A review by member Croy Thomson of the talk
“The British Constitution is whatever happens,” declared Lord Sumption, adroitly steering his rapt, full-house audience into the good old-fashioned British muddle of a democracy that somehow functions without a written constitution but very much with a host of politicians prepared to disrupt and destabilise government for their own ends. As he said, “an unwritten constitution leads to complications in constitutional law.”
Lord S captivated us from start to finish with his calm, authoritative, lucid and to the point delivery in a masterclass on presentation. The content too was fascinating … and disconcerting.
According to Lord Sumption, we appear to be losing the ability to identify compromise and common ground and are experiencing, “the colonisation of the centre by the fringe”. We face “the adverse consequences of extremism”, and conundrums such as how Donald Trump has “subverted the United States Constitution without breaking any laws.”
At the root of our constitutional challenges lie polarisation of society and politics, and polarisation “is a threat to our democracy, not to mention the Tory Party.” We live in an age of activism and disruption and the centre ground is not holding. Since “politics abhors a vacuum,” the gap in the centre is claimed by extremists, and organisations such as Just Stop Oil are encouraged.
One endgame Lord Sumption sees is an autocracy where one extreme faction prevails in imposing its will with impunity. Putinesque regimes prosper in such terrain and, “the USA already has one.”
The cast list of the talk included early 20th century PM Arthur Balfour (who said “I’d rather take advice from my valet than from the Tory Party Conference”), Liz Truss, Boris Johnson (“disregards decency and convention”), Jeremy Corbyn, Gina Miller and the Daily Mail for its infamous anti-judiciary headline, “Enemies of the People”. We were reminded of historical crises such as those triggered by Irish Home Rule, the French Revolution, the Corn Laws and Brexit. It has all happened before, and can again.
‘“The British Constitution is whatever happens”
The talk lasted 50 eloquent minutes, with not a visual aid used. Well, who needs visual aids when you’re a Seamus Heaney lookalike with old-school charm as well as intellectual heft? There was a gratifyingly high number of young attendees who looked nimble enough to storm any authoritarian barricade … or possibly build their own. In conversation afterwards, Lord S remarked that Britain has more young voters who’d accept a dictatorship than any other country in Europe bar one: Bulgaria.
Audience questions roamed across subjects including: proroguing; how does our constitution cope with more than one sovereign state in a Union? (“Rather well”); dangers posed by commercial corporations; would an elected House of Lords improve democracy? (“No. The danger is we’d just get a duplicate of the elected House of Commons and no balance”); Is there a future for referenda? (“Yes, but they must be nuanced (and preferably based on already drafted legislation0”).
What did I learn? Democracy and the rule of law are not guaranteed and they have many enemies, one of which is complacency. As I wrote this, martial law was being invoked in the democracy that is South Korea by a President desperate to avoid impeachment on corruption charges (does that sound familiar?). The military blockaded the Parliament building; lawmakers climbed fences to get in to vote down the President’s ruling on the grounds that it was unconstitutional.
Jonathan, Lord Sumption OBE, is a former Supreme Court Justice. His career began as an academic historian before turning to law. He was introduced by Shiona Waldron, who presented him with a Society paperweight. The talk will be available online.
Biography
Lord Sumption began his career as an academic historian before turning to law and practising at the bar. In January 2012 he was appointed as a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom directly from the bar, the only barrister in recent years to have been so honoured. He retired from the court in December 2018. He delivered the BBC Reith Lectures in 2019 on the theme of Law and the Decline of Politics. Lord Sumption has maintained his interest in history throughout his career, recently completing a five-volume history of the Hundred Years War.