Speaker John Bercow gloats as he reopens Commons

Furious Geoffrey Cox today dismissed calls to quit over his advice that prorogation was legal – and raged that Parliament is ‘immorally’ blocking an election.  

The Attorney General ridiculed claims that he should quit after his view was rejected by the UK’s most senior judges yesterday.

He told MPs that the Supreme Court had ‘made new law’ – something he said it was ‘perfectly entitled’ to do.

Mr Cox also went on the attack against Jeremy Corbyn and other opposition parties who are blocking Boris Johnson’s attempts to go to the country for a new mandate. He said a new bid to go to the country will be tabled ‘shortly’ and urged the ‘spineless gang’ to support it. 

The Labour leader insisted this morning that a poll must not be triggered until the Brexit deadline has been pushed back beyond Mr Johnson’s ‘do or die’ date of October 31. 

‘This Parliament is a dead Parliament, it has no right to sit on these green benches,’ he boomed. 

‘This Parliament should have the courage to face the electorate. The time is coming when even these turkeys won’t be able to prevent Christmas.’ 

Mr Cox hinted that the government might bring forward a one-line Bill to hold an election on a fixed date. That would only require a simple majority, rather than the two-thirds threshold needed through the Fixed Term Parliaments Act route. 

He also seemed to suggest that ministers have given up on trying to find loopholes in the Benn Act, which requires the PM to beg the EU for a Brexit extension if an agreement is not in place by October 19. 

Asked if the government would abide by the Remainer law, he replied: ‘Yes.’   

Mr Cox was also embroiled in brutal clashes with former Tory minister Philip Lee, who defected to the Lib Dems in protest at Brexit policy. When Dr Lee urged him to show ‘humility’, Mr Cox shot back that having refused to call a by-election when he switched parties the MP should be ‘on his knees’ begging forgiveness from constituents.

Reconvening the House earlier, Speaker John Bercow gloated that Mr Johnson’s prorogation of Parliament had been ‘expunged’ by the bombshell Supreme Court ruling.

Telling MPs ‘welcome back to our place of work’, he spelled out that the suspension triggered by the PM earlier this month had been made void – as legally it never happened. 

The stage is now set for Boris Johnson to run the gauntlet in the chamber later.    

The PM has returned to Downing Street after cutting short his trip to New York, and is set to renew his call for a general election to break the Brexit deadlock when he faces the wrath of MPs in the wake of the bombshell Supreme Court judgement. 

Mocking calls for him to resign today, Mr Cox said: ‘I have to say, that if every time I lost the case I was called upon to resign I probably would never had had a practice.

‘The government accepts the judgement and accepts that it lost the case and at all times the government acted in good faith and in the belief that its approach was both lawful and constitutional.

‘These are complex matters on which senior and distinguished lawyers will disagree.’

He added: ‘Of course we respect the judgement of the court. Given the Supreme Court’s judgement, in legal terms the matter is settled.’

Mr Cox said normally legal advice would not be made public but he said he would ‘consider over the coming days’ whether there was a public interest in a ‘greater disclosure of the advice given to the government on this subject’.

He said: ‘I am not permitted to disclose the advice I may or may not have given to the government but I repeat: The matter is under consideration.’

He suggested the ruling by the Supreme Court had brought a written constitution a step closer. 

The Attorney General has been facing demands to quit over his botched prorogation legal advice, while Mr Cummings is also under fire amid growing calls for him to be booted out of Downing Street.

Mr Cummings has been credited with masterminding Mr Johnson’s strategy since the latter won the keys to Downing Street at the end of July.

That strategy has seen Mr Johnson lose six Commons votes out of six, 21 Tory MPs stripped of the whip, the resignation of the PM’s brother, numerous clashes between the PM and angry members of the public and then yesterday’s devastating Supreme Court ruling. 

Mr Johnson’s political opponents have demanded Mr Cummings be sacked while there is reportedly growing disquiet within the government about the path the Vote Leave maverick has put the Tories on. 

However, Downing Street said this morning that Mr Johnson does still have confidence in Mr Cox while ‘nobody’ – minister or official – had offered to resign over the prorogation ruling. 

‘The answer will be ”no” on all of those questions,’ the Prime Minister’s official spokeswoman said. 

Earlier, Mr Gove was defiant as he made clear he did not agree with the judgement – although the government will abide by it. 

