Historic ruling: The Supreme Court has ruled that Boris Johnson suspended UK Parliament unlawfully. The landmark decision was unanimous.
Calls for Johnson to resign: Reacting to this morning’s ruling, opposition politicians called on the Prime Minister to resign.
Johnson’s controversial decision: The PM had claimed he shut down Parliament to prepare for a new session, but critics said it was to stifle opposition over Brexit.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke with the Queen on the phone from New York on Tuesday, according to a Downing Street spokesperson.
The call followed the UK Supreme Court ruling that Johnson’s advice to the Queen to prorogue the Parliament was unlawful.
Details of their call will not be released, the spokesperson said.
As far as dodges go, the one made by the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court on Tuesday was, well, supreme.
The country’s highest court managed to stay clear of accusing Prime Minister Boris Johnson of misleading Queen Elizabeth II — yet still ruled on Tuesday morning that his decision to suspend Parliament was unlawful.
Get the whole story here.
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar met with Prime Minister Boris Johnson on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.
The border between Ireland, which will remain EU member, and Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom, is the biggest sticking point in the Brexit negotiations.
Varadkar said there’s still a “wide gap” between the EU and the UK.
The UK Attorney General’s office said the government “acted in good faith and in the belief that its approach was both lawful and constitutional” when it decided to suspend Parliament.
Attorney General Geoffrey Cox is the government’s chief legal advisor. As such, he would have likely played a role in Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision, advising him whether or not he believed the prorogation was legal.
Cox told the government the move would be legal, Sky News reported on Tuesday. CNN could not independently verify that claim.
Cox’s office did not address that question. In the statement, it said:
At the end of the worst day in his professional life, many in the UK are asking: How long can the British Prime Minister stay in his job?
It’s a reasonable question to ask of the British Prime Minister. The man who can barely go a week without suffering some kind of political setback faced his biggest public embarrassment on Tuesday, as the UK’s highest court ruled that his decision to unilaterally suspend Parliament was unlawful. Worse, he might have misled the Queen in doing so.
Under normal circumstances, you’d expect leader so under fire to realize their time was up. But Brexit has created some pretty abnormal circumstances in Westminster.
Read the full analysis here.
Boris Johnson will not be able to force through a no-deal Brexit without Parliament’s consent, former Conservative lawmaker Rory Stewart has told CNN.
Stewart told Richard Quest the Supreme Court verdict “exposed the fundamental flaw” in Johnson’s strategy. “He somehow convinced himself that he could suspend Parliament, ignore Parliament and try to ram it through.”
“Our elected body is Parliament,” added Stewart, who challenged Johnson in this summer’s Conservative leadership contest. “Parliament is sovereign … if Parliament doesn’t want a no-deal Brexit, you can’t have a no-deal Brexit.”
Stewart also accused Trump of “getting into Trumpian territory … he’s now doing things which are very very unprecedented.”
He added that Johnson should resign. But he went on: “I ran against him in the leadership, he’s just fired me form his political party and I think he’s a dangerous man. So obviously that would be my view, but obviously I’m not the person to ask.”
Stewart was one of several lawmakers expelled form the Conservative Party by Johnson after voting to block a no-deal split.
President Donald Trump played down suggestions that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson should resign after he was found to have unlawfully suspended Parliament.
Asked how he responded to calls for him to go, Johnson told reporters at the UN General Assembly, “we respect the judiciary in our country,” before adding that he disagrees “profoundly” with the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Trump also said Johnson’s difficulties are “pretty much what you expected” from the Brexit process, and added he will make great progress on Brexit come October and November – to which Johnson quickly interjected, “October! October!”
Trump then repeated his false claim that he had predicted the result of the Brexit vote in Britain before polls closed. “I was there, I happened to be there the day of the vote … I even made a prediction. It was a correct prediction,” Trump said. Trump had in fact been in the UK the day after the result.
The President said he had “no reaction” to the Supreme Court ruling, calling it “another day at the office for Johnson.”
He then discussed his own administration’s “0 for 7” start in the Supreme Court, before he got a “great streak going” with the body, suggesting the same turnaround will come for Johnson.
“We’re full of respect for the justices of our Supreme Court,” Johnson interrupted, prompting Trump to laugh and tap him on the shoulder. “He’s being very nice to the courts,” Trump said with a smile.
Jeremy Corbyn has now moved onto Labour’s domestic agenda, setting out his pitch for an early election that looks more likely by the day.
“Nothing matters more than the climate emergency,” he says, praising Greta Thunberg and other young activists who have been staging strikes in recent months.
“We’re seeing ice caps melting, coral reefs dissolving, wildfires in the Arctic Circle and Brazil’s far-right leader President Bolsonaro fiddles while the Amazon burns.”
