The stunning modesty of the Supreme Court

‘The king hath no prerogative, but that which the law of the land allows him’. So James VI & I was told by the courts in 1611 and so Boris Johnson has, in effect, been told today. There is something weighty, something dignified, about that. The Supreme Court’s ruling this morning, upholding the Court of Session’s earlier ruling on the lawfulness or otherwise of the government’s attempt to prorogue parliament, should be welcomed by everyone, be they a Leaver or a Remainer. 

Brexit, and its rights or wrongs, is both at the heart of this case and tangential to it. At the heart because Brexit, the greatest constitutional kerfuffle of our lifetimes, renders these extraordinary times, and extraordinary circumstances justify extraordinary actions. That, indeed, was at the heart of the political case for a five week prorogation of parliament. Nothing about the situation in which the country finds itself is normal; therefore the government must reserve the right to act abnormally. 

But where it blundered – and this was at the heart of the Court of Session’s ruling earlier this month – was in pretending that abnormality was in fact perfectly normal.