Only the judiciary can save the Tories from themselves

Boris Johnson is using the conventions of British public life to destroy the British constitution. He is relying on the old understanding that good chaps don’t ‘go too far’ while ‘going all the way’ himself. He is counting on the judges being frightened of challenging him, while showing no fear as he tramps over and tramps down the lines that once marked the separation of powers.

Johnson breaks the rules while insisting that everyone else must obey them. He’s like a criminal who cries with outrage when the police do not follow their procedure to the letter, and the judges should find the courage to treat him as such.

In his message to the Supreme Court, Sir James Eadie QC, the first treasury counsel, said Johnson’s decision to suspend Parliament for five weeks was ‘high policy’ that was no one else’s business. The judges had no jurisdiction ‘to enforce political conventions’, Boris Johnson and Lord Keen of Elie, the advocate-general for Scotland, said in a submission to the Court.