Boris Johnson will start to claw back the power to call an election today with a warning to judges to keep out of decisions to bring parliaments to a close.
Legislation repealing the Fixed-term Parliaments Act (FTPA) is published today, with ministers seeking to restore the power to go to the country conferred by royal prerogative, according to senior government sources.
Mr Johnson included a promise to scrap the FTPA in the Conservatives’ manifesto in last December’s election, called after a six-month Brexit stalemate in a hung parliament he could not dissolve. It was presented as part of a wider roll-back of what he regards as improper judicial encroachment into politics following the Supreme Court ruling that his prorogation of parliament in September 2019 was