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While the UK does have a sort-of constitution as a mashup of laws and conventions it can be amended by the government of the day by simply convincing their majo
by intunderflow 5y ago
While the UK does have a sort-of constitution as a mashup of laws and conventions it can be amended by the government of the day by simply convincing their majority in the commons to vote for it in the form of a new bill, so it's considerably weaker than constitutions in other states that require significantly more consensus to amend (such as the USA).
- pyuser583 5y agoCan you show me a situation where a UK government has done this? When have they enacted constitutional changes simply because it restricted their ability to enact policies? EDIT: Lloyd George comes to mind. That was over 100 years ago.
- intunderflow 5y agoOne that comes to mind recently is the Irish-sea border as part of Northern Ireland Protocol spanning from Brexit. This was challenged as being in violation of the Acts of Union 1800 (particularly Article 6, which establishes an all-UK Customs Union) but the High Court ruled that the relevant parts of the Acts of Union are "impliedly repealed" by the Withdrawal Agreement Act. There's a BBC article covering this here: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-57666255 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-57666255
- pyuser583 5y agoI don’t see that as being distinct from Brexit - which was absolutely a constitutional change. With Brexit, the UK deeply and seriously considered constitutional change and decided to go through with it. It wasn’t like they had some nefarious end in mind, realized the EU was getting in the way, and decided to withdraw to pursue this nefarious end. They left the EU because they wanted to leave the EU. Edit: I suppose it’s not really about Brexit, but about making trade agreements with the EU.