Since Dicey’s day, there have been many changes which may have allowed parliament to lose its sovereignty. For instance, in the 1800’s there were far fewer voters with only a small percentage of men voting and no women. Currently, there is a mass electorate with almost anyone over the age of eighteen being allowed the vote. With more people getting the vote, the people must have sovereignty, as there are more people to choose parliament. The British Empire used to be extremely large and strong however since the 1800’s the United Kingdom has gradually lost its power due to Parliament not being able to handle power very well. Now Europe has also taken power away from parliament and since 1972 European law and been much stronger thank United Kingdom law. Also Britain’s joining of NATO on 1949 meant that the United Kingdom, as a result ceded some control over defence policy and foreign policy. Theoretically, Parliament could decide to ignore or cancel its commitments to the European Union and NATO therefore commitments like this should not infringe parliamentary sovereignty but in practice, the political and economic consequences of doing this, make these actions very unlikely. Britain’s membership of the EU has raised questions about the sovereignty of the British Parliament. The EU is binding on all member states which is why European Law is so much stronger than United Kingdom law. Although the British Parliament is free to express its disapproval in the case of amendments to the Treaty of Rome, EU legislation automatically becomes law in the United Kingdom regardless of what the British Parliament thinks about it.
In Dicey’s day, Parliament was powerful which meant the executive and leader of the executive were not very powerful at all. However, due to technological change, the increase of media coverage, and a more educated electorate. The Prime Minister, according to Tony Benn has ten major powers. He has the power to appoint, reshuffle or dismiss ministers, the power to create peers, give out honours, appoint chairs of nationalised industries and other appointments such as ambassadors, civil servants etc. According to Benn, Prime Minister also has power over ministerial conduct, powers relating to government business and possibly the three powers that the Prime Minister has which signifies Parliament’s loss of sovereignty are that he has powers over information (he can decide whether or not to inform Parliament about government activities), powers in international relations (for example the war on Iraq where Tony Blair seemed to ignore what Parliament thought) and also the power to terminate a Parliament or government which is possibly the most important power concerning the sovereignty of Parliament. None of these powers would have belonged to a Prime Minister in the 1800’s when Dicey was alive.
In the 1800’s, Parliament was very strong so people had the utmost respect for Parliament. Now however, mainly because of media, the public are open to scandals within Parliament such as the ‘Cash for Questions’ scandal and are able now to watch Parliament on television where the members of Parliament simply look silly, they argue grunt and seem to do very little. The public watching Parliament in the House of Commons and reading about Parliament in the newspapers have the opinion that Parliament is both boring and embarrassing. The electorate also feel that the members of Parliament are too distant and few people know how to get into contact with their local MP. People now have very little respect for Parliament which is another reason why you could say Parliament has lost sovereignty.
However, it could be argued that Parliament still has sovereignty even though it may have changed in scope since Dicey’s day and there are still instances where Parliament has shown it still has sovereignty for example when Parliament defied Margaret Thatcher and Poll Tax in 1989 and 1990 and even the ‘secure’ Blair government witnessed the largest party revolt since 1974 when sixty-seven Labour MP’s defied their whips and voted against changed to disability benefits. These are examples of Parliament showing that it still has sovereignty. Other reasons why Parliament still has sovereignty are that while it is mainly the government which are making and passing the laws, the government is part of Parliament and also strictly speaking, Parliament does have the power to get rid of a Prime Minister although it may never happen, there is still that power there. As argued before, Parliament are also free to leave Europe or ignore Europe (like France did with the ban on British Beef) whenever they feel necessary or they can, if they like go further into Europe but political and economic consequences may have a say in what Parliament decide to do.
With regards to public opinion about Parliament, the amount of coverage in the media shows that the public must still be interested in Parliament and by obeying laws, the public are doing what Parliament tell them to do which does give more power to Parliament.
So although Parliament’s sovereignty has changed in scope a great day since the day of Dicey, it is clear that Parliament does still have some degree of sovereignty albeit the fact that the power of the Prime Minister is increasing term by term, it may not be long before Parliamentary sovereignty is lost all together.
