Boris Johnson will seek to suspend parliament next Tuesday in order to hold a Queen’s Speech.
The new request for a prorogation — the formal break between two parliamentary sessions — was necessary to enable the government to launch a new legislative programme on October 14, Downing Street said on Wednesday.
The latest suspension would mean the cancellation of next Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions. Mr Johnson has only faced PMQs once since becoming prime minister.
Last week the Supreme Court found the prime minister had acted unlawfully in getting the Queen to agree to an unusually long five-week prorogation, or suspension, of parliament in early September at a critical juncture in the UK’s exit from the EU. The ruling meant parliament reconvened last week.
The move to seek a new prorogation came just after the prime minister set out his plan to break the Brexit deadlock with the EU by offering new proposals on to deal with the Irish border.
Under Britain’s constitutional conventions, the prorogation of parliament is a royal prerogative power that is exercised by the monarch alone. When the Queen suspends parliament, she does so on the advice of the prime minister and can seek no other advice, legal or otherwise, from any other individual.
Downing Street said the suspension would be “for the shortest time possible” to enable time for all the necessary logistical preparations for the official state opening of parliament.
Mr Johnson said he wanted the suspension so he could “deliver on the people’s priorities” setting out “plans for the NHS, schools, tackling crime, investing in infrastructure and building a strong economy”, adding: “We will get Brexit done on 31 October and continue delivering on these vital issues.”
Mr Johnson has previously defended his attempt to prorogue parliament for five weeks and said the Supreme Court got it wrong.
In a damning indictment of Mr Johnson, Brenda Hale, president of the Supreme Court, said that “the effect upon the fundamentals of our democracy was extreme” because it stopped MPs exercising their constitutional role of holding the government to account.
Without a majority and facing a hostile House of Commons, which has already defeated him on six occasions, it is unclear whether Mr Johnson would be able to pass his legislative agenda.
