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Ok new thread to keep things clean. Lord Pannick is explaining that Gina Miller's legal challenge is focused in on why the PM needs to close Parliament for five weeks ahead of a Queen's Speech - longest for 40 years - just as the Brexit clock ticktocks towards midnight.
He asks: Is the five-week closure reasonable to meet the objective - which is to close a Parliamentary session ahead of a Queen's Speech. "It is not manifestly necessary to have a five-week prorogation," he says.
"It is not merely that it is a prorogation of an exceptional length at a critical time & that the PM can provide no reasonable basis for needing it. This case involves a decision by the PM that is *fatally infected* by the PM's failure to understand that Parliament is sovereign."
"This PM does not understand that it is the role of Parliament to discuss, debate and enact such legislation as it sees fit" - and it's not the role of the executive to prevent it performing its functions because the PM takes a derogatory view [of what it is doing]
"He sees Parliament as a potential threat" to his Brexit policy. Lord Pannick says it's not for the courts to evaluate the PM's Brexit strategy - but it is the business of the court to consider whether the PM is trying to close Parliament because he regards it is "a nuisance".
You can pay a fortune to see some mediocre West End drama with sub-standard warm wine from the bar. Or you come to the High Court for FREE to witness what might be a piece of constitutional history. This is cracking drama.
Lord Pannick carefully argues that he is not trying to prevent a PM from ever closing a Parliament for a long period. "I am not suggesting there are no circumstances when there would be a justification."
First intervention from a judge, Sir Terence Etherton asks if Lord Pannick's argument, in essence, is that the PM must give a "sound reason" for such a long closure of Parliament that interferes with its sovereignty. Lord Pannick, in short, says it is.
Lord Pannick says that the Prime Minister has provided no evidence to show that a five-week prorogation was purely for preparation ahead of a new Parliamentary session & Queen's Speech.
That argument is backed to the hilt by former PM Sir John Major. The headline from his submission to the court is that Boris Johnson is closing Parliament for a narrow political purpose as a no-deal Brexit looms. See below.
Sir John's submission says: “In the circumstances the inference is inescapable that the otherwise unexplained length of the prorogation, and the very obvious political interest the PM has in there being no activity in Parliament during that time, are linked.”
