Tusk says he will urge EU leaders to back long extension to article 50 if UK cannot agree Brexit pla

[Denzil_DC]

3. The UK Prime Minister is bound by legality and what parliament and the electorate will put up with.

We don't have a codified constitution in the sense of one unified document, but we do have the Bill of Rights etc. and we have signed up to international norms via the UN and ECJ, as the government's found to its cost at various times, with varying degrees of penalty from none at all to overturning decisions.

He/she also cannot bind the hands of future parliaments by declaring that any law passed or decision of parliament can never be changed.

However, May has come close to seizing the sorts of dictatorial powers you describe through the "Henry VIII" measures parliament passed, allowing less or no parliamentary scrutiny of statutory instruments during the course of Brexit.

But to extend your argument, "national sovereignty" is a mercurial concept in an increasingly globalized world. Everyone's a rule-taker in some regard, unless they want to go the route of the likes of North Korea and become a pariah.

What I object to most is the utter humbug of Farage and other Brexiteers campaigning long and loud about "taking power back" when they're evidently opposed to parliament exercising what power it currently has!