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  • good evening.

  • Buckingham Palace has expressed displeasure after the former prime minister, David Cameron revealed that he sought the queen's help during the Scottish independence referendum campaign.

  • In a BBC documentary, Mr Cameron said that in 2014 he had asked if the queen could intervene because he was concerned Scotland was going to vote for independence.

  • The queen later urged people to think very carefully about the future conversations between the queen and the prime minister, a minute to be kept private.

  • But today Mr Cameron denied that he had acted improperly.

  • Is our royal correspondent Nicholas Witchel.

  • It is the relationship at the heart of the British state between prime minister and monarch.

  • The golden rule is that everything that passes between them is confidential.

  • Yet today, David Cameron has revealed how he encouraged the queen to intervene in the Scottish referendum, and she acquiesced the summer of 2014.

  • The dominant political issue was whether Scotland would break away from the union as British Prime Minister David Cameron was the man tasked with saving the union, it would really be desperately sad to see it torn apart.

  • In early September, a poll predicted that the yes campaign in favour of Scottish independence was in the lead.

  • Now, throwing protocol aside, Mr Cameron has told a BBC documentary how he and royal officials then set toe work conversations I had with my private secretary and he had with the Greens private sector and I had with the queen's private secretary not asking for anything that would be in any way improper or unconstitutional, but just a raising of the eyebrows even, you know, quarter an inch way thought it make a difference.

  • Although the words were very limited, I think it come help tow put a slightly different, um, perceptual things.

  • The queen's eyebrow raising words at it outside about moral church that she hoped people would think very carefully were made out to be impromptu you.

  • In fact, they were deliberate, and we now know that Mr Cameron had had a hand in them this morning on the Today programme.

  • He accepted he'd bean indiscreet.

  • I think I've don't want to say anything more about this.

  • I'm sure that some people would think possibly even be that I've already said perhaps a little bit too much.

  • A few hours later, from the palace came the word displeasure it's safe to assume that the displeasure comes from the queen herself.

  • However, we should not assume that David Cameron was the sole instigator of her remarks.

  • We know that the queen cares deeply about the unity off the United Kingdom.

  • At the time of the Scottish referendum, several members of the royal family were trying to find some acceptable way to make their concerns known.

  • Mr.

  • Cameron's intervention was perhaps the encouragement they were looking for.

  • For the man who led the SNP during the referendum campaign, Mr Cameron's behavior was completely unacceptable.

  • It's an astonishing thing to do.

  • It's an even more astonishing thing to reveal.

  • I mean, has the man got no shame whatsoever?

  • However, the current prime minister was being diplomatic.

  • Not only do I not comment on conversations that I may have held with Majesty, but I don't comment on a conversation she man help with any anybody else.

  • The queen has now been drawn into a disputed paroling of parliament and renewed controversy over the Scottish referendum.

  • For the palace, it is double discomfort.

  • Nicholas Witchel, BBC News, Buckingham Palace The former prime minister, Sir John Major has accused Boris Johnson of being dishonest about his reasons for suspending parliament, Speaking through his lawyer at the Supreme Court, said, John said the only reason Mr Johnson wanted a longer than usual suspension of Parliament was to stop MPs interfering in his Brexit plans.

  • The government is arguing that it is not a matter for the courts at all.

  • Our Home Editor Mark Eastern reports from the Supreme Court Sir John Major Boris Johnson to Conservative Party leaders to prime ministers.

  • But today the battle over Brexit saw them turned blue on blue amid accusations of hypocrisy, dirty tricks and lies.

  • As the Supreme Court began the final day of its hearing into whether Mr Johnson unlawfully suspended or prorogued Parliament, Sir John Major told the judges in a written note that Boris Johnson had ulterior motives and his stated reasons for ending the parliamentary session could not be true.

  • So John Major's liar in court, Lord Guardia, accused a Downing Street staffer of falsely suggesting that John Major himself as prime minister, had suspended parliament with ulterior motives on it was suggested that he had for road for base political.

  • It was a suggestion of mudslinging.

  • There was nothing based on political about the decision to ask the queen to shut Parliament down early ahead of the election in 1997 in the Cabinet at the time.

  • Michael Now Lord Heseltine has dismissed the idea.

  • There's nonsense.

  • There is recent evidence off the Downing Street press office having bean misleading in its nonsense.

  • Lord Guardia also referred to a text sent to the BBC by a Downing Street source, which said the claim that the government's considering Perot going parliament in September in order to stop and bees debating Brexit is entirely false.

  • It later emerged that ministers had discussed asking the queen to suspend the session, although Number 10 maintains it wasn't too closed down discussion on Brexit.

  • We are not concerned with when and how or what terms United Kingdom leaves the European Union.

  • Stressing their discussions have nothing to do with Brexit, The justices today received an answer to their own question to number 10.

  • What would government do if they lost the case now if the Supreme Court says the suspension of parliament WAAS unlawful Downing Street are considering three options depending on the exact reasons one they don't need to do anything at all to, they bring back parliament.

  • But they bring forward the queen's speech or three.

  • They immediately go back to the queen again and ask her to suspend parliament again.

  • But this time lawfully thats afternoon.

  • The government lawyer, Lord Keen, argued.

  • It should never get that far anyway because the judges have no right to rule on the matter.

  • The length of each session of parliament and the frequency between sessions is regulated by constitutional convention and not by the laws remain.

  • Campaigner Gina Miller's lawyer argued the outcome should be the immediate recall of MPs.

  • Does the prime minister have to do anything to ensure that parliament meet next week?

  • We'll it maybe it maybe that's the speaker of the House of Commons on the Lord Speaker in the House of Lords will take action to ensure that parliament reopens as soon as possible.

  • Next week's matter for them on then Parliament can debate if they follow past practice.

  • The justices will come together in the next few days and each in turn, will give their view, starting with the newest member of the Supreme Court on finishing with the president, Lady Hale, with a decision early next week.

  • It is as she said, a serious and difficult question of law, the world outside the courtroom, a question with profound implications for the great institutions of state, for our democracy and for the citizens of a troubled kingdom.

  • Mark Eastern BBC News The Supreme Court Meanwhile, Boris Johnson said today that some progress is being made with Brexit negotiations in Brussels.

  • The president of the European Commission, Jean Claude Juncker, has tonight said he believed a deal between the two sides could be reached before October.

  • The 31st while our Europe editor Catchy Adler, is in Brussels for us tonight, so is there some movement?

  • Are they unlocking this at last?

  • Well, so if you know there's a lot of noise about briefings here, there and everywhere from number 10 from you leaders often really contradictory as to how much progress is really being made in talks on There's a lot of movement that Brexit secretary zooming around Europe today Madrid tomorrow Brussels The Prime minister jets off to New York next week to the U.

  • N General General Assembly, where he'll sit down with Emmanuel Macron on Angela Merkel.

  • But frankly, Sophie, there's a lot of sounds, a lot of fury a lot of spin, but not much is really changing on the ground that Irish back Salt remains these sticking points of finding a new Brexit deal with the EU and the UK still pretty far apart as the what could and should be done.

  • But on the positive side, you leaders are as keen as Boris Johnson if it all humanly possible to find a deal next month, No one you side I speak to off the record thinks it's possible to find that magic solution by mid October that you leaders summit here in Brussels, as the prime minister wants.

good evening.

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