Cabinet ministers and other senior members of the government are privately warning that the Supreme Court decision to rule Boris Johnson’s attempt to suspend Parliament “unlawful” has put the judiciary on a path to radical reform.



Publicly, the government is insisting that it accepts and respects Tuesday’s Supreme Court’s judgment, in which 11 of the most senior judges in the country unanimously agreed the attempt to prorogue Parliament was unlawful.

But behind the scenes, there is widespread fury from the top of Downing Street down about what they see as the judges making an unprecedented political intervention that, sources claim, will ultimately result in a written constitution, the scrapping of the Human Rights Act, and either a US-style Supreme Court with appointed judges or the abolition of the Supreme Court and a return to the old English system of Law Lords being the final court of appeal.

Leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg told a cabinet phone call last night that the judges' decision amounted to a "constitutional coup" against the government.

He was slapped down by justice secretary Robert Buckland this morning, who warned that personal attacks on judges were "completely unacceptable".