The Conservatives 2015 manifesto promised ‘votes for life’ for all Britons living abroad – in line with other major democracies, such as the USA, France, Italy, and Canada.

Ever since the outcome of the Brexit referendum in June 2016, it seems like the UK constitution has lurched from crisis to crisis.

A programme of research and commentary on the principles of democracy in the UK constitution, parliament's influence over Brexit, and the implications of these developments for parliamentary reform.

The EU referendum was entirely flawed according to criteria set by former Brexit Secretary and ardent Brexiter, David Davis, on how referendums should be “done properly”.

The case for Brexit largely rested on the assumption that the United Kingdom is a unitary nation-state in which the people give effect to their will through a unitary and all-powerful Parliament. In this post, Michael Keating (University of Aberdeen) uncovers the shortcomings of such an approach and asks whether Brexit marks the end of the first of two unions?

[This post will] provide a detailed analysis of an article written by David (now Lord) Frost in this week’s Sunday Telegraph.

Parliament’s role around the end of the Brexit transition and conclusion of the EU future relationship treaty is a constitutional failure to properly scrutinise the executive and the law.

'Identity has been at the heart of Brexit. Anti-Europeans who could not bear the notion of sharing sovereignty at the European level ... They found that they best way to articulate this discomfort was by claiming that the EU was undemocratic, or anti-democratic.'

Post-Brexit we will return to an outdated way of approving trade deals, with little role for Parliament, despite the huge implications of a US deal for public policy, health standards and the environment.

The EU is regularly accused from suffering a ‘democratic deficit’. In particular, it is often asserted that all EU decisions are made by the EU Commission – who are ‘unelected bureaucrats’. As we demonstrate in this post, this criticism is clearly invalid.