Chancellor Hammond backs threat of legal action against BoJo to prevent no-deal Brexit

12 Jul, 2019 15:35 / Updated 5 years ago

British Chancellor Philip Hammond has issued a veiled threat to Boris Johnson, after insisting he would back taking the former foreign secretary to court if he tried to suspend Parliament to ram through a no-deal Brexit.

In an interview with Bloomberg on Friday, Hammond, who has previously claimed that MPs would stage a “sit-in” to stop Johnson from proroguing (suspending) the UK Parliament, insisted he was willing to take the drastic course of action to prevent a “constitutional crisis.”

...if we aren’t able to prevent that course of action [proroguing] through Parliament, then, certainly, there will be resort to the courts, and I strongly support the position that Sir John Major has taken.

It comes after former Tory Prime Minister Sir John Major, who was Britain’s PM from 1990 to 1997, warned Johnson on Wednesday that he would seek a “judicial review to prevent Parliament being bypassed.”

The ardent EU advocate explained that the Queen’s decision to grant a suspension of Parliament “cannot be challenged in law, but the prime minister’s advice to the Queen” can be.

In a sly dig at Johnson, who is the favorite to succeed PM Theresa May, Major claimed that “no serious politician” should put the Queen in such a “constitutional controversy.” He insisted that national leaders should be “putting the interests of the country first... not themselves.”

Also on rt.com Blue-on-blue warfare: Ex-Tory PM John Major threatens BoJo with legal action over no-deal Brexit

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