Category: Constitutional Law

Some words of comfort to regular readers

29th April 2021

Regular readers of this blog will be aware that things are not well with the constitution of the United Kingdom, or with law and policy generally.

Regular readers will be braced for bad news – even without this blog’s frequent injunction of ‘brace brace’.

But.

There are, believe it or not, some grounds for optimism.

The grand Cummings-Johnson project of pushing prime ministerial power as far as to could go is close to collapsing.

Cummings has gone, and Johnson has few remaining internal allies in government.

Indeed, Johnson seems quite isolated even within the government.

Other parts of the constitution are still twitching with indications of life.

For example: the house of lords, as with the Overseas Operations Bill, has ensured that certain proposed unpleasant provisions will not be enacted – resulting in a minister departing office.

And although few will have high hopes of various inquiries and investigations into what has and has not happened in Downing Street, at least those inquiries are happening and that they are, to a certain extent, beyond ministerial control.

The illiberal 2016 project does not – necessarily – have easy purchase in 2021.

Constitutionalism may still yet reassert itself.

To mimic Johnson – constitutionalists need not be doomsters and gloomsters.

One day – perhaps soon – the constitution of the United Kingdom will still be there, and Boris Johnson will not be.

Even if it is a close run thing.

 

 

 

Genuine accountability, mock accountability, and the lies of Boris Johnson

28th April 2021

Today’s prime minister’s questions was extraordinary.

On the two issues of the moment the prime minister Boris Johnson was relentlessly unconvincing and evasive.

In respect of the alleged ‘dead pile high’ quote, it is plausible and – according to the media – well-sourced.

In respect of who paid for the Downing Street decorations, the verbal dodges to the simple query of who initially paid for an invoice were painful to watch.

But.

Not many will care.

A significant number of the population will, no doubt, sympathise with the sentiment which the prime minister expressed about lockdown, and more than a few will agree with the actual wording.

Similarly, the question of the refurbishment invoice will not matter to those who do not mind who paid as long as it was not the taxpayer.

Perhaps there will be hard evidence – either compelling on-the-record testimony or even an audio recording – to prove Johnson as a liar.

Yet even then the only surprise would be that he has been so starkly caught out.

The sad, inescapable truth is that Johnson conducts himself as if he is free from accountability.

And the reason he is able to do this is simple: it is because he can.

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Let us look at the available mechanisms of accountability.

Johnson and his government will avoid, as long as possible, any formal inquiry as to their conduct in respect of the coronavirus pandemic.

The prospect of an electoral commission investigation is difficult to get excited about, given their impotence in respect of the lack of compliance during the referendum.

And Johnson just freely lies to parliament.

The examples – all of which are documented and verifiable – just accumulate.

Almost nobody cares.

We have more internal ‘inquiries’ – which may or may not report, or even be heard from again.

Few people keep track.

And as Fintan O’Toole observes, Johnson is not now even bothering to lie in prose:

‘It’s not when Boris Johnson is lying that you have to have to worry. If he’s lying, that just means he’s still breathing. No, the real danger sign is the gibbering. It’s what he does when he can’t be bothered to think up a lie.’

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Against this pervasive mendacity, those organs of the state that are able to check and balance the executive are being undermined or removed: the independent civil service, the diplomatic corps, the independent judiciary, and so on.

All because – at last – the United Kingdom now has a prime minister willing – and shameless enough – to exploit to the full the (ahem) opportunities that the prime minister has with a parliamentary majority.

Eventually, of course, Johnson’s hubris will meet nemesis – just as he himself eventually came to meet the costs of the Downing Street refurbishment.

And here we are lucky – for if we had a political leader who was as serious in retaining power as, say, Vladimir Putin, we would have few constraints to look to for checking and balancing power.

Johnson is what we get, however, when politicians stop believing (or affecting to believe in) the ‘good chaps’ theory of the constitution.

Tuttery is insufficient – and the tutting could be three times as loud, and it would still make no difference.

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There are indications that political and media supporters of Johnson are moving against him.

If so, there could be a mild political crisis and that this may be enough to dislodge Johnson from office.

But this would not be through any application of any constitutional check or the operation of any constitutional balance.

For all of Johnson’s sheer and endless casual dishonesty, there has been nothing the constitution could do to stop him.

Even if he was proven to have lied to parliament, that would mean nothing politically if he still had support of the majority of members of parliament.

