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The point of a "flexible" constitution is that it is responsive to underlying political reality and fits around core principles like Parliamentary supremacy. Its strength is that it cannot be 'gamed' by a constitutional player.
This is what we are, collectively, missing.
This is what we are, collectively, missing.
This is critical stuff. What Chris Heaton Harris is here saying is that an Executive of a (minority) Government can thwart the will of a Parliament that is said to be supreme. If our constitution means anything it must mean that Chris is wrong.
However the problem is that our approach to the relationship between an Executive that (we assume) will deliver no deal rather than risk no Brexit and a Parliament that (we learned yesterday) will not contemplate no deal is tangled in the weeds of Parliamentary convention.
It's no exaggeration to say, in my opinion at least, that for the Speaker's team to allow the Executive to thwart the will of a majority of the Legislature would be suh a rupture of our basic constitutional principles that it might never recover (in this form) legitimacy.
