On 27 or 28 August 2019, the prime minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson advised Queen Elizabeth II to prorogue Parliament from a date between 9 and 12 September 2019 until the State Opening of Parliament on 14 October 2019. As a result, Parliament was suspended from 9 September until 24 September, when the prorogation was ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court. Since Parliament was to be prorogued for five weeks and reconvene just 17 days before the United Kingdom's scheduled departure from the European Union on 31 October 2019, the move was seen by many opposition politicians and political commentators as a controversial and unconstitutional attempt by the prime minister to avoid parliamentary scrutiny of the Government's Brexit plans in the final weeks leading up to Brexit. Johnson and his Government defended the prorogation of Parliament as a routine political process that ordinarily follows the selection of a new prime minister and would allow the Government to refocus on a legislative agenda.

In early September 2019, judges in the High Court of Justice and the Outer House of the Court of Session (the English and Scottish civil courts of first instance) declined to rule on the lawfulness of the prorogation on grounds that the prerogative power of prorogation was not justiciable. An appeal in the latter case to the Inner House of the Court of Session (Scotland's supreme civil court) overturned the Outer House verdict and ruled the prorogation was justiciable and unlawful, void and of no effect. To resolve the differences of opinion between the courts, both cases were appealed to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom which, on 24 September, ruled unanimously in R (Miller) v The Prime Minister and Cherry v Advocate General for Scotland upholding the ruling of the Inner House; consequently, the Order in Council ordering prorogation was quashed and Parliament was ruled to still be in session. When Parliament resumed on the following day, the prorogation ceremony was expunged from the Journal of the House of Commons and business continued as if the prorogation never happened. On 8 October, Parliament was lawfully prorogued, this time for six days, to the desired date of 14 October.

Background

Prorogation is a political process which marks the end of a parliamentary session, and also refers to the time between the end of one parliamentary session and the start of another. During prorogation, neither Parliament nor its committees sit, and all motions, unanswered questions, and bills not yet assented to automatically lapse, unless a so-called "carry-over motion" allows for the business to be resumed in the next session. Prorogation is a power under the royal prerogative and is ordered by the King-in-Council, that is, the King under advice of the Privy Council. Prorogation takes effect when a royal proclamation which orders the prorogation is read to both Houses of Parliament; from that point, Parliament does not meet again until the State Opening of Parliament some days later.Parliament may be recalled during prorogation for other reasons provided in statute, such as the demise of the Crown (Succession to the Crown Act 1707), if the reserve forces are called into service (Reserve Forces Act 1996), or if emergency powers under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 are exercised. It is distinct from adjournment and recess, which are short breaks that do not halt all parliamentary business, and dissolution, which disperses Parliament in advance of a general election. Since 1854, prorogation has been undertaken by the Lords Commissioners in lieu of the Sovereign.The Royal Commission is typically composed of the Lord Speaker, Leader of the House of Lords, the chairs of the two largest parties not otherwise represented, and the convenor of the crossbench peers. The Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor are also Lords Commissioners, but typically do not participate in Commission business.

Historically, the prorogation of Parliament was the norm; the monarch would typically only summon Parliament to approve royal taxes and summarily prorogue the body again. Prorogation was also used as a royal tactic to avoid parliamentary scrutiny. Elizabeth I suspended Parliament in 1578 to prevent public debate of her courtship with Francis, Duke of Anjou. The turning point came in the prelude to the English Civil War, when Charles I prorogued his third Parliament. Parliament objected to royal imposition of taxes and issued the Petition of Right in response to the King's actions. When the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Finch, announced the end of the session, incensed MPs sat on Finch, which momentarily prevented the closure of Parliament until the Commons passed several motions which condemned the King's abuse of power. After Parliament was prorogued, Charles I ruled on his own for eleven years—and even attempted to close down the Parliament of Scotland in 1638—and only recalled Parliament in 1640 to pass more taxes. The second sitting of Parliament that year—the famous Long Parliament—passed legislation which prevented its prorogation or dissolution without its consent. In the event, it sat undissolved for another twenty years throughout the English Civil War, Interregnum, and Restoration, despite Pride's Purge in 1648 which created the Rump Parliament and Oliver Cromwell's expulsion of the Long Parliament and convocation of an alternative assembly in 1653.

Although prorogation is typically uncontroversial, there have been several noteworthy prorogations during major political disputes. In 1774, upon the advice of Lord North, George III prorogued Parliament after the passage of the Quebec Act, one of the triggers of the American Revolution. In 1831, peers took umbrage at William IV's prorogation of Parliament after the Commons defeated the First Reform Bill which sought to expand the franchise. In 1948, Clement Attlee called a short pro forma session of Parliament, which was prorogued after ten days, to hasten the passage of the Parliament Act 1949, and in 1997, John Major advised an early prorogation prior to the general election in May, at the height of the cash-for-questions affair.