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And on a final note.

Usually at this point of this sort of exposition, someone will aver that all this shows the need for a written (that is, codified) constitution.

The universal panacea for every political ill.

But.

A written constitution is as likely to entrench executive power than to limit it.

The problem is not the type of constitution.

The problem is instead a related one: the failure of constituionalism.

And while Johnson’s brazen disregard for constitutional norms is tolerated, there is no point changing the rules of the game, for he would disregard those rules too.

The problem is a political one: and the solution is thereby to show that this conduct means he loses power.

*****

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What should we do with a former prime minister?

19th April 2021

The last former prime minister to go to the house of lords was nearly thirty years ago.

Margaret Thatcher became a peer in 1992, when she stood down as a member of parliament.

This followed the similar examples of other prime ministers who entered the house of lords when ceasing to be a member of parliament: Alec Douglas-Home (1974), Harold Wilson (1983) and James Callaghan (1987).

Edward Heath instead stayed on as a member of parliament after losing office in 1974 until 2001.

And, in general, this accorded with what had always happened – former prime ministers continued in parliamentary and public life.

(With the occasional exception such as Macmillan, and even he accepted a peerage eventually.)

Since the example of Thatcher, no former prime minister has become a member of the house of lords.

John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron: all promptly left the commons after losing office but have stayed – at least formally – outside of Westminster.

Only Theresa May – still a member of parliament – contributes to parliament as a former prime minister.

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Until recently there was no issue about what former prime ministers did, because former prime ministers became (willingly or not) elder statesmen and stateswomen.

Coming together from time to time to pose with the queen.

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But like police officers, former prime ministers seem to be getting younger.

And, perhaps because of the rules on disclosure of business interests, former prime ministers do not become members of the house of lords.

Former prime ministers instead appear to have business and public speaking careers instead – though, to his credit, less so with the example of Brown.

So we have a somewhat novel feature on the political landscape: the (relatively) young former prime minister commercially active outside of parliament.

And what, if anything, should we do with such individuals?

Should they be under special rules – distinct from other former ministers?

Should they have generous pensions – so that they do not resort to commercialising their unmatched connections?

Should they be compelled to become peers, so that the disclosure rules apply to them too?

Or should we just let them get on with whatever they wish to do?

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The office of prime minister is unique – and it thereby follows that the contacts and knowledge of a former prime minister will also be exceptional.

Of course: we could always rely on the ‘good chap’ theory of the British constitution – for, of course, no former prime minister would do such unseemly things as texting ministers for contracts for a business.

Ahem.

There is a problem – but less obvious is how to fix it.

What do you do with a former prime minister?

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It is time for lobbying to return to the lobby – why transparency is more important than more rules

18th April 2021

Consider the following two statements :-

‘There should be a law against it.’

‘It has not broken any laws.’

Both of these statements are common utterances in political conversation, and they are both possibly said by any of us on depending on circumstance.

Both statements seem to be different.

Yet both these statements are about the same situation: (a) a wrong has happened and (b) no law has been broken.

The difference between the statements is the attitude of the person making the statements, whether ‘something should be done’ or ‘there is nothing to see here’.

No principle or substance separates the two statements, only political expediency.

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The prompt for the observations above is, of course, the unfolding lobbying scandal in the United Kingdom.

The former prime minister David Cameron and certain former officials have been shown to be doing things which, in the view of the many if not the few, they should not have been doing.

But, as this blog and others have averred, the individuals concerned have not broken any rules because (it would seem) there are no rules to break.

A cynic would say that a this is the reason why the current prime minister has ordered an investigation, as it will be inevitable that the individuals will be ‘cleared’ of any rule-breaking.

But being ‘cleared’ of any rule-breaking is not the same as being exonerated of any wrong-doing.

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The alternative response to the current situation is to call for more rules.

This in part stems from the view – almost a surviving form of magical thinking – that a thing will not happen because there is a rule against it.

Laws as spells.

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But what seems to be needed here is not so much more prohibitions, and more codes to (creatively) comply with, but more transparency.

There will always be lobbying – and there is nothing inherently wrong in a democracy with any person seeking to influence those with power.

The important thing is that it is not hidden from view.

That the public can see, if it wishes, the influences being exerted on public policy.

That there are public processes in place for those approaches and exchanges to take place.

