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Mr Fearnley shows that my tribute to his constitutional knowledge was well deserved. We can agree, I think, that the courts, pace Lord Coleridge, do nowadays have quite a lot to do with “what is said and done within the walls of parliament”. Amongst other things they can review secondary legislation; receive Hansard in evidence; and in a recent case relating to EU Article 50, if memory serves me correctly, they indirectly imposed, at the suit of mere private individuals, a role upon parliament which parliament itself had not sought.

As for parliamentary procedure, if it has any legal basis at all, I can’t imagine what that basis can be other than common law (unless I’ve misunderstood him, Mr Fearnley contends that it has no legal basis). Parliamentary procedure in the USA does not, any more than in Britain, derive from a written constitution, so the fact that America possesses such a constitution and we don’t – being irrelevant – seems in no way to undermine the authority, for what it's worth, of the gentleman from Ohio.

Even primary legislation is no longer exempt from the control of the courts, as Factortame demonstrated long ago. When Europhiles (I don't mean Mr Fearnley) speak of the “supremacy of parliament” I sometimes wonder where they have been living for the last 40 years.

By the way, may I recommend an excellent leader page article in yesterday’s Times by Iain Martin? One would like to see a rational answer to Mr Martin’s remarks from some of our more recalcitrant Remainers.

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