The Supreme Court ruling, like the Brexit vote, has defended the sovereignty of parliament

I’ve never been a big fan of the Supreme Court, seeing it as a Blairite invention and – given our position in the European Union – a misnomer. But its decision to back the High Court and remind Theresa May that only parliament can dissolve laws that parliament makes is welcome. It has issued a useful refresher on constitutional law to certain MPs who might, in the excitement of the Brexit vote, have forgotten it.

The 17.4 million who voted for Britain to leave the European Union were giving advice, rather than an instruction, to Parliament. This ought not to be a controversial point. As the judgment said, David Cameron chose to hold a consultative referendum, rather than a legally-binding one (as the AV referendum had been). And why wasn’t the EU referendum legally binding? For the same reason that the 2014 Scottish referendum wasn’t legally-binding: it would be unthinkable for parliament to ignore such “advice”, or stand athwart the result of that referendum. That’s