this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2025
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UK Politics

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[–] HermitBee@feddit.uk 0 points 1 week ago (2 children)

like saying "I didn't meet with the United States prime minister"

It's a lot closer to saying "the USA lacks the problems associated with hereditary monarchy which the UK has". The worst you could say is that it's slightly redundant.

(Plus of course the UK has a constitution, it's just not codified in a single document. But that has no bearing either way)

[–] FelixCress@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

UK does NOT have a constitution and "unwritten" thing is an utter nonsense.

[–] HermitBee@feddit.uk 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm not sure why you've put "unwritten" in quotes, given that neither of us said it, but this recent document from the commons library lays out fairly comprehensively how the UK does have a constitution, most of it written down.

From the introduction:

It is often said that the constitution of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is “unwritten”, or even that it does not exist. In fact, and as the Law Wales website notes, “most of the laws, conventions and understandings relating to the constitution are written down”, it is just that “they cannot be found conveniently written down all in one place”.

[–] FelixCress@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I'm not sure why you've put "unwritten" in quotes,

Send me a copy so I can read it since it is not unwritten.

Law Wales website notes, “most of the laws, conventions and understandings relating to the constitution are written down

Complete nonsense. This is not what a constitution is.

Constitution is a set law with the mechanics to amend it which needs higher threshold than an ordinary law, thus protecting the fundamental principles from a potential radical irresponsible parliaments.

UK does NOT have a constitution, it merely have constitutional conventions. If you don't believe me, belive Lord Nuremberg, the President of UK supreme Court:

Unlike every other European country, we have no written constitution and we have parliamentary sovereignty. Indeed, it may be said with considerable force that we have no constitution as such at all, merely constitutional conventions, and that it is as a consequence of this that we have parliamentary sovereignty.

When a country has a constitution, parliament of the day cannot change the law at will. It must change the constitution first or to ensure any changes are in line with existing constitution.

Scotland is a prime example. UK Parliament may decide tomorrow to remove any existing Scottish autonomy and to dissolve Scotland's Parliament. That wouldn't be the case if Scotland's autonomy was protected by the constitution.

The same goes for human rights BTW. Fascists of all kinds want to remove UK from ECHR because this is the only thing which can override the will of Parliament of the day. That wouldn't be the case if human rights were protected by the constitution.

UK does not have any constitution. It has conventions which, unlike any civilised country do not even ensure proper separation of powers.

You can either have a sovereign parliament, ie parliament which can decide literally anything ("let's remove rights we don't like!") or you can have a constitution - but you cannot have both as the constitution is above a parliament.

[–] HermitBee@feddit.uk 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That's true if you only interpret constitution as "codified constitution", certainly.

But the point is still true if you replace "constitutional restrictions on doing so" with "constitutional conventions against doing so" or even simply "a history of protecting citizens against it", so I'm not sure what you're ultimately trying to argue here.

The context you took issue with was:

While I'm not enthusiastic about the idea of stripping citizenship as a general principle [...] the UK doesn't have constitutional restrictions on doing so the way the US does.

[–] FelixCress@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Read again and have a think. Without deluding yourself, ideally.

[–] IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

an "unwritten" constitution is like my Canadian girlfriend, shes real. you just can't see her

[–] FelixCress@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

that would be, "King of America fails to appear", he simply isn't there.