Tag: Referendums
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Stephen Tierney: The Lord Advocate’s Reference: Referendums and Constitutional Convention
On 11-12 October the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a reference brought by the Lord Advocate under the Scotland Act 1998, Schedule 6, para.34 (‘the Reference’). The Lord Advocate seeks determination of the following questions: Does the provision of the proposed Scottish Independence Referendum Bill that provides that the question to be asked in…
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Rivka Weill: We the British People Rule: From 1832 to the Present
To anyone who accepts Britain’s parliamentary sovereignty, Brexit should not make sense. How could a nation committed to parliamentary rule find itself bound by a consultative referendum’s result? And after the majority of Parliament had repeatedly opposed Brexit! In “From Earl Grey to Boris Johnson: Brexit and the Anglo-American Constitutional Model,” I reveal that…
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Iain Halliday: Can the Scottish Parliament Legislate for a Second Independence Referendum?
Following the December 2019 election result, which resulted in the Conservative party winning an overall majority, but losing several of their seats in Scotland to the SNP, there has been renewed calls for a second referendum on Scottish independence. There is an ongoing debate regarding whether the Scottish Government and Parliament can hold a referendum…
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Oran Doyle: Irish Unification: Processes and Considerations
Editors’ Note: This post is part of an IACL-AIDC Blog Symposium on unification of the island of Ireland. The Symposium is co-hosted by the Constitution Project @ UCC Blog. Selected posts will also be co-hosted by the UKCLA Blog. The full set of posts can be found here. The Belfast/Good Friday Agreement (GFA)—the agreement between…
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Chris McCorkindale and Aileen McHarg: Constitutional Pathways to a Second Scottish Independence Referendum
The Scottish Government’s Case for a Second Independence Referendum On 19 December 2019 – a week after the Westminster General Election at which the SNP, again, won an overwhelming majority of Scottish seats – the Scottish Government published its long-awaited case for a second independence referendum: Scotland’s Right to Choose: Putting Scotland’s Future in Scotland’s…
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Javier García Oliva: Sentencing the Catalan Separatists: The Painful Vindication of Equality Before the Law and Separation of Powers
As the dust settles following Miller (No. 2)/Cherry, tension inevitably mounts over the next instalment of the Brexit saga, and how the Prime Minister will interpret his commitment to respecting the Benn Act. Against this backdrop, it is interesting to speculate as to whether recent events in Spain will have any impact upon his decisions,…
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Kyle Murray: Putting Parliament in Its Place: The Pro-Brexit, Democratic Case for a Second Brexit Referendum
I am a Brexiteer. I am also a democrat (indeed for me the two are very much connected). In this post, I argue that despite mainstream protests to the contrary, democratic principle points to a strong case for a second Brexit referendum. The argument also gives some food for thought regarding the democratic credentials of…
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Richard Ekins: Representative Politics and the Limits of Law
This is the first of a series of posts in which Richard Ekins reflects upon Lord Sumption’s Reith Lectures. In his second Reith lecture, “In Praise of Politics”, broadcast on Tuesday, Jonathan Sumption aims “to make the case for the political process, with all its imperfections.” He develops a forceful argument for the capacity of…
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Philip Allott: The Problem of Direct Democracy: Brexit and the Tyranny of the Majority
The Brexit process has been a major event in British constitutional history, and in the history of constitutionalism in general. It originated in the positions taken by two Prime Ministers. David Cameron said that he was bound to hold a referendum because that commitment had been contained in the Conservative Party manifesto for the 2015…
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Gavin Phillipson and Alison L. Young: Wightman: What Would Be the UK’s Constitutional Requirements to Revoke Article 50?
Today the Court of Justice of the European Union delivered its judgment in Wightman. This followed the opinion of Advocate General Campos Sánchez-Bordona, concluding that the UK may unilaterally revoke its notification of its intention to leave the EU. In a similar manner to the AG, the CJEU placed conditions on this unilateral revocation. A…