Most people across the British Isles are disillusioned with the way our nations are governed—and it shows in every aspect of daily life.
Employers complain about employees. Employees complain about employers. Everyone complains about government and its monolithic grip on power, regardless of which party happens to occupy Westminster.
This endless cycle of frustration springs from decades of indifference by successive governments to the needs of ordinary people and the businesses that sustain the economy and the nation.
If you feel ignored by government, you’re not alone.
This must change.
**The Power must move from Westminster to the people**
Every civilised nation needs social responsibility and a capable state, an umbrella that ensures public health, education, and national security.
But everything beyond that should be managed by organisations free to innovate within clear, non-negotiable frameworks that demand social and moral responsibility and ethical behaviour.
The BDA believes that if we create a moral and ethical government, we will foster moral and ethical institutions, businesses, and communities.
A society built on responsibility and fairness is stronger and more prosperous than one where everyone merely asks what they can take.
Why does Westminster hold nearly all the cards?
The current Westminster model of government simply no longer works in the modern era.
Parliamentary supremacy, as practised at Westminster, is the single biggest constitutional gap that allows power to be abused in the UK.
It may have worked tolerably when politics was slower and culture was steeped in restraint, but today it effectively places the government of the day above the law.
What parliamentary supremacy means in practice
- Parliament can make or unmake any law, with no higher law to restrain it.
- No court can strike down an Act of Parliament on substantive grounds, only interpret it.
- A government with a Commons majority can push through sweeping changes—often via secondary legislation—without meaningful checks.
This is very different from the US, much of Europe, or even Commonwealth countries like Canada, where a written constitution or charter of rights allows judicial review to block unconstitutional laws.
Why this is dangerous today
- Speed and scale: modern technology and global crises let governments legislate far faster and in areas (surveillance, data, finance) far more intrusive than the 19th-century framers imagined.
- Partisan capture: party machines dominate candidate selection, so a “majority” often means a leadership clique with less than 40 % of the popular vote can do virtually anything.
- Normalisation of emergency powers: from terrorism to pandemics, each “temporary” power sets a precedent for the next.
The result is exactly what the people both see and feel:
Politicians acting as though they are above reproach because, constitutionally, they almost are.
To embolden and entrench their power, the two main political parties, the Conservatives and Labour, have successively changed legislation to ensure that it is virtually impossible for an Independent to stand as the Prime Minister, in fact, even if one could somehow stand, they would have no way of gaining any power to run the country.
Party machinery is embedded in law and procedure
Several legal and procedural pillars make it almost impossible for independents to collectively choose a PM:
-
Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (PPERA)
-
Regulates registration, funding, and spending of political parties.
-
Provides state mechanisms (e.g. Short money, official broadcasting slots) to parties, not loose groupings of independents.
-
Independents must run separate returns, can’t pool finances, and can’t form an “informal party” after the fact.
-
-
House of Commons Standing Orders
-
Recognition of an “Official Opposition” requires a registered party.
-
Parliamentary time, committee chairmanships, and Short money are allocated to parties, not ad hoc alliances.
-
-
Cabinet and government formation practice
-
The monarch appoints a Prime Minister on the advice of the outgoing PM or as indicated by the Commons.
-
There is no procedure for a majority of independent MPs to present a joint nominee; they would have to create a formal party or coalition agreement first.
-
-
Fixed-term Parliaments Act legacy / Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022
-
Although FTPA has been repealed, the expectation that government formation is tied to a party leader remains baked into advice to the Crown.
-
Knock-on effects
-
Funding and media: campaign finance and broadcast rules are written for parties; independents get no equivalent structural support.
-
Whipping and scheduling: without whips, independents would struggle to control Commons business, making it hard to prove to the monarch that they can “command the confidence of the House.”
Put together, these rules mean that even if a numerical majority of MPs were independent, there is no lawful, recognised mechanism for them to propose and sustain a Prime Minister without first formalising as a party or coalition.
Possible ECHR tension
This arrangement arguably conflicts with Article 3 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to free elections and to choose the legislature freely.
ECHR Protocol 1: Article 3 – Right to free elections
“The High Contracting Parties undertake to hold free elections at reasonable intervals by secret ballot, under conditions which will ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people in the choice of the legislature.”
If voters elect a majority of independents but those MPs are legally blocked from forming a government, the people’s choice is effectively nullified.
There isn’t a single explicit prohibition.
It’s the combination of electoral law (PPERA), Commons standing orders, funding rules, and Crown appointment convention that locks executive power inside formal political parties.
That’s exactly the kind of structural defect the BDA constitution aims to replace – by making sovereignty and government formation a direct function of popular mandate, not party machinery.
The BDA believes the people both desire and need a better way, a way that rest power with the People, via a written constitution that is manages, for the people, by a constitutional court which the government has no powers over.
What you’re seeing isn’t just a prettier picture — it’s a structural shift in where power resides.
The BDA firmly believes this is the form of governance the nation needs.
**The nation belongs to the people**
It does not belong to the government, to the civil service, and certainly not to entrenched institutions.
