ONE of Boris Johnson’s most senior ministers has branded the newly resumed House of Commons a “dead” Parliament .
Dragged to the Commons to answer questions about the Government’s humiliating defeat in the Court of Session, Attorney General Geoffrey Cox went on the attack.
The Parliament was, he said, “as dead as dead can be”. He called Jeremy Corbyn a “chicken”, claiming the Labour leader lacked “guts”. MPs he added, had “no moral right to sit on these green benches”.
The Tory lawyer is coming under increasing pressure after leaked documents revealed that he told Downing Street the plan to suspend Parliament for five weeks in the run-up to the Brexit deadline was legal.
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On Tuesday, the 11 judges of the UK’s highest court disagreed. They said the prorogation of Parliament was unlawful, and therefore null and void.
That prompted Speaker John Bercow to call MPs back to Westminster to “resume” their work.
The SNP’s Joanna Cherry forced Cox to come to the Commons yesterday morning to answer MPs questions.
He told MPs: “This Parliament has declined three times to pass a Withdrawal Act, to which the opposition, in relation to the Withdrawal Act, have absolutely no objection.
“Then we now have a wide number of this House setting its face against leaving at all, and when this government draws the only logical inference from that position, which is we must leave therefore without any deal at all, it still sets its face, denying the electorate a chance of having its say in how this matter should be resolved.
“This Parliament is a dead parliament, it should no longer sit. It has no moral right to sit on these green benches.”
After the Speaker intervened to request order be restored, Cox continued: “They don’t like to hear it, Mr Speaker, twice they have been asked to make the electorate decide upon whether they should continue to sit in their seats while they block 17.4 million people’s vote. This is a disgrace.
He added: “Let me tell them the truth, they can vote no confidence at any time but they are too cowardly, they could agree to a motion to allow this House to dissolve but they are too cowardly.
“This Parliament should have the courage to face the electorate, but it won’t, because so many of them are really all about preventing us leaving the European Union – but the time is coming, the time is coming, Mr Speaker, when even these turkeys won’t be able to prevent Christmas.”
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Cox said the Government accepted the court’s judgment and “accepts that it lost the case”.
But, he added, ministers had “acted in good faith and in the belief that its approach was both lawful and constitutional”.
Cherry, who was instrumental in taking the Government to court over the prorogation, urged Cox to release the advice given to the Prime Minister.
“Many of us believe that the Attorney General is being offered up as a fall guy for the Prime Minister’s botched plans,” she said.
Later, Amber Rudd, the former work and pensions secretary, urged Cox to “cease this language” about a “dead parliament”. However, he refused to do so.
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