Justice secretary Robert Buckland evades questions over prorogue plans
Justice secretary Robert Buckland has refused to say whether parliament would be recalled if the Prime Minister loses at the Supreme Court this week.
Two separate legal cases challenging the legality of Boris Johnson’s move to prorogue parliament for five weeks are being heard in Westminster. Former Prime Minister Sir John Major is among those expected to make a verbal submission in the next few days.
Read more: Parliament prorogue: The Supreme Court’s Brexit legal case explained
The matter is being viewed as massively significant on a constitutional basis, with the number of judges being beefed up from nine to 11, and the court being called for an emergency hearing outside legal term-time.
But, there is no guarantee of the outcome – with judges in England initially ruling that the decision was political and therefore fell outside legal parameters, while those in Scotland claimed it was unlawful, rendering the move “null”.
There is similarly no clarity as to what will happen if the court finds against the government.
Speaking to the Today programme, Buckland did not rule out a second attempt to prorogue parliament.
He said: “Harold Wilson said a week is a long time in politics, it seems like an hour is a long time in politics at the moment. For me to sit here and imagine what might happen at the end of October, I think, is idle.
“What I do know is, if we are able to, we will have a Queen’s speech in mid-October, there will be debate during that time, and a vote as well, perhaps a series of votes.”
Speaking to Sky News this morning, Buckland was similarly evasive.
“We need to see the precise terms of the decision,” he said. “We will abide by the ruling of the court because we respect the rule of law.”
Buckland was also quizzed about whether the government would abide by the recent Benn Bill, which binds Johnson’s hands in the even that parliament fails to approve either a new deal or no deal following the October European Council.
That law was “yet to be tested, we haven’t reached the point where provisions are triggered,” he said, adding it “forces the British government to accept an extension if we are offered one”.
Ahead of this morning’s opening, businesswoman and Remain activist Gina Miller, who has brought one of the two cases, said this was about “pushing back against what is clearly a dramatic overreach of executive power”.
Miller, who already has one win against the government under her belt, added: “This is an issue that cuts across the political divides – and the arguments about the EU – and it has united Remainers and Leavers and people of all political complexions and none in opposition to it.
“The precedent Johnson will set – if this is allowed to stand – is terrifying: any Prime Minister trying to push through a policy that is unpopular in the House and in the country at large would from now on simply be able to resort to prorogation.
“No one could ever have envisaged it being used in this way: this is a classic power-grab.
Read more: How No 10 plans to run down the clock in its Brexit face-off
“The reason given for the prorogation was patently untrue and, since then, the refusal to come clean or provide any of the disclosures we have asked for has compounded the deception.
“It is my view – and the view of a great many others – that Mr Johnson has gone too far and put our parliamentary sovereignty and democracy in grave danger by his actions.”
Main image: Getty