Group portrait of the Seven Bishops whom James ordered imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1688, but who were acquitted of charges of seditious libel. National Portrait Gallery. Unknown artist. Public domain.
When David Davis, Secretary of State for Brexit, responded to the High Court’s decision that only parliament can trigger Article 50 he became unusually incoherent: “Parliament is sovereign, has been sovereign, but of course the people are sovereign”.
The issue might appear baffling and not only to readers around the world who are not British. The UK government exercises power in the name of the crown. The monarch's once absolute sovereignty is now commanded by Parliament in domestic matters. But abroad, the executive still retains an unchecked imperial absolutism, at least in theory. It can go to war or make peace using its royal preogative. The government claims that therefore it does not need Parliament's consent to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to start what it says must be the irrevocable process of leaving the EU; because it is a foreign treaty it has prerogative power. The High Court decided that on the contrary, as it also means undoing what is now domestic law, given the EU's regulation of people's rights, the government has to have parliament's agreement, or parliamentary sovereignty would be undermined. This is the decision the goverment has appealed and on which the Supreme Court will now decide.
