Tag: UK Prime Minister
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Stephanie Reynolds: Celebrities, Social Media, and New Sites of Political Constitutional Accountability
Over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford has been credited with being instrumental in securing a series of government u-turns on free school meals. Although Rashford’s campaign has been frequently discussed in the traditional media and in Parliament, Rashford has also repeatedly turned to social media not only to campaign…
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Mike Gordon: Priti Patel, the Independent Adviser, and Ministerial Irresponsibility
We might wonder whether it is worth writing about the rules of ministerial responsibility under the current government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson. This is especially the case after the Prime Minister’s remarkable, but hardly surprising, decision last week to give his full support to the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, to remain in his Cabinet…
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Rodney Brazier: Contempt for the Constitution?
The Speaker speaks On 30 September the Speaker made a formal statement excoriating the Government. He told the Commons that Ministers had shown “a total disregard” for the House when using their powers to make delegated legislation under the Coronavirus Act 2020. Having set out his reasons, he ended by saying that he looked “to…
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Rodney Brazier: Change of Prime Minister, anyone?
If Boris Johnson is to be believed – and obviously he wouldn’t lie about anything – Covid-19 nearly killed him. There are no modern precedents that could be followed after the death of a British Prime Minister. Nor is there a comprehensive and detailed guide setting out who should do what and to whom and…
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Tom Caygill and Jack Simson Caird: Constitutional Groundhog Day: The Post-legislative Review and Repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011
The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (hereafter the FTPA) removed the Prime Minister’s power to unilaterally trigger a general election, extinguished the Monarch’s prerogative power to dissolve Parliament and established a system of fixed-term (or semi-fixed) five-year Parliaments. Section 7 of the Act, a government concession following intense scrutiny in the House of Lords, requires the…
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Jeff King: The Prime Minister’s Constitutional Options after the Benn Act: Part II
This is the second of a two-part discussion of this theme. The first part addressed the obligations under the Benn Act and the legal response to attempts to frustrate it; this second part addresses non-confidence motions, resignation and change of Government. Heading numbering is continued from Part 1. 5. Non-confidence procedure under the FTPA –…
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Jeff King: The Prime Minister’s Constitutional Options after the Benn Act: Part I
This is the first of a two-part discussion of this theme. This first part addresses the obligations under the Benn Act and the legal response to attempts to frustrate it; the second part will address non-confidence motions, resignation and change of Government. There has been significant confusion about options open to Government and the opposition…
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Michael Detmold: The Monarch in the Room
(Let’s be clear. Why is an Australian constitutional lawyer writing about the UK Constitution? It’s simple. She’s our Queen, too.) The Court in Miller/Cherry (at 35) distinguished between the question ‘whether a prerogative power exists’ and ‘whether, granted that a prerogative power exists, and that it has been exercised within its limits, the exercise of…
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Theodore Konstadinides, Noreen O’Meara and Riccardo Sallustio: The UK Supreme Court’s Judgment in Miller/Cherry: Reflections on Its Context and Implications
On 24 September, the UK Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Prime Minister’s advice to prorogue Parliament was unlawful, and that the resulting Order in Council and subsequent prorogation were ‘null, void and of no effect’. The litigation on the justiciability of prorogation and the lawfulness of the Prime Ministerial advice has led to one…
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Krishan Nadesan: Asking the Impossible: Benn, Kinnock and Extending Article 50
Boris Johnson seems caught in an impossible bind. The European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act – the Benn Act for short – obliges him to seek an extension of Article 50 on 19 October. He can extend, honour the law, but break his promises. He can refuse to extend, honour his promises, but break the…