Boris Johnson today angrily denied lying to the Queen about his reasons for suspending Parliament.
The rejection came amid a furious row after Scottish judges ruled he acted unlawfully and had ‘improper’ motives.
The court in Edinburgh controversially decided yesterday that Mr Johnson really wanted to avoid scrutiny by MPs, rather than teeing up a new legislative programme as he claimed. The issue is now set for a titanic showdown in the Supreme Court next week.
Asked whether he lied to the monarch, Mr Johnson said: ‘Absolutely not.
‘The High Court in England plainly agrees with us but the Supreme Court will have to decide.
‘We need a Queen’s Speech, we need to get on and do all sorts of things at a national level.’
Asked on a visit to HMS Belfast in London today (pictured) whether he lied to the monarch, Boris Johnson said: ‘Absolutely not.’
Mr Johnson was visiting HMS Belfast as the government announced a new shipbuilding contract today
He added: ‘Parliament will have time both before and after that crucial summit on October 17th and 18th to talk about the Brexit deal.
‘I’m very hopeful that we will get a deal, as I say, at that crucial summit. We’re working very hard – I’ve been around the European capitals talking to our friends
‘I think we can see the rough area of a landing space, of how you can do it – it will be tough, it will be hard, but I think we can get there.’
Distancing himself from suggesting that the Scottish court was ‘biased’, Mr Johnson said he would not ‘quarrel or criticise’ the judges.
He said: ‘The British judiciary, the United Kingdom judiciary, is one of the great glories of our constitution – they are independent. ‘Believe me, around the world people look at our judges with awe and admiration, so I’m not going to quarrel or criticise the judges.
Mr Johnson made the comments as he visited NLV Pharos, a lighthouse tender, which is moored alongside HMS Belfast on the Thames for London International Shipping Week.
Scotland’s highest civil court said yesterday that the PM had ordered Parliament to be shut down for five weeks in order to ‘stymie scrutiny’.
The court said the prorogation was unlawful and suggested Mr Johnson had misled the Queen over his reasons for the suspension.
The ruling could see Mr Johnson forced to recall Parliament if it is upheld by the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
Critics, including former Tory attorney general Dominic Grieve, said Mr Johnson would have to resign if it was found that he had ‘misled the Queen about the reasons for suspending Parliament’.
Downing Street said it was ‘disappointed’ with the verdict and lodged an appeal with the Supreme Court. However No 10 backed away from initial comments which appeared to accuse the Scottish court of bias.
But Business Minister Kwasi Kwarteng waded into the row last night, saying Leave voters were ‘beginning to question the impartiality of the judges’.
In an interview with the BBC, he said he accepted that judges were ‘impartial’, but warned that many voters believed the courts were trying to frustrate Brexit.
Former Cabinet minister David Lidington rejected the remarks, saying he had ‘seen no evidence of the courts getting involved in politics but rather English and Scottish courts grappling with important legal/constitutional questions’.
Maverick No10 chief Dominic Cummings (right in Westminster today) has been masterminding the PM’s Brexit strategy
Kwasi Kwarteng says Leave voters are ‘beginning to question the impartiality of the judges’
In a round of interviews today, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said court rulings were ‘not about politics’.
The Scottish judgment was directly contradicted by a High Court ruling in England, which said the issue was ‘not a matter for the courts’. Explaining their decision in a separate case brought by anti-Brexit activist Gina Miller and former PM Sir John Major, three of England’s most senior judges said the suspension of Parliament was a political, rather than legal matter.
Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett, Master of the Rolls Sir Terence Etherton and President of the Queen’s Bench Division Dame Victoria Sharp said the decision to suspend Parliament and the PM’s advice to the Monarch ‘were inherently political in nature and there are no legal standards against which to judge their legitimacy’.
Legal experts and politicians also questioned the Scottish court’s decision to intervene in such a highly political issue.
Former Supreme Court judge Jonathan Sumption said: ‘My own view is that this is a political issue, not a legal one, and that the case can only be resolved politically.’ Lord Sumption, a Remainer, said he believed that Mr Johnson’s decision to suspend Parliament was ‘disgraceful’. But he warned that the Supreme Court would be straying into uncharted constitutional territory if it backed the Scottish judgment.