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WHAT HAVE BREXIT AND COVID-19 TOLD US ABOUT PARLIAMENT’S

DEMOCRATIC ROLE?

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Introduction

The UK parliament is one of the most important institutions in the country. The UK is the most

parliamentary democracy in the world. The unique status of the UK is not only in it being a

parliamentary democracy from the point of view of the executive relying on the confidence

parliament has it for survival but also from the fact that parliament is sovereign. As such, the UK

parliament is the highest authority (Ewing, 2017). However, in the recent past, the sovereignty of

the UK parliament and significant role it plays in the democracy of UK has brought into

question. Two events in particular have led to questions being posed about the democratic role of

the UK parliament (Gee and Young, 2016). They are Brexit and Covid-19. In this paper, an

examination of what has been learned about parliament’s democratic role will be carried out.

What Brexit has told us about parliament’s democratic role

As indicated, Brexit is one of the events in UK that brought to question the sovereignty the

democratic role of parliament in UK. Like any parliament in the world, the UK parliament is

responsible for making laws. In most cases, the decisions made by parliament are unchallenged

even by the executive. However, Brexit brought the executive and parliament into conflict. After
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the 2016 referendum which was narrowly won in favour of the UK leaving the European Union

(EU), the UK parliament became a platform for bitter policy battles, resulting in division

between the executive and parliament (Gee and Young, 2016). Government’s proposals on

Brexit were defeated in parliament. Parliamentary tools which had previously not been used

started being used. These tools included emergency debates and private members’ bills. The

tools were used by parliament against the government.

As a result of the dispute Theresa May, the then UK prime minister resigned. Her successor,

Boris Johnson, tried to shut down parliament using the power of prorogation. However, this

decision was swiftly overturned by the UK Supreme Court. After parliament reconvened

following the intervention by the court, the anti-parliamentary rhetoric increased significantly

(Schmidt, 2020). The highlight of the anti-parliamentary rhetoric was the Attorney general

remarking that parliament was dead and it did not have the moral right to sit.

The chaos that came with Brexit allowed people to learn various lessons about the democratic

role of UK parliament. One of the lessons learned the authority of parliament is undermined by

the will of the people. During the Brexit debate, majority of MPs favoured the UK remaining as

a member of the European Union (Gamble, 2018). However, when it went to referendum,

majority of people voted for UK to exit EU. This implies that the will of people supersedes the

authority of parliament and it is the role of parliament to approve the will of the people. Looking

at it from a democratic point of view, it implies that the role of parliament is to respect and

protect the democratic right of the people in UK (Powell, 2019). While the MPs are elected to

represent people, they are not supposed to impose their will on people. Rather they are supposed

to compel the government and the executive in general to implement the decisions made by the

people, in this case, the desire to exit the EU.

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Another lesson learned from Brexit about the democratic role of parliament is that parliament is

not as powerful as it is normally portrayed. A look at Brexit and particularly the role of

parliament shows that the UK parliament was not able to legislate on the issue and make a

decision. The reason why the UK parliament was not able to pronounce itself clearly on Brexit

was because of the complexity of the parliamentary system in place in UK (Clément, 2018). The

British parliament is multifaceted. First of all, parliament is based on the Westminster system.

This system is not based on separation of powers. In other words, while parliament has

sovereignty, it is not separate from the government of the day (Russell, 2020). As such, the

agenda of parliament is significantly determined by what the government is doing.

Another characteristic of the UK parliament is bicameral. It has an elected lower chamber and

unelected upper chamber. With the upper chamber unelected, it means its members are not

accountable to the citizens of UK. Rather they answer to the appointing authority. In addition,

each chamber has its own interests (Ekins, 2019). As such, it is hard for parliament to speak with

one voice. It is the inability to speak with one voice that made parliament unable to pronounce

itself effectively on Brexit. Instead, it reduced parliament to a platform of inter- and intra-party

politics. This reduced the ability of parliament to play its democratic role, especially in relation

to Brexit.

