MATCH OF THE DAY: LEGISLATIVE CONTROL — Britain 0, EU 3
Referee: V-Dem
“Take Back Control” was sold as a constitutional reset: power back from Brussels, sovereignty back to Westminster, accountability back to British democracy. In Boris Johnson’s December 2020 statement, the promise was explicit: “British laws will be made solely by the British Parliament.”
Ten years on, the visible result is rougher. Britain slides from 2nd to 4th. This is the first thing to see: Brexit brought powers home, but it did not reliably bring them home to Parliament.
SO, WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?
This is a pattern of post-Brexit drift. On the V-Dem measure of legislative constraints on the executive, which tracks how far legislatures can question, investigate and restrain ministers, Britain sits at 0.955 in 2016, peaks briefly at 0.964 in 2019, then falls to 0.937 by 2025. Over the same period, Germany stays first at about 0.980, Italy holds around 0.951, and France recovers to 0.945. The rhythm is the key: flat strength, crisis spike, then slippage. That is Parliament losing ground in the league that matters.
3 REASONS — why Britain lost the democratic-control match to its top-five peers
1) PLAN — the slogan was stronger than the route-map
The promise was vivid. The mechanism was hazy. Brexit campaign rhetoric made parliamentary sovereignty the emotional centre of “Take Back Control”, and Johnson later said laws would again be made by the British Parliament in his 2020 statement.
But there was no serious post-Brexit blueprint for making Westminster better at routine scrutiny once powers returned. Britain had a sovereignty slogan; it lacked an institutional redesign. That is why Germany stays top and Italy stays steadier. The promise wore a captain’s armband. The plan forgot the midfield.
Plan score: UK 3/10, EU 7/10 — sharp slogan, weak mechanism.
2) POLICY — ministers got too many of the new tools
Brexit did produce some famous parliamentary pushback, but the day-to-day policy machinery cut the other way. The Bingham Centre’s evidence to Parliament warned that broad Henry VIII clauses and skeletal Brexit legislation could give the executive “almost absolute discretion” on key legal questions, weakening real scrutiny. The Constitution Unit makes the same broader point: government became increasingly resistant to parliamentary scrutiny even after the heroic Brexit battles. In other words, Britain repatriated powers from Brussels but often routed them through ministers. Peers with steadier legislative-control scores did not need that kind of executive shortcutting to govern.
Policy score: UK 3/10, EU 7/10 — sovereignty came home, scrutiny did not.
3) PERFORMANCE — Britain won the battles, then lost the table
Britain can point to two dramatic moments of constitutional resistance. The Miller analysis in the Michigan Law Review shows that ministers could not trigger Article 50 alone when Parliament’s legislation was at stake, while the Constitution Unit account recalls MPs seizing the agenda and the courts blocking prorogation. But performance is about the season, not one cup run. In the end, Germany remains first throughout, Italy overtakes Britain, and France recovers enough to move ahead by the end. Britain showed it could fight the executive in extremis. It did not show it could institutionalise that advantage.
Performance score: UK 4/10, EU 8/10 — brave in crisis, weaker in routine.
FINAL WHISTLE — what this score really means
Britain’s problem on democratic control is that Brexit never built a durable post-Brexit system in which Parliament routinely held the upper hand over ministers. The V-Dem index definition is brutally relevant here: this metric is about whether legislatures can question, investigate and constrain the executive in normal governing life. On that test, Britain slips behind Germany, Italy and France.
That is the political test. If Brexit was meant to make Westminster sovereign again, then a Britain sitting 4th in this five-team field is not mission accomplished. It is a warning that sovereignty without institutional redesign can simply thicken executive power at home. If nothing changes, Britain risks keeping the rhetoric of control while losing the practice of it. The deeper league table — and the route back up it — sits beyond this match report.