‘I don’t think the government should apologise for having a strong domestic agenda,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. 

‘I don’t think we should apologise for trying to advance our exit from the EU.’ 

He added: ‘I think it’s important to stress that while the Supreme Court was clear, there is a respectable legal opinion that disagrees with that view. 

‘It’s perfectly possible in a democracy to say you respect a judgment and will comply with the judgment, but you also note that there are a range of views about the appropriateness of a particular course of action.’

Speaking on the same programme later, Mr Corbyn denied that he was running scared of an election because of his dire popularity ratings – which are the lowest ever for an opposition leader at minus 60.

‘Until it is very clear that the application will be made, per the legislation, to the EU to extend our membership to at least January, then we will continue pushing for that and that is our priority,’ Mr Corbyn said. 

He added: ‘When that has been achieved we will then be ready with a motion of no confidence…

‘Our priority is to prevent a No Deal exit from the EU on the 31st of October,’ he said. ‘I am very happy to have an election when we have taken No Deal off the table and the EU has agreed to an extension.’ 

The veteran left-winger said Mr Johnson had ‘abused the power he has in the royal prerogative and attempted to close down Parliament’. 

‘I think he should apologise to (the Queen) for the advice he gave her but, more importantly, apologise to the British people for what he’s done in trying to shut down our democracy at a very crucial time when people are very, very worried about what will happen on October 31,’ he added. 

In a vindictive step, Mr Corbyn confirmed Labour will not grant the Conservatives a Commons recess so the party can hold its conference – due to get under way in Manchester on Sunday.   

‘I won’t support anything that shuts down parliament until it is absolutely clear that the government will abide by the law and apply for an extension,’ Mr Corbyn said. 

A No10 source took a similarly hard line last night, suggesting the court had ‘made a serious mistake in extending its reach to these political matters’.

‘Further, the Supreme Court has made it clear that its reasons are connected to the parliamentary disputes over, and timetable for, leaving the European Union. We think this is a further serious mistake,’ they told the BBC.

Mr Johnson accused the court of siding with Remain campaigners to ‘frustrate Brexit’, although he was careful to say that he ‘respected’ the court’s judgment.

But Amber Rudd, who quit the Cabinet over Mr Johnson’s hardline approach to Brexit, said it was irresponsible for the Government to claim the ruling was ‘all about people trying to frustrate Brexit’ when the Government’s defence was that ‘prorogation had nothing to do with Brexit’.

Sir Nicholas Soames, a rebel Tory thrown out by Mr Johnson, said: ‘Boris has learned the hard way: be ye ever so high you are not above the law.’

The backlash led Justice Secretary Robert Buckland to issue a warning to the Cabinet against questioning the impartiality of the judiciary.

Parliament will now be recalled today, with Mr Johnson forced to cut short his visit to the UN general assembly in New York where he was holding talks with world leaders. Ministers were last night weighing up the possibility of using the recall to make another bid to force an election.

Mr Johnson said that, with Parliament gridlocked, an election was now ‘the obvious thing to do’. Ministers however fear they do not have the numbers to win a Commons vote on the issue.

Pro-Remain MPs last night indicated they would exploit the judgment by forcing a series of votes designed to embarrass the Government.

Yesterday’s court ruling was the final blow to Mr Johnson’s decision to suspend Parliament for five weeks.

In a defiant response, the Prime Minister brushed aside opposition calls to resign and appeared to suggest the court had political motives.

Speaking in New York he said it was ‘perfectly normal’ for a government to prorogue Parliament in order to hold a Queen’s speech, which he had planned to stage on October 14.

He added: ‘Let’s be in no doubt, there are a lot of people who want to frustrate Brexit. There are a lot of people who want to stop this country coming out of the EU.’

The Prime Minister said that he had the ‘highest respect’ for the judiciary, but added: ‘I strongly disagree with this judgment.’

Supreme Court president Baroness Hale said that with the prorogation eating up five of the eight weeks of possible parliamentary time before Britain left the EU, ‘the effect on the fundamentals of democracy was extreme’.

She added: ‘No justification for taking action with such an extreme effect has been put before the court.’

Delivering the unanimous verdict of 11 of the UK’s most senior judges, she said: ‘The decision to advise Her Majesty to prorogue Parliament was unlawful because it had the effect of frustrating or preventing the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional functions.’