No match made in heaven. Parliamentary sovereignty, EU over-constitutionalization and Brexit

Abstract

The abundant literature on the UK’s Brexit-decision has focused on explaining the politicization and preference formation leading up to the referendum. But the institutional background has received much less attention. I argue that as a common-law country with a tradition of parliamentary sover-eignty, the UK exhibits institutional features that pose a significant mismatch to the prevailing policy-making mode in the European Union. The latter relies heavily on the constitutionalization of the EU-Treaties with the four freedoms, competition law, and citizenship rights, and accords an extraordi-nary role to the European Court of Justice in policymaking. Constitutionalized European rules regarding freedom of movement and EU citizens’ access to the welfare state drove the politicization of EU-membership in the UK. To understand why ‘taking back control’ found such resonance, it is im-portant to reflect the core features of the UK polity.