Brexit Crisis: Is The Constitution Failing?

Well the answer cannot really be yes, because in the international definition of a constitution in a democracy we do not have one. We have a set of customs and practices based on precedent, or what has gone before. So if it worked last time we can do it again. Our problem today is that there has been no last time of what is going on now. So we are charting a new constitutional framework in which many of the previously tested and well trodden roads are being abandoned.

In previous posts I have referred to the Fixed Term Parliament Act and the Supreme Court ruling on Article 50. I am not going to return to these now but maybe in the future. But today is an important red letter day in our history for a whole variety of reasons which will take different forms, depending on which side of what argument you are on. Two are obvious. The first is that today was the day we were supposed, for certain, to leave the EU and the second is we have no idea what is going to happen next. Clearly things are not working.

I have also referred to the DUP gaming the system by refusing to support the government’s flag ship policy, yet blocking a successful vote of no confidence which would bring the May government to an end. If we had any rules to guide us, that would certainly break them. But in a game without rules there is no such thing as a foul.

So if the government loses tonight’s vote there is no question that in a rational set up, like ours so little time ago, the May government would be out of office and parliament would be dissolved, so that a new parliament can be elected in a general election. If this does not happen, almost anything else can and something will. And it might not be good.