Lastly, Brexit raised questions about the ability of parliament to instruct government. Normally,

the role of parliament in UK is to react to the policies adopted by the executive as opposed to

defining what the policies that should be adopted. In other words, the role of parliament has

either been to reject or accept the policy proposals suggested by the government. With Brexit,

parliament adopted a number of proposals that were aimed to provide it with more control over

the government (Schmidt, 2020). For example, traditionally, in the event parliament rejected
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government’s proposal, the government had 21 days to present a plan to parliament on the next

course of action. However, during Brexit, parliament reduced this time to 3 days. Parliament also

amended the process by which they could respond in the event they reject government proposals

(Gamble, 2018). In other words, parliament was looking for ways to have power beyond simply

saying yes or no to government proposals.

The above highlighted events imply that parliament plays a significant role in the democracy of

UK. However, while constitutionally parliament has the power to instruct government, the fact

that there is no absolute separation of power means that the government has some level of

control in parliament (Ewing, 2017). In addition, with the upper house being unelected,

parliament is not bipartisan but rather it is characterized by interparty and intra-party politics.

This has lowered the ability of parliament to effectively play its democratic role (Russell, 2020).

However, with parliament fighting to take back control as demonstrated by changes it effected

during Brexit to have a say on the policies adopted, it shows that parliament is likely to play a

more prominent democratic role post-Brexit.

What Covid-19 told us about parliament’s democratic role

Worldwide, in any democracy, the role of parliament is to control the government. In an ideal

democracy, the government is normally by and for the people. In other words, the government is

elected by the people. On the other hand, it operates in a way that meets the needs and

aspirations of the people (Griglio, 2020). The role of parliament in this is to enforce the will of

people. Parliament is supposed to control the actions of government. However, this is not always

the case. It is common to find the executive controlling parliament in some countries, with
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parliament doing the bidding of government. The question is, how has the UK parliament been

behaving democratically in relation to Covid-19?

One of the things that Covid-19 has told us about the democratic role of the UK parliament is the

democratic power of parliament is not absolute. The pandemic has shown that in some cases, the

government has more powers than parliament and its decisions cannot be questioned. A case in

point is the lockdown and social distance directive (Malloy, 2020). After the outbreak, the UK

government put in place guidelines that are supposed to be observed by all, including MPs.

The Covid-19 pandemic has also told us that in cases of an emergency, the government

automatically assumes more power, even in legislation. For example, parliament agreed to give

government more power so that it can effectively fight the pandemic. This is given because when

a nation faces a crisis and there is need for an urgent action, decision making process is delegated

to the executive (Mills, 2019). This implies that the role of parliament as the ultimate authority

has been diminished significantly by Covid-19 pandemic.

However, a scrutiny of the legislation during the pandemic shows that in the cases where

parliament accepted government directives, it was majorly out of the feeling that during such

times, it was not prudent to fight with the government. For example, after the outbreak of the

pandemic, the government needed a framework that would allow it to respond quickly the

situation without contravening the constitution (Windholz, 2020). There was thereby need for a

law that would give the government powers to act in certain ways. However, since the

government cannot introduce these laws, it was left to parliament to come up with a law that

would give the government the needed powers. Parliament complied and within four days, the

Coronavirus Act 2020 was passed. This gave the government the power to enact a lockdown. In
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passing the Coronavirus Act 2020, all MPs agreed to work together and give the government the

legislative power to contain the pandemic (Moulds, 2020). As such, even in cases where

parliament seemed to have ceded power to the government, the reality is, cognizant with the fact

that the country was facing an unusual situation, parliament decided to take a more relaxed

approach in its dealings with government to ensure that the pandemic is dealt with effectively.

One piece of evidence which shows that parliament democratic role has remained intact even

during the Covid-19 pandemic is the continued scrutiny of legislation and policies adopted by

government (Griglio, 2020). For example, the parliament still scrutinizes the government actions

and legislations, raising concerns if they feel the policies are good for the country. However, this

is on a significantly reduced scale.

