Comment by andyjohnson0
7 months ago
> Yes, of course Parliament will need to vote on this
Not the case. The executive makes treaties. Parliament can scrutinise them but has no general ratification or veto role. See https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-... .
The Parliament being sovereign, it can pass an act about anything. It could certainly pass an act forbidding the government from ceding territory to a foreign power. However, since the current government holds a majority in parliament, in practice it won't happen.
Parliament can pass basically any laws it likes, so it could certainly do that. But that would never happen unless there was a total breakdown of MP party discipline. Hard to see that happening outside of a brexit-type constitutional impasse.
My point was that there is no constitutional requirement for parliament to ratify treaties.
It has a veto role in the text you cite (I mean, its described as an infinitely renewable 21-day delay, but that's functionally a veto, especially since the government is subordinate to and can be dismissed by Parliament during the delay, and replaced by a more cooperative government; treating the UK as if it had coequal executive, legislative, and judicial branches like the US is an error; in the UK, Parliament is supreme and the executive and judicial powers are subordinate to and contingent on its support. The government’s power usually isn’t opposed by Parliament not because the government is equal or more powerful, or has true independent powers that the Parliament can't check, but the reverse—“the government” is established from the leadership of the Parliamentary majority, and they are absolutely dependent on continued support from Parliament, so they don't, outside of the most exceptional cases, do anything that doesn't have at least tacit support of the majority of Parliament in the first place, so there is nothing to have conflict overm)
My point was that there is no constitutional requirement for parliament to ratify treaties.
Yes, it can delay a treaty. It could even pass legislation preventing a treaty from having legal effect. But that would require a extraordinary breakdown in parliamentary party discipline.