I mostly think Brexit and Europe are problems for Britain, and the British can do as they please as far as I'm concerned. But today's decision by a British court (subject to appeal, for sure) that Britain cannot trigger Article 50 and annul its treaty commitment to Europe without parliamentary sanction seems to me a sound lesson for all parliamentary democracies.
It is too bad, perhaps, that it took a court ruling, instead of a declaration by a majority of parliamentarians to establish parliamentary sovereignty, but simply having it established once again is surely a good thing. There is sometimes a strain of parliamentary authoritarianism that holds that a prime minister can do anything after securing an electoral majority, and that prerogative powers cover virtually all their actions (
see here, eg). But in the end confidence must be tested and confirmed whenever it is the will of the House to do so.
It's another lesson, I hope, in the folly of referendums. Perhaps a parliamentary reassertion of control over Britain's treaty relations with Europe will help reestablish the principle, here as there, that there are almost no circumstances in which a referendum is the right process to adopt, as a practical matter (they don't reveal the popular will effectively) and as one of principle (we have representative institutions, not plebiscitary ones).