“Real security doesn’t come from belligerent posturing or reckless military interventions. It comes from international cooperation and diplomacy, and addressing the root causes of the threats we all face.”
He also discusses Labour’s domestic policy, to applause from the hall.
“I don’t think he’s fit to be prime minister,” Jeremy Corbyn says of Boris Johnson during his keynote conference speech.
“This crisis can only be solved with a general election. That election needs to take place as soon as this government’s threat of a disastrous no deal is off the table,” Corbyn says, restating his party’s position on a snap poll.
Corbyn then warns of the effects of a no-deal Brexit, saying it would leave Britain subservient to the United States in trade talks.
Johnson wants to put Britain “at the mercy of Donald Trump,” Corbyn says. “A no-deal Brexit is in reality a Trump-deal Brexit,”
“That would be the opposite of taking back control,” says Corbyn, adding that Trump us “delighted” to have Boris Johnson “in his back pocket.”
He also nods to his own party’s Brexit policy, which many observers have pointed out has been anything but unified.
Corbyn promises a second confirmatory vote, featuring two options: “credible leave alongside remain.”
“That’s not complicated,” he says, adding that he will carry out whatever the people decide.
As expected, Jeremy Corbyn has begun his remarks with a stinging attack on Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s unlawful prorogation of Parliament.
“The highest court in the land has found that Boris Johnson broke the law,” opposition leader Corbyn says, after walking out to raucous applause in a packed conference hall.
“The Prime Minister acted illegally when he tried to shut down opposition to his reckless and disastrous plan to crash out of the European Union without a deal. But he has failed.”
“He will never shut down our democracy or silence the voices of us, the people,” Corbyn says. “The government will be held to account for what he has done.”
He again calls for Johnson to step down, telling the hall: “this unelected Prime Minister should now resign.” The crowd rise to the feet in response, chanting “Throw him out, throw him out.”
“He thought he could do what he wants, just as he has done all his life.”
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is beginning his speech to the Labour Party conference.
The speech was originally due to take place tomorrow, but has been brought forward so that Corbyn and fellow Labour lawmakers can return to Parliament tomorrow.
Lady Hale, the Supreme Court’s President and undoubtedly the breakout figure of the court’s prorogation hearings, seized the spotlight one final time on Tuesday to announce the court’s historic decision.
But while the 74-year-old’s cutting interjections and her impressive selection of brooches have won her a host of new admirers, Hale has enjoyed a stellar reputation within the legal world for many years.
She became the first female President of the Supreme Court in 2017, having earlier become its first woman justice upon its formation in October 2009.
That completed an impressive journey which began with her graduation from Cambridge University in 1966.
A specialist in family and social welfare law, Lady Hale – whose first name is Brenda – authored a case book called “The Family, Law and Society.”
Lady Hale will leave her second home at the beginning of next year, when her term comes to an end.
As Westminster slowly returns to normal, talk is turning to what happens next.
As things stand: Parliament was not officially suspended; Brexit is happening on October 31; Parliament has passed a law instructing Boris Johnson to request a Brexit extension and avoid a no-deal Brexit; Johnson says he won’t.
So Brexit becomes a game of chicken.
We know that Johnson wants an early election, as does his rival, Jeremy Corbyn.
Where they differ is on whether that happens before Brexit has happened, or after it has been extended to avoid a no-deal exit.
Corbyn has two options: call for a vote of no confidence in Johnson’s government or keep applying pressure on the Prime Minister hoping he will resign.
Both options are risky as they could lead to Johnson simply sitting tight and watching a no-deal Brexit happen by default.
But the options for Johnson are hardly enviable. Resignation offers Johnson some electoral advantages, as it would mean he could fight an election campaign while keeping his promise that he didn’t delay Brexit.
But it would also mean suffering the indignity of handing power to a man he has previously called a national security risk.
Or he can sit tight, keep suffering parliamentary losses, and watching his growing opposition run rings around him.
The Supreme Court’s ruling against Prime Minister Boris Johnson is unprecedented, a lawyer central to the case has told CNN.
Gina Miller, the lawyer who successfully appealed the High Court verdict against her legal challenge to Johnson’s prorogation, told Bianca Nobilo she was “in shock” at the unanimous, 11-0 decision.
She added she was “in a second phase of shock that the Prime Minister is now trying to downplay this.”
“This is absolutely fundamental to our constitution … he cannot – or in fact, any prime minster cannot – just close down or shut up parliament, just because parliament disagrees with them.”
“The case was not about Brexit, it was not about politics, it was about the fact that he was putting himself above the law, and the courts have found that he cannot do that.”
