Noah Feldman, Columnist

Boris Johnson’s Move: Maybe Constitutional, Definitely Not Democratic

Direct democracy isn’t more valid than representative democracy.

September 2, 2019 at 8:00 AM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

(Photo by Richard Baker / In Pictures via Getty Images)
Photographer: Richard Baker/In Pictures

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Critics of Boris Johnson’s decision to “prorogue” Parliament by sending its members home for several weeks say it is undemocratic: the Prime Minister is making it much harder for Parliament to influence Brexit, and thus making it more likely that the UK will leave the EU without a deal. Johnson’s supporters, however, maintain that there is nothing undemocratic about it, since it helps execute the will of the people as expressed in the 2016 referendum.

Who’s right? Is the democratic will of the British people to be found in their Parliament, one of the oldest continuously operating institutions of representative democracy? Or is it to be found in the referendum’s Leave vote?