In its ruling on Tuesday that the “prime minister’s advice to Her Majesty was unlawful, void and of no effect”, the supreme court has decided that parliament was never actually suspended two weeks ago. The clock is turned back to 9 September, the last day MPs sat. So parliament will return but, as prorogation did not take place, it is not being recalled. There will be no Queen’s speech, no new legislative agenda, no state opening. Business will resume. But, since this has never happened before, this is not business as usual.
A degree of improvisation and innovation – with the government working with the opposition parties and Commons Speaker John Bercow – will be required to map out the days and weeks ahead. The government is expected to table a motion to secure a short conference recess. If MPs reject this, then the Conservative party conference in Manchester would take place while parliament sits – an unusual and, from Boris Johnson’s point of view, logistically unhelpful clash.
On Wednesday, Johnson, who is flying back from New York, is expected to make a statement in the Commons; Jeremy Corbyn, having brought forward his speech to the Labour party conference, will face him at the dispatch box.
In normal times, losing a high-profile court case – and one that ruled that the prime minister’s advice to the Queen was unlawful – would lead to an immediate confidence vote in the government. But these are not normal times. Corbyn has asked Johnson to “consider his position”; if Johnson resists, Corbyn will face pressure to do the considering for the him with just such a vote. However, Labour and the other opposition parties will resist anything that risks an election before a Brexit extension is agreed.
The immediate Brexit timetable is not affected by the ruling, with the UK still scheduled to leave the EU on 31 October and Boris Johnson – after MPs passed the Benn Act earlier this month – legally compelled to ask the EU for an extension if parliament has not voted in favour of a Brexit deal by 19 October. However, parliament will now intensify its attempts to scrutinise – and perhaps legislate against – the government’s plans.
With parliament returning earlier than expected, but with no new session or Queen’s speech, MPs will attempt to seize the agenda once again. Opposition parties will also table urgent questions, and select committee hearings will take place – with the prime minister’s appearance before the liaison committee, originally scheduled for 11 September, set to be rearranged. And the Speaker has said he will welcome applications under standing order 24 – the mechanism MPs have been using to table emergency debates.
With business resuming where it left off, MPs will no doubt return to some of the other battles they were fighting. Expect demands for the government to publish further details on Operation Yellowhammer – the government’s “Reasonable Worst Case Planning Assumptions” for a no-deal Brexit – and attempts to push the prime minister into revealing his plans for the Northern Irish border after Brexit. While the publication of the Yellowhammer documents was forced through the use of a device known as a humble address, the government refused to comply with parliament’s demand to publish “all correspondence and other communications” between nine named government advisers, including Dominic Cummings, relating to proroguing parliament. MPs will now need to decide what steps to take.
At the same time, the supreme court verdict has resuscitated a collection of bills that would not have been carried over to the new session. These include several important Brexit-related pieces of legislation – such as the immigration, fisheries and agriculture bills – which could now resume their passage through parliament. However, the government’s lack of a majority means those bills are unlikely to succeed. There are other bills, including on domestic abuse, which had a fair degree of cross-party support and may now make it on to the statute book.
The court’s verdict does not prevent the prime minister from attempting to prorogue parliament again in order to end the session and get a Queen’s speech, but only for the more standard four or five days. However, MPs will be bullish now that the supreme court has sided with them. The next two weeks in parliament could well see a return to the frenetic and fraught atmosphere we saw before it was unlawfully prorogued.