Boris Johnson will fly back to the UK Tuesday night after his speech at the United Nations General Assembly, a government source tells CNN.
There is no information yet if and when he may speak in the House of Commons Wednesday.
It is difficult to articulate how unprecedented the UK’s Supreme Court’s ruling is.
Britain’s highest court was established a decade ago next week. Its has been dragged into the gravitational pull of the Brexit saga before – notably when it decided Parliament must get a vote on a Brexit deal, a decision that ultimately doomed Theresa May’s attempts to leave the European Union and finally sunk her premiership.
But it has never faced a case of this magnitude, nor one which drew so much attention.
And its newest judgement could spell more immediate doom for May’s successor, given that it explicitly found that his own actions were unlawful.
That’s the view emanating from Parliament’s opposition parties, who reacted with a tsunami of attacks on Johnson.
“The Prime Minister must resign to make way for an emergency Government that can stop a No Deal Brexit,” Jo Swinson, the leader of the surging anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats, said after the judgement.
“Boris Johnson has no regard for the law … yet again he has been found out,” Labour’s shadow Brexit secretary added on Twitter. “The sooner we resume our work challenging and defeating him the better.”
And Amber Rudd, who quit Johnson’s cabinet earlier this month in protest at his Brexit strategy, said that “despite personal assurances from the PM, the Cabinet was not shown the legal advice around this prorogation.”
“This is an astonishing moment and I regret that the PM, who entered office with such goodwill, went down this route,” she added.
The Prime Minister has predictably ignored those calls for his resignation. But now that the furious lawmakers are returning to work, they could be plotting to join forces for a vote of no confidence that could force an election would give Johnson the ignominy of becoming the UK’s shortest-serving prime minister.
Boris Johnson has just given a short speech to business leaders in New York, but he addressed the damning Supreme Court ruling at the beginning.
“There’s been a court case in our country this morning which I think one or two of you may have picked up,” he joked.
“I just want to say to everyone watching back home that for the avoidance of doubt, I have the highest regard for our judiciary,” he went on. “But I must say I strongly disagree with this judgement”
He added that his government will not be deterred from delivering on the “will of the people” and securing Brexit.
And he said “we will need a Queen’s Speech to set out what we are going to do, and I think frankly that is what the people … want to see.”
“My heart lifts when I come to New York,” he added, “court judgements or otherwise,” before beginning his prepared remarks on business.
John Major, the former Conservative Prime Minister who joined the legal action against the incumbent Boris Johnson, has hailed the Supreme Court’s ruling and lambasted Johnson for his behavior.
“No Prime Minister must ever treat the monarch or Parliament in this way again,” Major said in a scathing statement.
“This was a case that should never have had to be considered, and it gave me no pleasure to be pitted against a Government and Prime Minister of my own Party,” he added.
“I hope this ruling from the Supreme Court will deter any future Prime Minister from attempting to shut down Parliament, with the effect of stifling proper scrutiny and debate, when its sitting is so plainly in the national interest,” he added.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has given his first reaction to the the Supreme Court’s ruling that his decision to suspend Parliament was unlawful.
Johnson attempted to deflect the political implications of the ruling: “The main thing is we’re going to get on and deliver Brexit on October 31,” he added. “The claimants in this case are determined to frustrate (Brexit) and to stop that.”
“It’s an unusual judgement to come to in my view … the prerogative of prorogation is an old one,” Johnson went on. He also said he was “not certain that the justices did say” that prorogation was unlawful and undemocratic. (They did, at least on the first part: the judges concluded the prorogation was “unlawful, void and of no effect.”)
He continued to insist Britain would leave the EU next month. “As the law currently stands, the UK leaves the EU on October 31, come what may,” Johnson said. In fact, the law also says that Johnson must ask for an extension if he cannot reach a deal.
The battle lines are being drawn for the next – and presumably rather imminent – British general election.
Boris Johnson has been desperate to avoid having to extend Brexit, knowing that would severely damage his chances of holding off Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party at the ballot box.
But his strategy has been defeated at every possible turn, and this morning’s Supreme Court ruling has handed him a humiliating favor of historic proportions.
The Brexit Party has responded in turn, slamming Johnson for a failure to deliver Brexit on October 31 and predicting he will have to resign this week.
“As soon as Parliament is recalled, Boris Johnson is probably going to have to offer his resignation or there may well be a vote of no confidence,” its chairman and MEP Richard Tice told the BBC.
“Then there is the question of a general election, and really and truly that should be as soon as possible, probably meaning the first half of November.
“And goodness me, what does it say about the so-called master strategist, Dominic Cummings? I trust he’ll be offering his resignation today,” Tice added.
