20:55

Lawyers for campaigner Gina Miller have made an urgent application to the high court for a judicial review of Boris Johnson’s plan to prorogue parliament. It is the first shot in what will be an intense battle in the coming days to torpedo his plan.

“This is a brazen attempt, of truly historical magnitude, to prevent the executive being held accountable for its conduct before Parliament,” said Miller.

She had received legal correspondence from the government legal officers in the last two weeks stating that the issue of prorogation is of no more than “academic” interest and she says this now proves that Johnson has misled the nation.

“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.’,” she said in a statement issued tonight.

“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.

“The basis of my approach to the courts is that it cannot be legitimate or a proper use of the prerogative power to prorogue Parliament when the intention and effect inherent in doing so is to frustrate Parliament and fetter it from exercising its sovereign right to fulfil its elective role and enact any law it sees fit.”