Constitutional experts told the Guardian newspaper that Johnson's suspension of the parliament for five weeks will be the longest suspension of the British legislature since 1945.

"They said it appeared to be designed to evade scrutiny of his plans for Brexit or any new deal with the EU," said the Guardian.

Parliamentary expert Ruth Fox, the director of the Hansard Society, described the shutdown as an affront to parliamentary democracy.

Legal experts are looking at ways of using the law to block the suspension of parliament.

The latest big name politician to comment, former deputy Conservative prime minister Lord Michael Heseltine, described Johnson's move as a constitutional outrage.

He said: "The government's decision is a constitutional outrage. A government which is frightened of parliament, is frightened of democracy. I hope that every member of parliament, in feeling this humiliation, will use every legal and constitutional weapon to obstruct a government proposing to force on the British people a historic change for which they have long since lost any mandate."

Xinhua contributed to this story.