NOW: Prime Minister's statement on his defeat at the Supreme Court: bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-p…
Prime Minister Boris Johnson tells MPs that the 11 Supreme Court justices - the final arbiters on the UK's laws and the British constitution - were "wrong". 
It's perhaps worth at this point triple-underlining in red ink that whatever the Prime Minister says in the House, Paragraph 32 of the Supreme Court judgment explains (in plain English) how the courts have stopped government misusing executive powers since 1611. It's not new.
"The king hath no prerogative but that which the law of the land allows him." Case of Proclamations, 1611.
As quoted by Lady Hale & Lord Reed on behalf of all the justices. The beginning of the UK's historic constitutional journey that led to Boris Johnson's total legal defeat.
As quoted by Lady Hale & Lord Reed on behalf of all the justices. The beginning of the UK's historic constitutional journey that led to Boris Johnson's total legal defeat.
And Paragraph 46 explains how 395 years later Lord Bingham clarified how the British constitution had evolved to place very clear obligations on Prime Ministers - obligations the justices say he broke by closing Parliament and preventing it from asking him questions:
"The conduct of government by Prime Minister and cabinet collectively responsible and accountable to Parliament lies at the heart of Westminster democracy."
Read the judgment. If you want to know how and why our courts evolved to speak truth to power, get the late, great Lord Bingham's marvellous (and very short) book on the topic. It should be part of the national curriculum: penguin.co.uk/books/563/5637…