Basically, the Covid-19 pandemic has introduced challenges for the UK parliament. For

example, with the social distancing and inability of all MPs to carry out debates in parliament

premises, it has been hard to effectively discuss legislation being used by the government and

whether it is right. The need by government to deal with the situation quickly also means that it

has not been possible for parliament to carry out lengthy debate sessions (Mills, 2019). Instead,

focus has shifted to reaching consensus. For example, two weeks before the UK government

introduced countrywide lockdown, MPs started to avoid advancing issues to the formal division.

Instead, they began looking for ways of reaching informal consensus. Even the matters that had

reached the formal division were not subjected to further debates. Instead MPs hurriedly passed

them (Moulds, 2020). With the pandemic compelling parliament to hurriedly pass legislation

without proper debate, it implies that the government is now in a position to force its policies on

the country. It also means that sovereignty of parliament, especially with respect to its
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democratic role of controlling the government to ensure it acts in a way that ensures the will of

the people is reflected has reduced considerably.

Conclusion

Brexit and Covid-19 are two of the events that have led to scrutiny of the UK parliament,

especially with respect t to its democratic role. Normally, the role of parliament is to control the

government. MPs being representatives of people, it is their duty to ensure the government acts

in a way that is in line with the needs and aspirations of citizens. During Brexit, parliament

played its democratic role effectively, allowing people to decide through a referendum and

refusing any attempt by the government to impose its will on the people. In fact, parliament set

out to strengthen its powers to go beyond only approving or rejecting policy to contributing to

policy making. As such, with respect to Brexit, parliament plays an important role in promoting

democracy in UK, particularly with respect to controlling government to respect the will of the

people. However, an examination of Covid-19 shows that parliament has ceded a significant

amount of its power to the government. This is aimed to allow government to operate effectively

and successfully deal with the pandemic. The problem is now the government has the freewill to

act the way it pleases.

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References

Clément, G., 2018. “Roundheads vs Cavaliers”: The British Constitution and Parliamentary

sovereignty in the face of Brexit. Observatoire de la société britannique, (21), pp.35-50.

Ekins, R., 2019. Parliamentary Sovereignty and the Politics of Prorogation. Policy Exchange, 16.

Ewing, K., 2017. Brexit and parliamentary sovereignty. The Modern Law Review, 80(4), pp.711-

726.

Gamble, A., 2018. Taking back control: the political implications of Brexit. Journal of European

public policy, 25(8), pp.1215-1232.

Gee, G. and Young, A.L., 2016. Regaining Sovereignty: Brexit, the UK Parliament and the

Common Law. Eur. Pub. L., 22, p.131.

Griglio, E., 2020. Parliamentary oversight under the Covid-19 emergency: striving against

executive dominance. The Theory and Practice of Legislation, 8(1-2), pp.49-70.

Malloy, J., 2020. The Adaptation of Parliament's Multiple Roles to COVID-19. Canadian

Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique, pp.1-5.

Mills, S., 2019. Parliament in a time of virus: Representative democracy as a'non-essential

service'. Australasian Parliamentary Review, 34(2), p.7.

Moulds, S., 2020. Scrutinising COVID-19 laws: An early glimpse into the scrutiny work of

federal parliamentary committees. Alternative Law Journal, 45(3), pp.180-187.

Powell, A., 2019. The will of the people: the UK constitution,(parliamentary) sovereignty, and

Brexit. In On Brexit. Edward Elgar Publishing.

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Russell, M., 2020. Brexit and Parliament: The Anatomy of a Perfect Storm. Parliamentary

Affairs.

Schmidt, S.K., 2020. No match made in heaven. Parliamentary sovereignty, EU over-

constitutionalization and Brexit. Journal of European Public Policy, 27(5), pp.779-794.

Windholz, E.L., 2020. Governing in a pandemic: from parliamentary sovereignty to autocratic

technocracy. The Theory and Practice of Legislation, 8(1-2), pp.93-113.