Today (24th September) and the Supreme Court ruled that Prime Minister Boris Johnson had acted unlawfully in proroguing Parliament.
The 11 Supreme Court judges unanimously found:
The court is bound to conclude, therefore, that the decision to advise Her Majesty to prorogue parliament was unlawful because it had the effect of frustrating or preventing the ability of parliament to carry out its constitutional functions without reasonable justification.
The Conservative MP for the Isle of Wight, Robert Seely, had previously said proroguing Parliament was “perfected normal”. However, today’s Supreme Court judgement went on to say,
“This was not a normal prorogation in the run-up to a Queen’s speech. It prevented parliament from carrying out its constitutional role for five out of a possible eight weeks between the end of the summer recess and exit day on 31 October.
“Even if they had agreed to go into recess for the usual three-week period, they would still have been able to perform their function of holding the government to account. Prorogation means that they cannot do that.”
Isle of Wight MP’s views
OnTheWight has contacted Bob Seely once again to ask his views.
1. What’s your view of the Supreme Court ruling today that Boris Johnson acted unlawfully?
2. Do you believe the judiciary is unbiased?
3. Will you abide by the ruling?
4. When do you intend to return to Parliament?
The article will be updated once we hear back. We’ve also asked the other political parties on the Isle of Wight the first two questions.
Failed to answer questions
Back at the beginning of September OnTheWight wrote to Conservative Isle of Wight MP, Robert Seely, to ask his views on commentators accusing Number 10 of misleading the public and the press.
OnTheWight’s question followed the revelation during the Scottish court case that Boris Johnson, had signed off on the plan to prorogue Parliament on 15 August.
On 25th August, a Number 10 spokesperson said: “the claim that the government is considering proroguing parliament in September in order to stop MPs debating Brexit is entirely false”.
OnTheWight asked the MP what his views were, but he failed to reply, despite us asking again the following day. However, at the same time he did reply to questions about him deleting a tweet that said, ‘I don’t support proroguing Parliament’.
Image: financialtimes under CC BY 2.0
