By: LekshmiSajeev
ANTI-BREXIT campaigner Gina Miller’s lawyers have filed an urgent application for a legal challenge to stop prime minister Boris Johnson’s plan to prorogue parliament.
Miller said Johnson’s decision to suspend parliament a few weeks before the Brexit deadline was a “dark day for democracy.”
In a statement issued on Wednesday night (28), Miller said: “It is, sadly, all too clear from today’s announcements, that prorogation is a desperate reality, not a mere theoretical nicety. In view of this, I urge our courts to urgently hear my application for judicial review before 9 September 2019 – the earliest date that prorogation of parliament could come into effect.
“We have all been comprehensively misled by the prime minister and his lawyers. A reply from the government legal department received late on 27 August stated: ‘The proposed intention to bring legal proceedings in respect of events which have not occurred and may never do so is noted. For the avoidance of doubt, we do not accept that the approach taken in your letter is an appropriate one.’
“To put this in an official legal letter and send it out at the same time as you are drafting a press release confirming parliament’s suspension the following morning illustrates just how manipulative and anti-democratic this prime minister and his government really are.”
Miller rose to prominence in 2016 when she won a legal case forcing parliament to legislate before article 50 could be invoked.
She has also launched a website to fund the urgent application to the high court for a judicial review.
Johnson on Wednesday (28) announced that the suspension of parliament would be extended until October 14, just two weeks before the UK is set to leave the European Union. Johnson added that a Queen’s Speech would take place after the suspension to outline his “very exciting agenda”.
The prime minister’s move has enraged MPs who are trying to stop Brexit.
Taking to Twitter, deputy leader of Labour Party Tom Watson said this move was an “utterly scandalous affront to our democracy.”
Liberal Democrat Brexit spokesman Tom Brake said Johnson’s “declaration of war will be met with an iron fist.”
