The Supreme Court: Brexit has infected British politics from top to bottom

To cure the fever will require another vote

No british institution is any longer immune to the Brexit virus. On September 24th the Supreme Court ruled that the queen herself had been led to act unlawfully when her prime minister, Boris Johnson, advised her to suspend Parliament in the run-up to Britain’s departure from the European Union (see article). Unanimous, the judges ruled that the government had not provided “any reason—let alone a good reason” for this intrusion on “the fundamentals of democracy”. The very next day mps returned to work triumphant.

This was the worst week in Mr Johnson’s extraordinarily bad two months in office. The unelected prime minister has lost every vote he has faced, squandered his majority and fired a score of mps from his Conservative Party. Following the court’s ruling, he was dragged back from a un summit in New York to face the music in Westminster, where mps now have ample time to grill him not only about his fraying Brexit plans but also on allegations of corruption during his stint as mayor of London.

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It is rare for the Supreme Court to give a unanimous judgment on a contentious appeal. But that is what happened on September 24th when it ruled that Boris Johnson’s prorogation of Parliament for five weeks until October 14th had been unlawful. The 11 justices upheld and even strengthened a Scottish lower-court judgment against the suspension, while overturning an English high-court finding that the issue was political and accordingly not suitable for judicial determination. In doing this, the court delivered a powerful blow to the prime minister’s authority.

The blow was the more effective for the manner of its delivery. In a calm but mellifluous voice, the court’s president, Lady Hale, sporting a glittering spider brooch, read out a damning judgment against Mr Johnson. If there were no limit to the government’s ability to prorogue, that would be incompatible with parliamentary sovereignty. She cited a 1611 court ruling that “the King hath no prerogative, but that which the law of the land allows him.” She dismissed the government’s argument that a long suspension was needed to prepare a Queen’s Speech and new legislative agenda. She noted that it would limit parliamentary scrutiny. This mattered, she said, because of the exceptional circumstance that Brexit is due to happen on October 31st.