Thread by @lewis_goodall

NEW: I understand that the Queen will be asked to prorogue Parliament today at Balmoral. Three privy councillors will see her today (led by Lord Pres of Council, Jacob Rees Mogg) and ask for a prorogation in council for September 9th.

Rumour is new Queen’s speech and parliamentary session for October 14th.

Am told Cabinet to be told *after* it’s happened.

There was a recess planned anyway for conference. What this means is that parliament loses time before October 31st, returning on 14th rather than 7th. But that time will be taken up further by ceremony and parliamentary practice related to Queen’s speech and state opening.

Takeaways:

-makes stopping no deal using legal means as remainers wanted just yesterday less viable but more urgent

-thus makes no conf motion more viable again but in effect...

-we will now get one with the Queen’s speech for the new session (which is efectibely a conf vote)

This is cunning if not exactly edifying by the government. They knew they couldn’t prorogue til after brexit without complete constitutional outrage. This achieves their aims of limiting parliamentary activity and scrutiny and are betting it’s not long enough to provoke disaster.

What it also does, if is to neuter a Queen’s Speech (ie a confidence vote) as a means of stopping Brexit.

Queen’s Speech October 17th

Followed by 5 days of parliamentary debate

Takes you to October 28th

14 day FTPA period then takes you over October 31st

So all this stuff about only losing 4 days is pretty misleading.

Confusion abounding with some saying parliament could cancel the conference recess. They can’t because they’re proroguing from the second week of September. Parliament votes on a recess, not on prorogation.

This, more than anything else, is a move to prevent parliament sitting during the conference season, which it probably would have chosen to do.