Responding to Boris Johnson’s move to suspend Parliament for five weeks, county & West Midlands Liberal Democrat MEP Phil Bennion said: "I am angry and dismayed. This is the biggest constitutional crisis since the English Civil War.

"This is not how the British system of government is supposed to work. We don’t vest absolute power in the hands of one person. We ditched that idea several hundred years ago.

"I don’t want to draw parallels with Germany in the 1930s or King Charles I, but it is very hard not to.

"Johnson is behaving as if he is Mayor of Britain. He did not even consult his Cabinet. The inconvenience of having a Parliament is something he can’t deal with.

"Even if he now loses a vote of confidence, Johnson will try to camp in Downing Street and delay calling a general election until it is too late to stop a disastrous No Deal Brexit going ahead, without a mandate and without a majority in Parliament.

"Everyone from any party who supports our Parliamentary democracy must now work together. There needs to be a motion of No Confidence and then our MPs need to find a new caretaker Prime Minister to extend the Article 50 process and call an immediate general election."