Political response In response to the bill's passage on 4 September, the Government immediately brought a motion for an early general election under the terms of the
Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. The motion failed 298–56, short of the two-thirds supermajority of all MPs (434) needed to trigger an election; opposition parties either voted against or abstained on the motion as they believed the intention of the government was to ensure departure from the EU without a deal while
Parliament was dissolved for such an election. On 9 September, a second attempt at triggering an early election failed 293–46. On 5 September, at a press conference at a police training school in
Wakefield, West Yorkshire, Johnson said he would rather be "dead in a ditch" than request an extension to Article 50. Johnson was criticised by the
Police Federation of England and Wales,
West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner Mark Burns-Williamson and Chair of the
Home Affairs Select Committee Yvette Cooper among others for using the speech for partisan purposes, thus bringing into question the impartiality of the police. In a press release on 6 September,
Chief Constable of
West Yorkshire Police, John Robins, stated the speech was intended to announce new policing policy and the force was not given prior notice of the speech being expanded to include other matters. In response to continuing concerns of the possibility of Johnson breaking the law,
Secretary of State for Justice Robert Buckland stated on 8 September he had discussions with Johnson over the importance of the
rule of law—which Buckland, as
Lord Chancellor, has a legal obligation to uphold—but denied rumours he would resign from the Cabinet if Johnson did break the law. By 9 September, reports surfaced that the Government would seek to bypass the law by sending a request for an extension as required by the Act alongside another letter that declared the request invalid; former
Supreme Court justice
Lord Sumption described such an act, in the face of judicial action, as a possible
contempt of court that would risk the resignations of the
law officers in his Cabinet, while former
Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald said Johnson was risking imprisonment for the same offence. In response,
Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn tabled an emergency motion for debate on that day on the importance of the rule of law; the motion passed without a vote in a symbolic victory for the opposition, although the Government stated in the debate that their policy would be to not request an extension, despite the legal requirement to do so. Polling undertaken by
YouGov over the weekend of 6–8 September 2019 indicated 50% of respondents disapproved and 28% of respondents approved of the proposition of Johnson breaching the law; Leave (52% in favour, 28% opposed) and Conservative (50%–34%) voters were most supportive whereas Remain (8%–77%),
Liberal Democrat (11%–76%) and
Labour (14%–69%) were the most opposed. On the same day,
Liz Saville Roberts, the leader of
Plaid Cymru in the House of Commons, announced she had entered discussions with other parties to gather support for
impeachment if Johnson refused to obey the law. Impeachment is an arcane parliamentary procedure that has never been successfully levelled towards a prime minister or a Cabinet Minister; the last individual to be impeached was
Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville for his actions as Treasurer of the Navy in 1806, though he was acquitted. Plaid Cymru had spearheaded the last serious impeachment attempt,
an unsuccessful 2004 effort to indict then-Prime Minister
Tony Blair for lying to Parliament regarding the
Iraq War. On 26 September 2019, former Prime Minister
John Major said in a speech to the Centre for European Reform that he "feared" that Johnson would use an
Order of Council to nullify the Act until after 31 October. Orders
of Council, in contrast to the similarly named
Orders in Council, are decisions taken by the
Privy Council alone, as opposed to with the consent of the monarch; such orders are typically made for technical reasons—such as regulating the medical profession—and not to disapply statute law. The option to use Orders of Council would likely utilise provisions of the
Civil Contingencies Act 2004 that allow for the Government, in times of emergency, to temporarily disapply laws.
Court cases On 12 September 2019, an application was made to the
Court of Session in Scotland by
Jo Maugham and
Joanna Cherry to require the Prime Minister to sign the extension letter in the event no withdrawal agreement could be agreed in time. The applicants hoped that the Court's power of
nobile officium, unique among UK courts, would enable it to send the extension letter on Johnson's behalf if he declined to do so. Cherry, the justice spokeswoman for the
Scottish National Party, and Maugham had successfully brought a case before the Court of Session to challenge Johnson's prorogation of Parliament, which had delivered a judgment that declared it unlawful on the previous day. On 24 September 2019, the
Supreme Court ruled in
R (Miller) v The Prime Minister and Cherry v Advocate General for Scotland that the prorogation was unlawful and void; as a response, Parliament was recalled to sit the following day. That morning, the
Attorney General,
Geoffrey Cox, said there was "no question of this government not obeying the law" with regard to the Act, and that the Government believed what legal obligations the Act contained was an open question. On 7 October 2019, the Cherry/Maugham petition to the Court of Session to force Johnson to comply with the Act was denied. The
Outer House of the Court of Session ruled that there was no "reasonable apprehension of a breach of statutory duty" and that, in the light of averments before the Court that the Government would comply with the act, there was no need for a coercive order to enforce compliance. On 9 October, the
Inner House of the Court of Session decided that a final ruling on the petition would not be made until 21 Octobertwo days after the deadline in the Act for the Prime Minister to request an extension. Separately in the Inner House, the campaigners requested a ruling that, if such a letter came to be required and Johnson failed to write it, the Court would write the letter itself using
nobile officium powers. Following a special sitting of Parliament on Saturday 19 October, the Benn Act required the prime minister immediately to write to the European Council with a request for an extension of withdrawal until 31 January 2020. Prime minister Boris Johnson sent two letters to the president of the European Council,
Donald Tusk: one, which was stated to be from the UK prime minister but was not signed, referred to the requirements of the Benn Act and requested an extension until 31 January 2020; the other, signed personally by Johnson and copied to all Council members, stated that it was his own belief that a delay would be a mistake and requested support from the president and Council members for his continuing efforts to ensure withdrawal without an extension. The letters were delivered by the British permanent representative in Brussels, together with a cover note signed by himself which affirmed that the first letter complied with the Benn Act. On 21 October, the case resumed in the Inner House. The campaigners conceded that Johnson had fulfilled the requirement of the Act that he write seeking an extension, but contended that his second letter negated the first. The Court refused the government's request to dismiss the case, deciding that it should remain before the Court "until it is clear that the obligations under [the Benn Act] have been complied with in full". On 7 October, government lawyers had undertaken to the Outer House that Johnson would abide by all requirements of the Act. These included responding to the EU's reaction to his letter. Any breach of that undertaking could have placed Johnson in contempt of the Court.
Parliamentary language debate The Prime Minister's description of the law as a "Surrender Act" in Parliament was criticised by
Dewsbury MP
Paula Sherriff, who said his language was unnecessarily inflammatory and said that opposition politicians routinely received death threats that similarly called the law a "Surrender Act" and accused MPs of "betrayal" and that Johnson should moderate his language; Johnson received heckles of "shame" when he described Sherriff's comments as "
humbug".
Tracy Brabin, the then MP for the neighbouring constituency of
Batley and Spen, also asked Johnson for moderation to prevent violence against MPs; her predecessor,
Jo Cox, was
murdered in June 2016 by a neo-Nazi. Johnson declined and elicited further outrage from some MPs when he said that "the best way to honour [Cox's] memory" was "to get Brexit done". == Outcome ==