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The Brexit campaign: has sovereignty been lost?

By Chris Kirkland

One of the main arguments of the Brexit campaign revolves around the concept of ‘sovereignty’. The basic argument put forward by the campaign is that if the British voted to leave the European Union (EU), then ‘we’, the people, would claw back ‘our’ sovereignty. Whilst this argument has been advocated by a range of groups and campaigners (here and here for examples), little attention has actually been spent on understanding the concept of sovereignty on which the argument relies. Here, I ask a series of related questions. What is sovereignty? And as a concept, is there a useful distinction between the holding and the exercise of sovereignty? I ask who the term ‘we’ refers to, and whether sovereignty, resides with Parliament, the electorate or some sense of ‘the people’. How does all this impact the forthcoming EU referendum, and especially the argument that sovereignty has been ‘lost’? These questions matter because both sides have engaged with a very technocratic debate surrounding the economics of remaining or leaving the EU, yet in doing so have arguably simplified a complex issue.

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Essential Guide: Nine ways research gets into Parliament

Please note that this blog piece was originally posted on Sarah Foxen’s personal blog and a version of it was published on the LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog. The post is re-published here with their permission.

By Sarah Foxen

I recently attended an RCUK-funded training day on research and policy. Part-way through one of the breakout sessions, it became apparent that my peers were sharing my frustrations with the training. We had expected to gain practical insight into how research feeds into policy, but instead the training had a rather more reflective focus, with the majority of speakers using their lectern time to perpetuate or challenge discourses surrounding academic impact.

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The Scotland Act 2016: New challenges for parliamentary scrutiny

By Stephen Herbert

The process of parliamentary scrutiny of the recommendations of the Smith Commission and the subsequent Scotland Bill has provided insights into the challenges that implementing the now Scotland Act 2016 present. The Scotland Act 2016 provides for the devolution of a range of new competencies to Holyrood. However, the passage of the Act is significant not only for the powers it confers upon the Scottish Parliament and Government but also the shift in the structure of Scottish devolution that will be a consequence of the Act’s provisions. The 2016 Act will result in a shift from a system of largely separate and clearly demarcated boundaries in terms of the distribution of powers between Holyrood and Westminster to an increasingly shared distribution of powers in a range of policy areas, notably with regard to taxation and social security powers. This will result in a greater degree of inter-governmental working than has been the case to date and will also present challenges to legislatures in examining these relationships. The issues raised, in this regard, by this shift in the structure of devolution are considered here.

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Sunday Trading and the Limits of EVEL

Please note that this piece was originally posted on the UCL Constitution Unit blog, and is available here.

By Daniel Gover and Michael Kenny

Yesterday MPs defeated the government by 317 votes to 286 on its proposals to relax Sunday trading rules. But although the policy would have applied only in England and Wales, the votes of Scottish MPs proved decisive. In this post Daniel Gover and Michael Kenny discuss the territorial dimensions to this episode, and why the recent ‘English Votes for English Laws’ reform did not help the government to pass its legislation.

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The SNP, UK Space Policy and the Politics of Parliamentary Debate

By Alexandra Kelso

On 14 January 2016, a debate was held on UK space policy in the House of Commons, timed to coincide with a spacewalk undertaken by British astronaut Major Tim Peake as part of his mission to the International Space Station (ISS). UK participation in ISS activities marked the culmination of a significant reorientation of government space policy in recent years, and so it is unsurprising that MPs might have something to say about it, and want to take the opportunity to applaud a significant ‘national moment’. The debate attracted media attention, partly due to its coinciding with the Peake spacewalk, and also because of the message of goodwill sent to MPs by William Shatner, who expressed the hope that MPs would, in debating space, ‘take the tenets of Star Trek’s prime directive to universally and peacefully share in the exploration of it’. An MP performing a Vulcan salute during her contribution also helped on the publicity front. It was clearly a novel policy issue for MPs, and one that the Commons hadn’t properly debated in a decade or so. What was most surprising, however, and which drew me to research this issue, was that the debate was moved by an MP from the Scottish National Party (SNP). What, I wondered, were the SNP doing using up their precious parliamentary time for a debate on a topic as unlikely as UK space policy? In my recent paper in the journal Space Policy, I analyse the parliamentary debate in order to solve this puzzle. The paper identifies a number of themes underpinning the debate, but here I focus only on the question that sparked my interest in the first place: why were the SNP getting involved in this incredibly narrow policy issue, which seemed like an unlikely vehicle through which to advance their political objectives?

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Mary Creagh has become the new chair of the Environmental Audit Committee: will she be a catalyst or a chieftain?

By Marc Geddes

Please note that this blog piece has also been published on the Crick Centre blog, and is available here.

Congratulations to Mary Creagh, who has won a by-election for the chair of the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC). In addition to getting to grips with her new committee’s portfolio, Mary Creagh also faces a choice on the type of chair she wishes to be – with committee-orientated catalysts at one of the spectrum of chairs, and the leadership-orientated chieftains at the other. The choice that the newly elected chair will make will have an impact on scrutiny in the House of Commons in a range of ways. In this piece, I want to explore what it means to be a catalyst and a chieftain by drawing on interviews and observations for my doctoral research, and how this might affect Mary Creagh’s leadership of the EAC.

