5. An improved hypothesis
The consensual working hypothesis – almost universally accepted – is that despite its oddities there really is a British Constitution. A better hypothesis, however, fits reality better: there is no such thing only a two-word epithet which seems to mean what it does not mean.
This compound proper noun, used daily, officially and unofficially, is misleading. There may be many books and articles written about it, and radio and television programmes made; the phrase may be quoted promiscuously in parliament and the civil service; but there is no constitution.
At the very least, the notion is problematic – the constitution is ambiguous, inadequate to the democratic task and frequently inefficient; as such it is always going to cause trouble – but I maintain that we must go further than this. When all the evidence is weighed impartially, the British Constitution must be classed as a misnomer: a misunderstanding and misrepresentation combined. It gets in the way of making sense of British politics.
There is, of course, a political system, built around venerable (or creaking) institutions that operate according to hallowed procedures. These are often said to conform to established rules but these rules are not systematised and many of them are unwritten, internal voluntary precedents or conventions.
For good reason, Peter Hennessy invented the notion of “good chaps” government which relies not on a constitution but on gentlemen trained by public schools and Oxbridge to behave decently with the only sanction being disgrace among their peers.
Britain, then, has the apparent ingredients of a constitution but they are scattered, incoherent and sometimes ambiguous. The parts do not make up a whole.
At best we could say there is a quasi-constitution; but even this formula must be hedged around with qualifications to avoid confusion with real constitutions.
The fragments only comprise a constitution from a subjective perspective: the perspective of those people whowant or need there to be a constitution. The constitution is best described as a shared perception, or rather misperception. It is a belief or useful fiction.
The confusion of most people in the country is understandable. Language misleads us because it makes no distinction between the real and the mythological. Every time we use the term “British Constitution” we confirm its existence just as when we talk about the Loch Ness Monster we make it sound as if there really is – or could possibly be – a prehistoric aquatic animal living in a Scottish lake.
Each repetition of the phrase is a reinforcement of belief not a step towards understanding. There is no easy way around this question of subjective language. To put the name of our quarry in inverted commas would be ugly. We could use a more neutral, descriptive term such as the “British Political Configuration” but it is a mouthful that probably will not catch on.
On this website, I refer to the “British Constitution” in the way it is to commonly used by believers to indicate an acknowledged organising instrument of state that is believed to exist.
The Cavalier Constitution 