The most controversial prorogation of recent times took place in 2008 in Canada. Stephen Harper, the prime minister and leader of the minority Conservative government, advised the governor general, Michaëlle Jean, to prorogue Parliament prior to the budget. At the time, the Liberal and New Democratic parties planned to form an alternative government with the support of the Bloc Québécois. Prorogation postponed the motion of no confidence in Harper's government; and by the time Parliament sat again, the agreement between the opposition parties fell apart and Harper remained in office. Harper controversially advised Jean to prorogue Parliament again in late 2009, until after the 2010 Winter Olympics; at the time, Harper was under heavy scrutiny for his role in the Afghan detainee affair. There was a similar crisis in Australia in 1975 that concerned the use of royal powers to break parliamentary deadlock. The prime minister, Gough Whitlam, was controversially dismissed by the governor-general, John Kerr, and replaced by the leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Fraser, who commanded a majority in the Senate. The House of Representatives, controlled by the Australian Labor Party, passed a motion of no confidence in Fraser, but was unable to reinstall Whitlam before Kerr dissolved Parliament in advance of a federal election.

Prelude

Under Theresa May Proposals of prorogation first surfaced in early 2019. At the time, the parliamentary session had been ongoing since 13 June 2017, several days after a general election which saw the governing Conservative Party, then led by Theresa May, lose its majority. Prior to 2010, parliamentary sessions typically started in October and ended in September; general elections would shorten the preceding session and lengthen the following. After the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011—which abrogated the similar royal power to dissolve Parliament—passed into law, the regular start of the parliamentary calendar moved to coincide with elections in May. In June 2017, the Government announced the imminent parliamentary session would last for two years, to allow for greater parliamentary scrutiny of Brexit and the repeal or amendment of the corpus of European law which would no longer have effect upon the United Kingdom's departure from the European Union. On 7 May 2019, the 2017–19 Parliament became the longest parliamentary session since the Long Parliament four centuries earlier.Other long parliamentary sessions of note include: the Convention Parliament which followed the Glorious Revolution of 1688 (250 days); the 1893–94 Parliament, when Gladstone attempted to pass the Second Home Rule Bill (226 days); the 1992–93 Parliament, when Parliament debated the Maastricht Treaty (240 days); the 1997–98 Parliament, which passed wide-ranging constitutional reforms (242 days); and the aforementioned 2010–12 Parliament (295 days).

After the Brexit withdrawal agreement negotiated by the Government was rejected by Parliament, prorogation was seen as an option for the Government to bring the agreement back for another vote; Erskine May, which conventionally codifies parliamentary practice, states that "matters already decided" cannot be brought back during a parliamentary session if they have already been rejected on a substantive basis. The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, allowed a second vote on the agreement on 12 March 2019, which was rejected with a reduced majority. On 18 March, Bercow said any motion to approve the withdrawal agreement for a vote must not be "substantially the same", and on 27 March, reiterated his warning to the Government. A third "meaningful vote" on the withdrawal agreement, which did not include the "political declaration" on future EU–UK relations, was lost by the Government on 29 March 2019.

Contemporaneously, the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union, previously scheduled for 29 March 2019, was delayed to 12 April 2019. Proponents of leaving the European Union without a deal suggested prorogation as a method to ensure such a departure; the United Kingdom's withdrawal remained the legal default with or without a negotiated withdrawal agreement, and the prorogation of Parliament would prevent legislation to either ratify the agreement, seek an extension to Brexit negotiations, or revoke the invocation of Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union. Prorogation would also prevent a motion of no confidence or a motion to trigger an early general election. After persistent rumours of this course of action, despite Parliament's explicit rejection of a "no-deal" scenario, opposition MPs took control of the legislative calendar and passed the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2019, also known as the "Cooper–Letwin Bill", which mandated the Government to seek a longer extension to Brexit negotiations. A subsequent agreement with the European Council delayed Brexit once again to 31 October 2019 and mandated elections to the European Parliament.

Following the European elections, in which the Conservatives finished fifth in the UK behind the Brexit Party, Liberal Democrats, Labour Party and Green Party, Theresa May announced her intention to resign as prime minister after a new Conservative leader was elected in July. In the interim period, opposition MPs asked whether a new prime minister would use prorogation to reduce parliamentary scrutiny of the Government's Brexit policy, which the Government did not rule out. In response, Bercow said from the chair that "Parliament will not be evacuated from the centre stage of the decision-making process on this important matter". He further said such a statement was "so blindly obvious so as not to need stating" but was dismayed by the fact it needed to be said.

Under Boris Johnson