BORIS Johnson will today hold talks on Brexit in New York with Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Emmanuel Macron as he awaits the verdict of the UK Supreme Court on whether his suspension of Parliament is lawful.
The Prime Minister will be at the United Nations, ostensibly to attend a climate change summit, where he will announce that UK scientists can use up to £1 billion of Britain’s aid budget to help them invent new technology to tackle the climate crisis in developing countries.
But, as the October 31 deadline nears, Mr Johnson will use the opportunity to discuss with EU leaders his attempt to craft a new withdrawal agreement and one he can ultimately get through Westminster.
To this end, he is also due to hold talks with Donald Tusk, the European Council President, and he has a scheduled bilateral meeting with US President Donald Trump.
Jeremy Corbyn has made clear that the House of Commons must be recalled immediately if the Supreme Court rules this week against the PM; the judges’ ruling could come as early as today or tomorrow.
If the 11 justices were to find that the decision taken by the PM to suspend the UK Parliament for five weeks was unlawful, then there would be calls for Mr Johnson to resign.
Any such recall decision would disrupt not only this week’s Labour conference but also next week’s Conservative one as MPs travel back to Westminster.
The Labour leader told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “If the Supreme Court, and it is an if…decide Parliament should be recalled - in other words, the advice he gave was wrong - then we would seek to take immediate action in Parliament to prevent him closing down Parliament all the way through to October 31. So, I would work with the other opposition parties as we have up to now.”
He added: “The Commons should be recalled if that is what the Supreme Court decides and I hope we’re in that position because I want…our Parliament to be able to question the Government. This is pretty strange behaviour when you’ve got major decisions coming up,[that] the Government, the Prime Minister closes down Parliament to prevent any scrutiny or debate.”
Dominic Raab refused to be drawn on whether the UK Government would seek to resuspend Parliament if it lost the court case.
The Foreign Secretary said: “I’m very keen not to get ahead of ourselves on this. And I’m also keen not to take levers off the table, that weaken the position of the UK in Brussels.
“But can I also say in relation to the Supreme Court, one of the reasons I campaigned to leave the EU is because I want our judges to have the last word on the law of the land and not for that to be decided by European judges in Luxembourg.
“So, it is absolutely vital that we respect the role of the Supreme Court in our justice system but also in our democracy,” he added.
Earlier, Jean-Claude Juncker made clear that Brussels would insist on border checks if there was a no-deal Brexit in order to preserve the interests of the EU27.
The outgoing President of the European Commission insisted that Brussels was "in no way responsible" for the consequences of a no-deal Brexit, saying the blame would lay squarely with the UK.
But he also insisted "we can have a deal" and that Mr Johnson's proposals for dealing with the problems Brexit would create at the border with Ireland were the basis for progress.
Meanwhile, David Cameron, promoting his political memoirs, advised the PM against breaking the law.
The former Prime Minister told Sky News' Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme: "No-deal is not a good idea. Breaking the law is not a good idea. Focus everything you've got on getting that deal and that's what he's doing, to be fair to him."
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