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“Emotionally felt, without footnotes” – the importance of narrative within symbolic representation, affective connections and Parliamentary Outreach

By Alex Prior

I’m a symbol. I’m a symbol of the human ability to be able to suppress the selfish and hateful tendencies that rule the major part of our lives.

Kris Kringle – Miracle on 34th Street

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

Roy Batty – Blade Runner

Taking into account the growing individualisation among the UK population (particularly younger generations) and the accusations of self-interest that are often directed towards mainstream politics, there is a vital role to be played by institutions and concepts that facilitate affective connections. The affective relates to the presence of personal feelings; it is distinct from ‘emotions’ in that the latter is more causal and immediate, and typically a response to direct stimuli. The affective is a broader umbrella term for the ‘irrational’ mindset that encompasses emotions, attitudes and moods, acting as an alternative lens to ‘rationality’ when interpreting political actions and motives. ‘Narratives’ are an area of key interest for me; specifically the ways in which humans establish patterns across isolated data (even where no patterns may exist) and interpret that information as a narrative. In relation to parliamentary studies, narratives are a means for organisations such as Parliamentary Outreach to engage people in democratic participation. In emphasising the importance of narratives as a topic of study, I will demonstrate their relevance to democratic participation by showing their appeal to affect, and their prospective links to symbolic representation.

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The Strathclyde recommendations are based on a false premise that there is a convention that the Lords does not reject statutory instruments

Please note that this blog piece was originally published on the Constitution Unit blog on 14 January 2016, and is available here.

Lord Norton of Louth argues that the Strathclyde Review recommendations are based on a false premise that there is a convention that the Lords does not reject statutory instruments.  Instead of rushing into wider changes the immediate response to October’s tax credits controversy should be to address the inconsistency in the way Commons financial privilege is recognised in relation to SIs. In the longer term there is a case for a wider review of how both houses deal with secondary legislation.

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Too Much Shredded Wheat? Leadership and the lessons of prime ministerial resignations

By Kingsley Purdam, Dave Richards and Nick Turnbull

On both sides of the Atlantic, the New Year has offered up contrasting but related events concerning the highest office of state. First, there was President Obama’s last State of the Union address, a constitutional nicety driven by the limits placed on presidential terms in the USA. For Americans, this valedictory tour de force has a familiar and predictable pattern to it; an opportunity for the incumbent to survey the highlights and narrate their own legacy, so focusing America’s mind on the issue of succession. It is notable that elsewhere and under different circumstances, some political leaders have sought to lead indefinitely, even changing their countries’ constitutions to allow them an extended period of office. President Robert Mugabe has held power in Zimbabwe since 1987. In Rwanda, President Paul Kagame has extended his right to rule until 2034. Similarly, one of the world’s longest serving leaders President Paul Biya of Cameroon has revised his country’s constitution to allow him to continue as president. President Putin served two terms and then stepped down because of Russia’s constitutional limits, only to return in 2012. During his interim, presidential terms in Russia just happened to be extended from four to six years! On this side of the Atlantic, the Prime Minister David Cameron has already, of his own apparent volition, opted to step down ahead of the 2020 General Election. Cameron mused that two terms as Prime Minister were quite enough, stressing the importance of retaining his sanity. Yet in January 2016, he suggested that in the event of a ‘Brexit’, he would seek to remain in office for a full term.

So what can we learn about politics and leadership from leaders who resign their roles when they could stay on? What is the optimum time for being a political leader?

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Voting on Military Action in Syria (Part II)

Please note that this piece was published on the UK Constitutional Law Association’s blog on 01 December 2015, and is available here. It has been re-published here with the permission of the author.

By Hayley J. Hooper

This post is intended as a follow on to Veronika Fikfak’s recent post on the international law dimensions of armed conflict as they affect the role of the UK Parliament. Recent reports suggest that a parliamentary vote on extending military action against ISIS/ISIL from Iraq into Syrian territory may take place this week. However, the Prime Minister in his statement to Parliament announced that: ‘there will not be a vote in this House unless there is a clear majority for action, because we will not hand a publicity coup to ISIL.’ So, it seems the ‘historic’ democratisation of the war prerogative via the Consultation Convention is already in doubt. But equally, we should caution against the view that any parliamentary involvement, even in the sense of legitimation which Cameron’s statement seems to suggest is the preferred option is an unqualified good. The availability of a vote in the House of Commons does not automatically signal a reduction in the ‘democratic deficit’ which exists in relation to the British control of armed conflict powers. Instead, this blog posits that any such engagement of Parliament must be both informed and principled before it can be worthwhile. Three barriers to such informed and principled engagement currently exist in the British parliamentary constitution which are perhaps under-discussed by constitutional lawyers. The purpose of this piece, then, is to bring them into the open to stimulate further discussion.

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