Supreme Court ruling: MPs share selfies as they travel back to Parliament

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Harriet Brewis @HattieBrewis25 September 2019
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Commons speaker John Bercow announced Parliament would resume tomorrow at 11.30am, and streams of MPs have posted selfies to show they are already on their way back to Westminster.

Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat was the first to share a picture of himself posing in the empty Commons. "We're sitting..." read the caption.

Green MP Caroline Lucas later appeared on the same benches.

Tom Tugendhat tweeted 'we're sitting' barely an hour after the ruling was announced (PA)
Tom Tugendhat MP via PA

"An extraordinary day when parliamentary sovereignty has been upheld," she tweeted alongside her own picture.

In it, she can be seen holding a sign saying "not silenced" - an edited version of the signs which were used by protesting MPs when the government's prorogation of Parliament was first announced.

She added: "The session is resumed and we need to get back to work - holding to account an Executive that is lurching ever further out of control."

Sharing a picture of himself holding a similar sign, Labour's Barry Sheerman tweeted: "Just arrived in House of Commons Speakers office thinks we will sit tomorrow at 11am."

Meanwhile, Welsh Labour’s deputy leader Carolyn Harris shared a straight-faced close-up of herself on the benches with the caption "#DeProrogued".

Labour and Co-operative MP Stephen Doughty was a little further behind his fellow ministers, sharing a photo of himself in the back of a car as he made his way over.

"I'm on my way back to Parliament right now..." he tweeted. "The #SupremeCourt has ruled Parliament was *never* suspended and PM has acted unlawfully - so we should be back ASAP.

"And #LiarJohnson should turn up and be held accountable for his actions."

Jess Phillips, also from Labour, said she would arrive at Parliament later on Tuesday evening to push for new legislation to protect victims of domestic abuse.

"I will make my way to Parliament and get there by this evening and I will start to table questions on the Domestic Abuse Bill," she tweeted.

Mr Bercow said there would be no Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday but there would be scope for urgent questions, ministerial statements and emergency debate applications.

The speaker said: "In the light of that explicit judgment, I have instructed the House authorities to prepare not for the recall - the prorogation was unlawful and is void - to prepare for the resumption of the business of the House of Commons.

"Specifically I have instructed the House authorities to undertake such steps as are necessary to ensure that the House of Commons sits tomorrow, that it does so at 11.30am."

The judges today said Parliament is free to return to sit at Westminster because the Prime Minister’s advice to the Queen was invalid.

“Parliament has not been prorogued,” said Lady Hale, president of the Supreme Court.

The ruling stated: “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.”

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