Boris Johnson could suspend parliament again if he loses Supreme Court ruling, Tory minister indicates

Foreign secretary Dominic Raab has twice refused to rule out suspending parliament for a second time if the Supreme Court rules against the government next week.

Mr Raab was speaking ahead of the Supreme Court ruling, due as soon as Monday, on the government's appeal against the finding of Scotland's most senior judges that the five-week "prorogation" to 14 October was unlawful because it was undertaken with the purpose of stymying parliamentary scrutiny of Boris Johnson's government.

The foreign secretary told BBC1s Andrew Marr Show that the government would respect the decision of the panel of 11 senior judges who heard legal arguments over three days last week.

But he dodged the question of whether Mr Johnson might order a second prorogation to keep MPs out of Westminster in the run-up to the Brexit deadline of 31 October.

Asked if Mr Johnson could ask the Queen for a second suspension, he said: "Let's wait and see what the first judgement decides and then we will understand the lie of the land."

When Marr said that he appeared to be indicating that another prorogation was possible, Mr Raab replied: I'm very keen not to get ahead of ourselves on this and very keen not to take levers off the table that weaken the position of the United Kingdom in Brussels."