Brexit e a unicidade da constituição do Reino Unido: entre crise política, crise democrática e crise constitucional

Abstract

The article debates the peculiar character of the United Kingdom Constitution, presenting its main institutions and the specific way it was conceptualized. It is inside the study area of Constitutional Comparative Law. The general objective is to check how the process of exiting the European Union (Brexit) relates to the specificity of that Constitution. It will be checked how the non-codification brought broader challenges to Brexit’s procedures. The hypothesis is that such difficulties situate the United Kingdom in a crisis that does not distance itself from the beginning of a globalized process of gradual democratic crisis. The case study methodology was adopted, analyzing the main British constitutional institutions, added to a bibliographic review. The endurance of historical domination contracts, the characteristics of parliamentary sovereignty and the gradual expansion of judicial functions, all of them parallel to an attempt of a reinforcement of the popular sovereignty and the acceleration of constitutional reforms is debated. The results indicate that there is a political crisis in the United Kingdom. The conclusion is that it is necessary to distinguish between political crisis, democratic crisis and constitutional crisis.