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LEGAL CHALLENGE: Gina Miller

GINA MILLER is seeking a judicial review of Boris Johnson’s plan to suspend parliament in the lead up to the Brexit deal deadline.

Following a request from the prime minister, the Queen granted permission to prorogue parliament, meaning that the parliamentary session will end in the second week in September and resume on October 14, just days before the Brexit deadline agreed by the EU.

The move means pro-Remain MPs have less time to act to stop Brexit or alter Johnson’s Brexit plan.

Businesswoman and campaigner Miller, said: “All right-minded Britons, who believe in the rule of law and the preservation of Britain’s internationally respected and democratic traditions, will share my profound sense of dismay at the cynical and cowardly prorogation of parliament.

“This is a brazen attempt, of truly historical magnitude, to prevent the executive being held accountable for its conduct before parliament.”

Miller said that she had received correspondence from the government’s legal department in the last two weeks stating that the entire issue of prorogation was of no more than “academic” interest.

In light of yesterday’s events, she said Johnson had “comprehensively misled” the country.

“In view of this, I urge our courts to urgently hear my application for Judicial Review before 9 September 2019 – the earliest date that Prorogation of Parliament could come into effect,” she said.

She added: “We have all been comprehensively misled by the Prime Minister and his lawyers. A reply from the Government Legal Department received late on August 27 stated: ‘The proposed intention to bring legal proceedings in respect of events which have not occurred and may never do so is noted. For the avoidance of doubt, we do not accept that the approach taken in your letter is an appropriate one.

“To put this in an official legal letter and send it out at the same time as you are drafting a press release confirming parliament’s suspension the following morning illustrates just how manipulative and anti-democratic this prime minister and his government really are,” she said.

Conservative MP and Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg has described the outrage in response to the decision as “phoney” and said prorogation was “constitutional and proper”.

More than 1.4 million people have signed a petition to stop the suspension of parliament.

Crowds turned out to protest the decision in Westminster yesterday.

Among those taking to the streets was shadow home secretary Diane Abbott.

She likened Johnson’s actions to that of a dictator.

“Not only is Boris Johnson behaving like a Latin American dictator by closing down the legislature at will. But he has the obligatory admiring US president.

"Trump claims Corbyn unlikely to succeed in no-confidence vote against ‘great one’ Boris Johnson,” she tweeted referring to the US president's intervention in the

House of Commons speaker John Bercow has called the move a “constitutional outrage”.