin.
"We are still waiting for concrete proposals from the UK side," a European Commission spokesperson said, adding that the EU remained available 24/7.
"We are available to meet anytime, any day, every day, if the UK wants to meet us."
In her closing remarks to the Liberal Democrat conference Jo Swinson attacked the prime minister for making sexist remarks.
"Boris Johnson's insults of choice are rather revealing - big girl's blouse, girly swot," she said.
"But let me tell you conference, if he thinks being a woman is somehow a weakness, he's about to find out: it is not."
Mr Johnson appeared to call Jeremy Corbyn a "big girl's blouse" during an exchange in the Commons. Shortly afterwards it emerged that he had referred to David Cameron as a "girly swot" in a memo.
The Irish government has joined the European Commission in noting that the UK has not submitted any written solutions for the Brexit crisis.
"We in the EU ... are open to a deal but it must achieve the aims of the backstop through a legally operable solution," Simon Coveney, Ireland's foreign minister, said.
"We await written proposals from the UK side. We simply haven't seen any written proposals to date."
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