Thread: Bye bye, British constitution

Bye bye, British constitution

It was on its last legs, but two recent events look like the final nails in the coffin for our unique unwritten constitution

Comments 71
Anthony Barnett
guardian.co.uk
Thursday 5 November 2009 16.30 GMT

Two developments on Wednesday 4 November have finally blown up Britain's uncodified constitution, symbolically just before the anniversary of Guy Fawkes's early efforts.

The publication of the Kelly report on MPs' expenses makes it certain that members of parliament will no longer be in charge of their own pay and remuneration. Their exceptional sovereignty as the supreme body, one that therefore had to be self-regulating, is now universally derided as a club-land hangover. They still call each other honourable members, but who regards them as such, or trusts them to be so? Now, not even they do. However, the legitimacy of the uncodified constitution rested on their being different from the MPs of other, lesser countries. The normalisation of MPs, which turns them into employees, breaks the spiritual basis of Britain's unique form of rule.

At the same time, David Cameron's commitment to pass a United Kingdom sovereignty bill is explicitly designed to bind all future parliaments and is justified by him as having the effect of a written constitution. As he says, and few doubt that he will be prime minister within months, "It would simply put Britain on a par with Germany, where the German constitutional court has consistently upheld – including most recently on the Lisbon treaty – that ultimate authority lies with the bodies established by the German constitution".

"Never Again" is his slogan. But "never say never" is the genetic code of traditional British sovereignty. Cameron proposes to formally recognise the termination of the formal uniqueness of the UK's unwritten constitution.

In practice it was already shredded. First by membership of the EU, then by the creation of Scottish parliament and Welsh assembly, which Westminster cannot now undo on its own, third by the Human Rights Act. Previously, those who passed these laws always denied their transformative status. Now it is undeniable.

The old constitution is over, bust, no more, a dead parrot.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... nstitution

This is very sad news.