A new survey shows that the UK has a far more exhaustive written version of its laws and principles than many think

It is often said that Britain has no written constitution. The lack of one is sometimes invoked by critics to attack – and occasionally by defenders to justify – the archaisms, anomalies and other mysteries that abound in the practices of the British state. No less an authority than Queen Elizabeth II said that the constitution “has always been puzzling and always will be”. The reality, however, is more straightforward, but also more subtle.

Constitutions, wrote the political scientist Anthony King, “are never – repeat, never – written down in their entirety”. Even the much-vaunted United States constitution, for example, contains no provision about the electoral system. Nor does the French one. A capital C is not a precondition for a constitution.

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