Britain Considering a Written Constitution After 800 Years
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  Britain Considering a Written Constitution After 800 Years
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Poll
Question: Do you think Britain needs a written constitution?
#1
Briton: Yes
 
#2
Briton: No
 
#3
American: Yes
 
#4
American: No
 
#5
Everyone else: Yes
 
#6
Everyone else: No
 
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Total Voters: 66

Author Topic: Britain Considering a Written Constitution After 800 Years  (Read 1134 times)
Frodo
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« on: June 07, 2015, 09:19:48 PM »

After 800 years, Britain finally asks: Do we need a written constitution?

By Griff Witte
June 7 at 7:41 PM


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True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
Ernest
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« Reply #1 on: June 07, 2015, 10:22:50 PM »

I voted no as it won't be some sort of magic bullet, but if they want one, I don't see a problem.
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Cory
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« Reply #2 on: June 07, 2015, 10:33:43 PM »

Yes, of course.
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Dereich
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« Reply #3 on: June 07, 2015, 11:01:19 PM »

800 years? Are the Instrument of Government and Humble Petition and Advice no longer things that happened?
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Simfan34
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« Reply #4 on: June 07, 2015, 11:04:09 PM »

Who is "Britain" here?
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #5 on: June 08, 2015, 02:46:35 AM »

Not if David Cameron gets to write it.
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CrabCake
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« Reply #6 on: June 08, 2015, 03:44:30 AM »

No, written constitutions are undemocratic.
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Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese
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« Reply #7 on: June 08, 2015, 06:06:34 AM »

It's a non-issue. The UK has a well functioning political system, codifying their constitution won't change that for neither the worse or the better. Anyway it's not even true that Britain hasn't faced this sort of fundamental challenges before. Have they ever heard of Irish independence, the fall of the Empire? 
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Hnv1
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« Reply #8 on: June 08, 2015, 10:15:20 AM »

No, usually against written const. plus I think it will just cause more havoc in an already fragile system.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #9 on: June 08, 2015, 10:32:59 AM »

Simfan makes a good point.

No, usually against written const. plus I think it will just cause more havoc in an already fragile system.

I would tend to agree with this as well. After all the big advantage of an unwritten constitution is flexibility: convention might seem like a worryingly intangible thing to base your system of government around, but it has certain advantages over worrying about the exact placing of a comma in subsection 11(b).
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Nym90
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« Reply #10 on: June 08, 2015, 10:48:56 AM »

Ideally one wouldn't be necessary. The answer to the question depends on what's in it and who gets to be involved in the process of drafting it, which I can imagine would be a bit contentious.
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afleitch
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« Reply #11 on: June 08, 2015, 11:00:19 AM »

It’s almost impossible to write a constitution, because there’s very little that you need to codify. It seems to be when you want to define something, it’s usually easier in Britain to define what something isn’t rather than what it is (The 1998 Scotland Act defined what powers the Scottish Parliament didn’t have, rather than what it did, which made that governance much easier). That way you aren’t trying to retroactively define limitations.
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Citizen Hats
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« Reply #12 on: June 08, 2015, 10:49:19 PM »

I am generally against the ongoing process of trying to shoehorn the world's oldest government into modern boxes. Let the harmless anachronisms live!
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DC Al Fine
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« Reply #13 on: June 09, 2015, 05:27:11 AM »

I am generally against the ongoing process of trying to shoehorn the world's oldest government into modern boxes. Let the harmless anachronisms live!
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YL
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« Reply #14 on: June 09, 2015, 12:47:51 PM »

From the quoted article:
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Why does any of this mean a written constitution is necessary?  Changing the electoral system (not that that's going to be on the agenda for a bit) doesn't need one, and I don't see how it's going to persuade the Scots to abandon the SNP (who they are of course entitled to vote for) or cure the Tories of Europhobia either.
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