I wouldn’t like to hazard a guess over that one Tim, but if you read the ‘Benn Act’ European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019 you will see that whilst the Act sets out in some detail what the PM must do in certain circumstances, it doesn’t actually specify any penalty to be imposed if the terms of the Act are not complied with.
So with no fine, no imprisonment, and not even removal from office as a consequence of noncompliance, the PM is free to simply ignore it if he so wishes.
Thing is the Attorney General repeated several times yesterday that the government would obey the law so unless they’ve got a cunning plan they’ll end up in the court again immediately if they don’t.
Indeed so Brian, but the operative words are ‘law enforcement’ and not ‘law creation’.
The court was entirely within it’s remit to give a view upon the reason for the recent prorogation, although they obviously could not comment as to whether Her Majesty was actually mislead as such conversations with the Monarch are privileged and secret by convention.
Our current system of government includes certain powers being reserved unto the Head of State, and therefore only the Monarch can enact or rescind them. In my opinion the court therefore over stepped the mark by declaring the Prorogation Order in Council as being null and void simply because they have no power to do so.
I do not believe that there has as yet been a change in the constitution that effectively sets up the Supreme Court as being the Head of State. Whether such a change should or should not happen is of course a subject for a different discussion.
Your misapprehension is that the Queen exercised a choice.
The Queen has no power - if advised by the PM, via the privy council to prorogue, then that is automatic, she has no say in the matter.
Thus it follows that if the advise was unlawful, the order was void.
This is not overriding the Queen - it is simply declaring that, as the input to a process was invalid, then the output is also invalid and void.
You are quite wrong in the whole premise of your reply to @Brian_Wheeler about the difference between law enforcement and creation.
The SC did not create new law in its Judgement. The whole basis of English Common Law is its development (straight from the textbook):
The Common law of England was based on the principle that the rulings made by the King’s courts must be made according to the common custom of the realm. In other words, this system of laws originated and developed in England was based on court decisions and on customs and usages rather than on codified written laws .
Much less so is fully pre-scipted.
So, the Justices were entirely right and within their remit to develop this area of common law by clarifying it. That is their function.
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There is discussion about the Benn Law absolutely watertight.
After BoJo’s appalling behaviour in the House last night, it is absolutely right to nail him down totally.
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Significant that Johnson didn’t put in an appearance on the front bench this morning.
As I suggested earlier, Cummings has realised he is more of a liability than an asset, and has but him back, like sweating gelignite, in his box at the bottom of the No 10 Rose Garden.
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I was vaguely hoping that Johnson would start to see Cummings as a liability and get rid of him - after all Johnson can sack Cummings without much of a to-do but it isn’t quite so straightforward the other way around
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In the Shadow Play that is politics I think the shadow-puppet that is Johnson only exercises the theatrical authority with which the Director chooses to invest him.
PMSL
Serves them bleeding right. This was the vote for the recess for the Tory Party conference. After that performance last night by BloJo and his cronies, what more could you expect?
Jacob Grease-Knob was not amused. He was asked if the PM would just prorogue Parliament again but he all but refused to rule it out.
What would really make we wet myself would be for the Opposition to once again take control of the Order Paper and hold a vote on something really contentious whilst Tory MPs are up in Manchester stroking BloJos over excited ego 
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Do you know something about Bojob’s predilections that we don’t, and prefer to remain in ignorance of?
And stroking his excited manifestation is going to plunge all of us into a very sticky situation, don’t you think? 
People should just bear in mind that party conferences are very lucrative not just for the parties concerned but also for the towns/cities where they take place. Manchester would have lost around £30 million if the Tories conference was cancelled completely.
The tinpot dictator Johnson hasnt given up!!!
Jo has a fairly good record against the government let’s hope he’s right.
Cummings hasn’t plugged all the leaks it seems.
He goes on to say…
“If we perceive that the Government plans to continue down this plainly unlawful route, we will issue advice from a public law QC that it is clearly unlawful. It will then be for the Prime Minister to decide whether he wants to lie to the Queen.”
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Cummings and De piffel are desperate to cash in on the misery No deal will cause. I am finding this all unrelentingly grim.
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Some quotes this evening from Fuhrer Johnson’s Chief of Gestapo…Herr Leutnant Cummings :
“the only way the issue of abuse will be solved is if MPs “respect” the result of the EU referendum.”
“It is not surprising some people are angry about it. I find it very odd that these characters are complaining that people are unhappy about their behaviour now and they also say they want a referendum.”
“If you are a bunch of politicians and say that we swear we are going to respect the result of a democratic vote, and then after you lose you say, ‘we don’t want to respect that vote’, what do you expect to happen?”
Downing Street was “not under pressure”.
“This is a walk in the park compared to the referendum, we are enjoying this, we are going to leave and we are going to win,”
The man is an A1 Class Prick (I so want to use a stronger expletive but there are ladies present) - his arrogance is almost beyond belief. I am truly lost for words…
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Can you help me to understand what this means, Marijke? By market manipulation of some kind? Have they laid bets on things coming unglued in specific areas?
Is there any evidence that could be used to arraign them after Brexit?
I am not sure I will be able to find the exact article, Geof Cox posted something a while ago. In short around 4.5 billion has been bet against the UK economy by the Hedgefund managers who backed Boris’s leadership bid.
A quick Google and I found this article:
I think they want us all to die of outrage. Hard not to react though when they come out with vile things. I think the most important thing is for parliament to hold them to account and put aside any tribalism for now and work together to scupper their evil intentions!
I was reading that the Benn act may not be absolutely watertight and there is a loophole that would still allow Johnson to crash out on Halloween…???