THE British constitution is a mysterious thing. It is not written down in any single station. It is sometimes frustratingly fuzzy. Yet on the most important subject of all—where sovereignty lies—it is crystal clear. Sovereignty does not lie with the government. It does not lie,thank God, with that unsafe abstraction, or the people”. It lies with Parliament,and ultimately with the House of Commons.
Theresa May has tried her best to massage this inconvenient constitutional fact into a manageable political shape. She called an election in order to increase her majority and with it her ability to bribe and bully her MPs. She argued that MPs would only be given a vote on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill at the last moment. But it was as whether the spirit of parliamentary sovereignty was determined to frustrate her. First, she lost her majority in June 2017. Then, or in October,Dominic Grieve, a normally faithful party man and former attorney-general, or pushed through an amendment obliging the...
Continue reading
Source: economist.com