In a word: a lobby.

Think about the word, which the internet tells us is defined as:

‘a room providing a space out of which one or more other rooms or corridors lead, typically one near the entrance of a public building’.

And this is the source of the word ‘lobbying’.

Lobbying took place in a lobby: a public or at least quasi-public space.

The time has perhaps come for the practice of lobbying to go back to its root – and for there to be a formal (and, if need be, virtual) lobby where there these exchanges happen and can be seen to happen.

It is perhaps time for the return of the lobby.

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Constitutions and court-packing

16th April 2021

Over in the United States there is a discussion about ‘court-packing’.

In particular, the question is about the new president should seek to nominate additional justices to the supreme court.

Some liberals and progressives are aggrieved at the current composition of the court.

A number of justices were nominated by Republican presidents who had not won a majority of the popular vote.

The Republican majority in the senate delayed one vote on a nomination and then rushed through another, with no regard to political consistency.

From a liberal and progressive perspective, these grievances are well-made.

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But.

From a constitutionalist perspective, there was nothing unconstitutional in a (Republican) president nominating new justices and a (Republican) senate deciding when to have the votes.

Both the delayed vote and the rushed confirmation were politically distasteful and discrediting.

But they were not unconstitutional.

Conservatives, however, should not take too much heart from this – as there is also nothing inherently unconstitutional about a president seeking to add justices.

This is because the constitution (though not federal legislation) is silent on the maximum number of supreme court justices.

If the Republican shenanigans about the appointment of supreme court justices was within the scope of the constitution, so may be any attempt to add new justices.

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A more fundamental question is about the role of the supreme court.

On the issue of abortion, for example, liberals and progressives have long depended on supreme court jurisprudence, especially Roe v Wade.

Yet it would be better and more sustainable to have fundamental rights sets out in legislation, rather than on the fragile basis of supreme court decisions.

A conservative majority on the supreme court is only as illiberal as the questions that will come before it.

If liberal and progressive policies are promoted and implemented by the route of legislation rather than litigation, then a conservative majority on the supreme court is less of a concern.

Liberal and progressive policies are always better secured by means of legislation rather than by court rulings.

***

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Cameron, May, Johnson – who, in constitutional terms, is the worst prime minister?

15th April 2021

Future students of history and politics will no doubt have to answer essay questions about who was the worst prime minister out of David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson.

And there is also no doubt there will be those who will aver that, say, Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair was worse than any of those three.

Over on Twitter the comedian and writer David Schnieder offered his view:

 

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From a constitutionalist (and liberal) perspective, there is a case to be made against each of the three.

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Johnson, for example, switched the government’s policy on Northern Ireland and Brexit, negotiated and signed the Northern Irish protocol, and rapidly passed it into legislation without any scrutiny – and we are currently watching the fallout from this.

One can also put against Johnson that it was his switch from supporting Cameron and his political ambition that led May to adopting the hardline positions that she did on Brexit.

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It was May, however, who was responsible for the ‘red lines’ that meant that the United Kingdom would leave the single market and customs union, which in turn necessitated there having to be elaborate provisions in respect of Northern Ireland.

She is also the one that triggered Article 50 prematurely and without a plan, and she even sought to make this momentous notification without an act of parliament.

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But.

Cameron is the most culpable.

However bad May and Johnson have been, they were and are merely dealing (badly) with a situation created by Cameron.

Cameron staked the entire future of the United Kingdom on a single turn of pitch-and-toss – a simple yes/no referendum – assuming that, of course, he would win.

No considerations – let alone plans – were made for the contingency of the votes being for leave.

It was perhaps the most irresponsible domestic political act one can imagine in peacetime.

A ‘macro’ decision that, in turn, led to the bad ‘micro’ decisions of May and Johnson as they sought to give effect to the referendum result.

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And so Schneider may be wrong on this, at least in terms of what the United Kingdom is going through constitutionally.

Looking at it in terms of other policies, one perhaps could take a different view.

But I suspect future generations will be aghast and bewildered at Cameron’s folly.

***

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The judges are only the ‘enemies of the people’ when it suits the government

14th April 2021

For the government. and its political and media supporters, the judiciary are the ‘enemies of the people’.

The view is that that it is no business of activist judges to interfere with what ‘the people’ want.

