John Bercow has warned Boris Johnson against disobeying the law by pushing ahead with a no deal Brexit on Halloween - and suggested it would weaken his ability to tackle crime.
The Commons speaker said it would set a “terrible example for the rest of society” for the Prime Minister to ignore the law and fail to ask Brussels for a further delay.
He said doing so would weaken Mr Johnson’s “moral force” to tackle anti-social behaviour and knife crime.
And he warned Mr Johnson that Parliament would “forcefully” take steps to block him if he tried to do so.
“It is frankly astonishing that anyone has even entertained the notion,” he said in a speech to the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law.
“It would be a terrible example to set to the rest of society.
“One should no more refuse a request for an extension of Article 50 because of what one might regard as the noble end of departing from the EU as soon as possible than one could possibly excuse robbing a bank on the basis that the cash stolen would be donated to a charitable cause immediately thereafter.”
He added: "What conceivable moral force do the public's elected representatives have in seeking to tackle anti-social behaviour, in prosecuting with greater vigour and imagination and relentlessness against knife crime, in arguing that the state must protect itself against all sorts of nefarious illegality, if we are to treat for a moment of the proposition that it might be in order - in the name of some higher cause - to disregard a law enacted by Parliament?"
Speaker Bercow said “neither the limitations of the existing rulebook or ticking of the clock” would stop MPs from preventing the Government pressing ahead with no deal against the law.
He said: “The only form of Brexit which we will have, whenever that might be, will be a Brexit that the House of Commons has explicitly endorsed."
Speaker Bercow went on to propose a ‘Parliamentary Powers Act’ to prevent a Prime Minister overruling or sidelining MPs to get their own way.
And he suggested it may be time for Britain to consider drafting a written constitution to ensure the executive cannot extend its overreach.
