Constitutional experts warn Queen will not be able to trust Boris Johnson again

Prime minister Boris Johnson following the decision at the Supreme Court ruled that his advice to the Queen to suspend Parliament for five weeks was unlawful. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire. - Credit: PA

Experts have warned the Supreme Court ruling means the Queen will be unable to trust the prime minister again.

“Her Majesty is entirely protected and untouched in any negative sense. The real issue is, next time she sits down with the PM, why would she believe a word he says?” Philippe Sands QC, a professor law at UCL, told the Express.

“His position, in that sense, is untenable. For him to continue risks damaging her majesty and the office she holds.”

Dr Bob Morris from the university also believed that he should be expect a “pretty frosty reception” at the next audience with the Queen.

Mike Gordon, professor of constitutional law at the University of Liverpool, also claimed that it was a “no-win” situation for the monarch.

“She’s in a no-win position here because of the nature of our constitutional monarchy.

“Convention says she has to comply with what the government requires of her, but now she’s been told by the Supreme Court, ‘What they told you to do was unlawful’.

“But it would have been very difficult for her to challenge that advice at the time, and if she had that would have brought her into very difficult political territory.

“If we want to maintain the image of a monarch who is impartial and above politics, then this is probably not a power that such a figure can possess.”

He added that the blame fell firmly with Boris Johnson rather than the Queen.

“The wrongdoing here and the illegality was on the part of the prime minister in the advice that he offered to her.”