The UK's Constitution Explained - TLDR Explains

recently we asked our patreon backers what video topic they'd like to see tackled next and there's a clear winner the UK's complicated non-existent Constitution explained so here we are making that video if you'd like a say in the videos that we make then sign up to donate from as little as three dollars a month on top of guessing and say in our video topics you can also get exclusive merchandise discounts on our store early access to some of our videos and behind-the-scenes content in fact if you've been subscribed you would have got this video a day early find out more at patreon.com forward slash tod our news we've actually talked about the UK's Constitution a number of times recently brexit in many ways has been a good test of the UK Constitution we've brexit really pushing the edges and setting new precedents most notably there are a lot of comments in our video when Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow used old parliamentary practice to stop me from bringing back a deal this is really tied to the idea of the UK's Constitution and well let's say that the comments from that video suggested that there might be some confusion about whether or not the UK has a constitution so we thought we'd make a video to clear that up for you while it's true that the UK doesn't have explicit written constitution with a capital C like the u.s. for example the UK does have an unwritten or uncodified Constitution this is relatively rare in modern politics only the UK Israel Saudi Arabia New Zealand and Canada have uncodified constitutions and the last two only have uncodified constitutions because they used to be British colonies and so the political systems are based on the UK system the UK's Constitution draws from four main sources statute law common law works of authority and conventions statute law is probably the most important part of the UK's Constitution statute law refers to Acts passed by Parliament not all acts passed by Parliament unconstitutional generally only those affects how Parliament or the judiciary function all the ones affect the relationship between the individual and state are considered constitutional a recent example of such an act might be the constitutional reform Act there's a clue in the name there which passed through Parliament in 2005 creating the UK's Supreme Court now we all get too bogged down in any legal stuff mainly because no Alexi LDR news is a lawyer but this concept has been recognized in UK law in 2002 in the famous metric martyrs case Lord Justice laws the judge who is ruling on the case declared that certain acts namely the Parliament acts and the Human Rights Act of 1998 were constitutional statutes which could not be implicitly repealed by a new law that contradicts them a similar thing happened in 2012 when Lord Hope ruling on a different case held that the Scotland Act can only be expressly repealed it cannot be impliedly repealed that is because of his fundamental constitutional nature implicit repeal is when an older Act is effectively ignored once a newer one passes through Parliament and contradicts the old acts the old law doesn't have to actually be repealed in parliamentary time and it's just ignored in the future or implicitly repealed on to the next source of the Constitution common law also known as case law this refers to legal precedents created in particular cases that are not enshrined in statute law a good example of this is the infamous factor team case this is where the Spanish fishermen brought a case against the UK Parliament who are demanding that ships in UK water had to have majority British owners the European Court of Justice ruled that this Acts of Parliament contravened EU law and therefore had to be suspended setting the precedent that the EU s-- law superseded UK law all right so if you're still with us the next source of the Constitution our works will thority these are well-known constitutional books or documents such as bagged hots the English Constitution the Magna Carta and a V Dicey's introduction to the study of the law and the Constitution which introduced the concepts of parliamentary sovereignty and rule of law these are not legally binding but often hold huge political weight and has historically shaped the way that the UK's political system has developed the most recent candidate for a work of authority is the cabinet manual written by Gus O'Donnell while he served as cabinet secretary the highest post in the civil service in 2010 it sets out the main laws and conventions which affect how the government operates we've lived a link to the PDF in the description below if you want to check it out now for conventions the cabinet manual we just mentioned describes conventions as rules of constitutional practice that are regarded as binding and operation but not in law despite the fact there's no legal punishment for breaking a convention they are almost always adhered to by politicians there are lots of constitutional conventions some of which you will never need to know or hear of but there are some main ones the Salisbury Convention is the convention that the Lords don't block bills that were in the party's manifesto this convention was created after Labour's landslide in 1945 when label on that general election only 16 of the 761 peers sitting in the House of Lords were labor affiliated so the massive conservative majority could effectively block any legislation it felt like blocking Lord Salisbury the Conservative leader in the House of Lords recognized how ridiculous this situation would be and agreed that the Lord's wouldn't block any legislation laid out in Labour's manifesto it used to be the power to declare war or take military action was solely in the hands of the Prime Minister in 2003 Tony Blair did ask for Parliament's approval before he went to war in Iraq but he made it clear that he was probably going to do it anyway because he had the royal prerogative to do so in 2007 after the Iraq war hadn't gone all that swimmingly Gordon Brown decided to set a new convention if the government requires the backing of parliament before it can declare war or engage in significant military action you might not see why some people get a bit worried about an uncodified Constitution it's held together by conventions that can be broken Acts of Parliament that can be repealed or changed and some ancient books that don't actually have any legal weight so what does a stop some tyrannical government from flipping all of this on its head and turning the UK in some totalitarian dystopia well legally nothing to be honest but this never seems to happen touchwood there are enough checks and balances along the way and conventions and so on hold enough political weight to prevent a complete upheaval in fact when you look around the world having an uncodified Constitution that's flexible to change and allows for organic modernization might actually be an advantage the UK doesn't have any insane outdated rules entrenched and we don't have an unelected judiciary making important constitutional or political decisions anyway that tops it off for this video this is one of the first videos we've done political theory so if you've enjoyed it make sure to comment below and tell us what you'd like us to cover equally if it didn't interest you at all and you prefer we stick for winning forward mirror of endless brexit videos then tell us that in the comments make sure subscribes we kept up to date when we post more videos also you can find exclusive content including extra bonus bits from this video on our other social channels you can find us by searching for Tod our news you

Channel: TLDR News

Views: 168,907

Rating: 4.9206967 out of 5

Keywords: house of commons, human rights, constitution, uncodified constitution, uncodified, written, unwritten, does the uk, uk, united kingdom, does the uk have a constitution, rules, laws, law, rule, eu, european union, brexit, brexit explained, tldr, tldr news

Id: ZwLgjUPQCMY

Length: 7min 32sec (452 seconds)

Published: Tue May 14 2019