Foreign secretary Dominic Raab has twice refused to rule out suspending parliament for a second time if the Supreme Court rules against the government next week.
Mr Raab was speaking ahead of the Supreme Court ruling, due as soon as Monday, on the government’s appeal against the finding of Scotland’s most senior judges that the five-week prorogation to 14 October was unlawful because it was undertaken with the purpose of stymying parliamentary scrutiny of Boris Johnson‘s government.
The foreign secretary told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show that the government would respect the decision of the panel of 11 senior judges who heard legal arguments over three days last week.
But he dodged the question of whether Mr Johnson might order a second prorogation to keep MPs out of Westminster in the run-up to the Brexit deadline of 31 October.
Asked if Mr Johnson could ask the Queen for a second suspension, he said: “Let’s wait and see what the first judgment decides and then we will understand the lie of the land.”
When asked if he was indicating that another prorogation was possible, Mr Raab replied: “I’m very keen not to get ahead of ourselves on this and very keen not to take levers off the table that weaken the position of the United Kingdom in Brussels.”
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said his party would “obviously oppose” a second prorogation.
“I will be in discussions with the other opposition parties on what action we can take,” said Mr Corbyn.
“If the Supreme Court ... decides that 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 31 October. So I would work with the other opposition parties, as we have up to now.”
Asked if the speaker, John Bercow, should resume parliamentary sittings immediately if the Supreme Court rules against the government, Mr Corbyn said: “The Commons should be recalled if that is what the Supreme Court decides. I hope we’re in that position because I want this parliament, our parliament, to be able to question the government.”
