Despotic laws can — even should — be ignored, says Jonathan Sumption

Jonathan Sumption has developed ‘many strange habits over the years’, he tells us disarmingly, and one of these is to read the international press. ‘I read the French and German press most days, and sometimes the Italian and Spanish press as well.’

Some might think the retired Supreme Court justice was showing off. But these remarks were addressed to a group of German judges at the end of 2019. His message to them was that the British people might have been wrong to vote for Brexit — but they were not, as reported in the continental press, ‘at best naive and at worst mad’.

That’s good to know. But readers who buy this book hoping to learn about law at a time of crisis may wonder what his reflections on the UK’s attitude to the EU pre-departure have got to do with it. They might feel equally short-changed by a lecture he delivered five years ago on 19th-century legal history.