A squirming top Tory has been confronted with his own comments on shutting down Parliament in an excruciating live TV interview.
Cabinet minister Michael Gove today insisted Boris Johnson was right to close the Commons for more than a month for a Queen's Speech.
But he was then shown a clip of himself, less than three months ago, speaking out against the idea of proroguing Parliament.
At the time Mr Gove said: "I don’t think that is the right thing to do. I think that we live in a parliamentary democracy."
He added in June: "We are a parliamentary democracy. And suspending or as the Constitutional experts call it, proroguing parliament in order to try to get no deal through I think would be wrong."
Later he went even further, saying on June 16: "I will defend our democracy. And you cannot take Britain out of the EU against the will of Parliament."
Yet quizzed by the BBC's Andrew Marr Show today, the Cabinet Office minister - who is in charge of no-deal Brexit planning - brazenly insisted he had not performed a U-turn.
He said he was talking in June about proroguing Parliament to force through a no-deal Brexit.
It's true that Boris Johnson insists his suspension is nothing to do with forcing through no-deal, and Parliament will return on October 14.
Yet the Prime Minister's decision will massively curtail the amount of time MPs have to debate or stop no-deal.
And Labour's John McDonnell said it is "insulting the intelligence of the British people" to pretend the month-long shutdown is about anything else other than closing down Brexit debate.
Mr Gove was played the clip of his own comments by the BBC show.
He replied: "The question did actually mention October, because it was in the context of a debate that was happening during the leadership election.
"And there was an idea going round at that time which you put to me which was that parliament shouldn’t sit at all during October, that it shouldn’t sit at all before we left on the 31st of October.
"And I specifically said that I thought that would be wrong.
"And that is not what is happening now."
He added "there is a huge difference" and "it is disingenuous" to suggest otherwise.
The interviewer back on June 9 - who was also Mr Marr - said: "What do you say to your colleagues who say well there’s an obvious answer to this problem. Don’t let parliament sit in October. Then we get out, parliament can’t stop us getting out, we prorogue. What about that? Dominic Raab suggested that, Esther McVey was saying the same thing on this programme."
MPs will table a law on Tuesday to stop Boris Johnson crashing the UK out of the EU on October 31 without a deal.
The Prime Minister, who has a majority of one, faces defeat if the MPs can pass the law in the tiny period of time before he suspends Parliament for five weeks, from around September 12.
Tens of thousands took to streets across Britain yesterday to demand Mr Johnson stop the the month-long shutdown "coup".
Jeremy Corbyn said next week is the "last chance" to stop no-deal.
Michael Gove claimed the outrage against proroguing Parliament was “a mite disingenuous” because there are “only four days parliament might have been sitting when it won’t be sitting”.
But that comment is itself disingenuous- because MPs were prepared to cancel their own recess to sit continuously before Brexit.
To read the full story on today's Brexit developments