It is a view that led the London government to oppose the supreme court determining the two Miller cases.

It is also a view that informs the current attempts by the government to limit judicial review and the scope of the human rights act – to the claps and cheers of many who (frankly) should know better.

But it is a shallow view, adopted out of convenience and partisanship.

For, when the political boot is on a different constitutional foot, the government suddenly values an independent judiciary being able to assess the constitutional propriety of a measure:

See Joshua Rozenburg’s detailed piece here.

Also note the response of the London government’s former chief legal official:

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From a political perspective, this referral prompts mixed feelings.

My political view is that a Scottish parliament can and should be co-equal with the Westminster parliament – as the legislatures in Canada and Australia are, even if nominally under the same head of state.

As such, it is frustrating to see the emphatically supported view of the Scottish parliament potentially stymied in this way.

But a political view is not always the same as a constitutionalist perspective.

And under the current constitutional arrangements of the United Kingdom, this is a question that can be referred to the supreme court – and as such there is nothing unconstitutional about the London government doing so.

(Whether those should be the constitutional arrangements is a different question.)

It is sheer hypocrisy – and there is not other word – for the London government, and its political and media supporters, to pick-and-choose when the supreme court gets to determine constitutional questions.

Either the supreme court is a constitutional court or it is not a constitutional court.

And it should not be regarded as only a constitutional court when the London government wants to face down Edinburgh, Cardiff, or Belfast.

A constitutional court is not and should not be regarded as an imperial court.

***

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Access to decision and policy-making is a right but not a privilege: David Cameron, lobbying, and regulation

13th April 2021

Let us start with one proposition, so as to see if it is sound or not.

The proposition is: that in a liberal democracy there should be no closed class of those who can seek to influence public policy.

Just as – in theory – any person can go to the lobby of the house of commons or write a letter to a member of parliament, any person can also attempt to speak to a minister or protest outside a ministerial office.

If this proposition is sound, then there is nothing, in principle, wrong with any person seeking to lobby any parliamentarian or minister.

And if that is a correct statement of principle, then it follows that the principle can be asserted by persons one disagrees with or disapproves of – including finance companies and former prime ministers.

Framed in this way there is a certain superficial plausibility to the contention that the former prime minister did nothing wrong in seeking to influence ministers about a company in which he had a personal interest.

Any wrongdoing would, it can be contended, be at the ‘supply-side’ of ministers and officials who wrongly were influenced by such lobbying, not the ‘demand side’ of the person seeking to obtain influence.

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Let us now look at rules.

As the estimable Dr Hannah White explains in this informative and helpful article, it would appear that the issue of Cameron’s lobbying is not about whether rules have been broken but that there appear to be no rules to be broken.

And so we have a gap.

https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/1381610539147726853

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But.

There is something wrong.

It may be that there are no rules that have been engaged, still less broken.

And it may well be that one can (just about) aver that the general principle of openness means that any person from you to Cameron can seek to lobby a minister.

But it still seems wrong.

Yet a general sense of wrongness is not the same as effective regulation.

What can be done, if anything can be done?

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Part of the problem is indeed with the ‘supply side’ – any approaches by any person, former prime ministers or otherwise, should be reported and logged, and those approaches must be spurned unless there is absolute transparency.

It is not enough that we have the ‘good chaps’ theory that, of course, no minister or official would be (wrongly) influenced.

The general principle that any person in a liberal democracy should be able to seek to influence a minister does not mean such approaches should be cloaked – the quality of openness that attends the former carries over to the latter.

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Switching to the ‘demand side’ of seeking political or policy influence, the general principle that any person in a liberal democracy should be able to seek to influence a minister does not mean that there has to be an ‘anything goes’ approach.

Just as everyone has the ‘right’ to dine at the Ritz – but it an empty right when one cannot afford it – a right to lobby those with power is an empty right if one does not have connections or the know-how about making such access effective.

Unless lobbying is regulated then there will be a natural tendency for those with money – such as a finance company – and those with the best connections – such as a former prime minister – to have far more effective access and influence than others.

This then undermines if not negates the rights of others, as influencing decision-making, rule-making and policy-making becomes the preserve of those with better connections.

It is the right of the privileged, but one masquerading as a a general right of openness.

Any company should have the right to make representations to the government – but only on the same terms as as any other company.

This would mean that it is the merits of the representation that makes a difference, rather than the extent of the access.