**Power must rest with the people**
Power must not rest with a government that faces few checks, ignores the voice and popular will of the people, and rewrites legislation to entrench itself to remain in control.
State as an “umbrella”, not micromanager
- Clear remit: national defence, policing, public health, education, and the constitutional/legal framework that binds all.
- Tight but minimal regulation: organisations and businesses operate freely inside clearly defined, non-negotiable boundaries (honest accounting, environmental limits, labour standards).
- Predictable law: codified statutes mean citizens and companies always know the rules and their rights.
Ethical government as a culture-setter
- Law on its own isn’t enough. When government demonstrates integrity and accountability, it sets the social temperature.
- That example legitimises moral expectations for institutions and companies:
- fair wages and treatment of workers,
- environmental stewardship,
- truthfulness in information and marketing.
- Over time, this creates a positive feedback loop: ethical government → ethical institutions → a society where exploitation and corner-cutting are culturally unacceptable.
How to replace Government Sovereignty with true rule of law
The reforms we are drafting in the BDA go directly to the heart of the issue:
- Codified constitution as supreme law – making all other laws subordinate and subject to judicial strike-down.
- Constitutional court – an independent body empowered to invalidate Acts of Parliament and secondary legislation that breach core rights or exceed defined powers.
- Entrenched rights and limits – fundamental freedoms (speech, assembly, privacy, due process) that cannot be repealed by a simple majority.
- Mandatory public consent for major powers – for example, a requirement of a national referendum to approve any war or emergency suspension of rights.
Cultural impact
When government itself is bound by a visibly higher law:
- Politicians know they can be overruled; hubris becomes costly.
- Citizens trust that rights are not at the mercy of the next election.
- Institutions learn to operate with genuine integrity because the example is set at the top.
That is how a society builds the moral and ethical culture we, the people, both require and demand.
Ending Westminster’s doctrine of parliamentary supremacy isn’t a procedural tweak; it’s the keystone for a truly democratic, accountable British state. Without it, every other reform, no matter how well designed, rests on a foundation of shifting sand.
These are not abstract ideals; they are the concrete way to turn “no one is above the law” into a lived constitutional fact.
The BDA Core philosophical DNA
| BDA pillar | Classical liberal resonance | Distinctive twist |
| Small-g government and rule of law | Strong: codified constitution, strict limits on executive power, clear accessible statutes | Goes further than 19th-century liberalism by demanding permanent sunset clauses and an independent constitutional court |
| Economic freedom with guard-rails | Strong: open markets, anti-monopoly, rejection of cost-plus contracts and opaque procurement | Adds 21st-century sustainability and anti-greenwashing enforcement |
| Civic responsibility & social solidarity | Strong: belief that liberty needs an educated, mutually supportive citizenry | Extends this to modern mental health, environmental stewardship, and digital ID built to enhance freedom |
| Democratic renewal | Consistent with historic liberal reforms | More radical: constitutional mechanisms to bypass party oligopolies, break the duopoly, and allow independents to form government |
This puts the BDA closer to the liberal centre than to either socialism or laissez-faire libertarianism, but with a much harder constitutional and technological edge.
If we use a two-axis map (economic freedom on one axis, individual liberty vs state control on the other):
- Socialists / social-democrats: centre-left, favour stronger state direction.
- Conservatives: centre-right, mix market liberalism with social traditionalism.
- Libertarians: economically right, socially free, but weak on civic solidarity.
- BDA: high individual liberty / moderate economic regulation / strong civic duty — essentially the upper-centre of the liberty quadrant.
The BDA is closer to the sweet spot that classical British liberalism once occupied, but updated for an age of AI surveillance, environmental crisis, and political duopoly.
Strategic identity
That means the BDA can honestly describe itself as:
- Constitutional Liberal – because the rule of law and codified limits are non-negotiable.
- Civic-republican – because it insists on shared duties (mental health services, environmental protection, local democratic engagement).
- Post-partisan – because it aims to break the structural two-party monopoly and allow independents or new coalitions to govern.
Those three labels combined are far more accurate than “centre-left,” “centre-right,” or even “classical liberal,” which lacks the BDA’s technological and environmental depth.
Why that matters for messaging
- Clarity for supporters: You can say, “We are constitutional liberals for the 21st century: pro-freedom, pro-enterprise, pro-responsibility.”
- Defence against caricature: It inoculates you against lazy Americanised claims that you’re “socialist” or “right-wing populist.”
- Positive vision: It lets you frame policies—on procurement reform, codified law, marine protection, mental health—as expressions of freedom and responsibility, not partisan ideology.
Bottom line
The BDA’s natural home is neither left nor right but a modernised version of the 19th-century British liberal centre:
- rigorous constitutional checks,
- market economy with hard limits on monopoly and corruption,
- deep respect for civil liberties and civic duty.
In a world where mainstream parties drift toward centralising technocracy and culture war politics, that positioning isn’t just unique, it’s exactly the kind of space that many disillusioned voters are quietly searching for, and the BDA is going to occupy that ground to deliver for the people the Government, Society, Culture and positive future they both deserve and demand.