And any lobbyist – of whatever background –  should not have a greater right of access than any other lobbyist.

This means by implication that there are certain individuals – such as former ministers and former senior officials – who if they are to be permitted to approach their former colleagues, should only do so under the full glare provided by absolute openness and transparency, and in accordance with published procedures.

And if such absolute openness and transparency and procedural certainty is not feasible, then they should not be able to directly approach ministers and officials at all – even if it is in respect of their personal interest (as opposed to on behalf of a paying client, which is a gap Cameron was able to exploit).

They can write a letter to a member of parliament, or wave a placard on Whitehall, like anyone else.

***

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The Good Friday Agreement and Brexit

12th April 2021

Before the Brexit referendum, one British politician made an emphatic statement about the impact of Brexit on the position of Northern Ireland:

‘Relations between London and Dublin are by far the warmest they have ever been since Irish independence, and the people of Northern Ireland are among the beneficiaries of that.

‘For that, the credit goes to a whole succession of British and Irish leaders, and to the tireless diplomacy of the United States. Yet it has also partly been facilitated by both countries being part of a common framework.

‘If the UK were not in the EU, the impact on such close relations, though hard to quantify, would certainly not be positive.

‘The Good Friday Agreement was based on the assumption that the two countries would be in the EU together, and the various cross-border institutions it established are built on that.

‘Hundreds of millions of euros of European funds are currently diverted into the border region through a special peace programme.

‘Most important of all, the open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic would be called into question.’

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The key sentence of that passage bears repeating:

‘The Good Friday Agreement was based on the assumption that the two countries would be in the EU together, and the various cross-border institutions it established are built on that.’

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Who was this politician?

Was it some starry-eyed Europhile writing in some left-wing magazine?

No, it was former Conservative foreign secretary William Hague writing in the Daily Telegraph on 9th May 2016.

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Hague’s warning was not the only one – and he was also not the only one to make the connection between the European Union and the Good Friday Agreement.

The then Taoiseach Enda Kenny said, just days before the referendum:

‘When the Good Friday agreement was concluded 18 years ago, the detail of the negotiations and the agreement itself were brought about as a result of intensive engagement by the British and Irish governments in conjunction with the Northern Irish political parties.

‘But often underestimated was the international support for the process, not least that of the European Union.’

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And if one looks at the Good Friday Agreement itself, you will see the following recital:

‘The British and Irish governments […]

‘Wishing to develop still further the unique relationship between their peoples and the close co-operation between their countries as friendly neighbours and as partners in the European Union’

The agreement also expressly provided that the north-south ministerial council ‘consider the European Union dimension of relevant matters, including the implementation of EU policies and programmes and proposals under consideration in the EU framework. Arrangements to be made to ensure that the views of the Council are taken into account and represented appropriately at relevant EU meetings’.

Indeed, there are eight mentions of the European Union in the agreement.

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Of course, an agreement made in 1998 did not and could not have anticipated the United Kingdom voting to leave the European Union in 2016 and then leaving in 2020.

But that shared membership of the European Union was a presupposition cannot be sensibly denied.

As Hague also points out about Gibraltar, shared membership of the European Union was a handy and effective solution to tricky cross-border issues.

The European Union was a useful geo-political work-around for many otherwise insoluble problems. 

And so be departing from the European Union, such advantages of membership were removed.

This should not have been a shock.

Hague set this out plainly in the Brexit-supporting Telegraph, and the Taoiseach also put his name to articles explicitly stating this.

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Brexit, of course, is not in and by itself a contradiction of the Good Friday Agreement – in that the Good Friday Agreement still is in force now that the United Kingdom has departed the European Union.

In the first Miller case, the supreme court was asked to rule against the Article 50 notification, and they stated in respect of the legislation implementing that agreement:

‘In our view, this important provision, which arose out of the Belfast [Good Friday] Agreement, gave the people of Northern Ireland the right to determine whether to remain part of the United Kingdom or to become part of a united Ireland.

‘It neither regulated any other change in the constitutional status of Northern Ireland nor required the consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland to the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.’

As such continued shared membership of the European Union may well have been a presupposition of the Good Friday – but it was not (as a lawyer may say) a condition precedent.

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The Good Friday Agreement is, in terms of its practical importance, perhaps the most significant single constitutional instrument in the politics of the United Kingdom.

It is of far more practical importance than, say, Magna Carta.

It shapes what is – and is not – both politically permissible and politically possible.

It largely explains the curiously elaborate – and, for some, counter-intuitive – nature of Brexit in respect of Northern Ireland.

It meant that the clean absolute break with the European Union sought by many Brexit supporters did not happen.

The Irish border was to be kept open.

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But the Good Friday Agreement does not only protect the nationalist community, it also should protect the unionist community.

And the Brexit arrangements – with a trade barrier effectively down the Irish Sea – is seen as much as an affront to the unionists as a visible land border infrastructure would have been an affront to the nationalists.  

There is no easy answer to this problem – perhaps there is no answer, easy or hard.

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It took membership of the European Union to make the Belfast Agreement possible.

Perhaps there is no alternative geo-political workaround to take its place.

Had the United Kingdom stayed within the single market and the customs union, even if as a matter of legal form it would not technically be a member of the European Union, then perhaps this problem could have been averted.

But the fateful decision by then prime minister Theresa May in the months after the Brexit Referendum that Brexit would mean leaving the single market and the customs union meant that problems in respect of the position of Northern Ireland would become stark.

And as nods to the articles by Hague and Kenny show, it cannot be averred that the United Kingdom government was not warned.

***

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History vs law – the two disciplines compared and contrasted

11th April 2021

On a superficial level, the disciplines of law and history have a good deal in common.

Both subjects deal primarily with words.

The stuff of history (as opposed to prehistory or archaeology) tends to be written documents – though supplemented with the evidence of other materials.

And the stuff of law also tends to be written instruments and, in litigation, the words of witnesses and lawyers – though supplemented by other forms of evidence.

Neither of these two observations are universal, of course – one can have historical accounts and evidence without any words, and one can have law and litigation without words.

But in the main: words are the thing.

Both subjects also deal with evidence.

For history, this is (ahem) self-evident – and for law, the application of laws and legal instruments will always come down to a given fact situation: did [x] breach the contract or did [y] damage that artefact.

And both subjects tend to deal with the construction of narratives derived from assessments of evidence.

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But there lies the crucial difference.

While in putting together a historical account, there are no rules of evidence – if a piece of evidence is relevant then it can and should be used.

In contrast, in law and litigation there are rules of evidence – some evidence may be highly relevant, but it cannot be put before a court because it is inadmissible.

And the questions of the evidence which are asked by a historian will be different to that of a lawyer.

A historian may well ask ‘what happened’ – but a judge may ask only for that evidence that is relevant to the elements of the criminal offence or civil wrong that is being tried.

In concrete terms, a judge will not be interested in all sorts of circumstantial and contextual information about, say, a theft or a trespass but may look only at that evidence which goes to whether there was permission by a property owner.

And this is why legal records such as judgments or transcripts from trials are sometimes unexpectedly complicated sources to interrogate and analyse for a historian.

The questions being asked or the problems being solved by a judge or a lawyer are not that of someone committed to free historical inquiry – but instead have an immediate purpose in respect of the elements of the case that need to be proved or otherwise.

Judgments in particular can be misleading to the student of history – especially those that are framed as showing that, of course, one party had a more compelling case than the other.

The truth is that if a case was indeed that one-sided then the claim or action would normally not have needed to go to trial.

But a good historian knows that every document – including a legal document – has its own context, and that it was created (and survived) for a reason – and that reason is usually not for the personal benefit of a historian.

And in that respect, law and history are both good as ways of promoting critical engagement with words and evidence. 

It is just that they are not the same, despite their superficial similarity.

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The reason for these reflections is my ongoing attempts to understand and explain practical law and policy by means of critical engagement of written sources.

For example: a good deal of the politics of the last five years in the United Kingdom has been shaped by the structure of Article 50, and by the European Union law on the internal market, and by the Good Friday Agreement.

Such texts have led to all sorts of policy and political contortions and distortions, with things being pushed and pulled in one direction or another just to accord with (perceived) legalities.

A lawyer, however, would never have predicted what happened after 2016 just by looking at the dry, black letter text of Article 50 and other European Union provisions, and by the Good Friday Agreement.

There is a limit to how much one would understand about, say, Brexit or Trump by just looking at legal instruments and transcripts.

But there is, I hope, a valid purpose in doing so.

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