🏠 Home Detailed notes UK-EU walk-through UK-EU notes All judgement grids

How to use this

Two grids on the same template. The first is empty - print it, fill in each cell with a one-line note while you revise. The second is a worked example to check yourself against.

Each cell asks one question: does this row strengthen the column quality (mark +) or weaken it (mark -)? Then add a one-line note saying why. The plus and minus columns are deliberately not pre-printed - your judgement is the work.

Sovereignty restored = did this return decision-making power to UK institutions? Executive empowered = did the executive gain power from this episode? Parliament strengthened = did Parliament's position improve in this episode? Devolution strained = did this episode strain the territorial constitution? Courts drawn in = did the courts end up at the centre of this episode? Settled the issue = did this episode close the question it addressed? Constitutional significance = is this episode a constitutional landmark?

Brexit's constitutional impact - judgement grid +   -

Empty version. Print and fill in.
Episode+   - Sovereignty restored Executive empowered Parliament strengthened Devolution strained Courts drawn in Settled the issue Constitutional significance
EU
referendum
(2016)
Miller 1
(2017)
EU
(Withdrawal)
Act (2018)
Miller 2 /
Cherry
(2019)
Internal
Market Act
(2020)
Windsor
Framework
(2023)
How to use the grid in an essay. This grid is synoptic by design - it touches the constitution, sovereignty, the judiciary and devolution. Pick the column the question is asking about (Sovereignty restored for sovereignty essays, Devolution strained for union essays, Executive empowered for executive-power essays). Read down that column and group paragraphs by the cluster it produces.

Brexit's constitutional impact - judgement grid +   -

Filled version. Use this to check your own grid - and tap any cell for the full detail behind the judgement.
Episode+   - Sovereignty restored Executive empowered Parliament strengthened Devolution strained Courts drawn in Settled the issue Constitutional significance
EU
referendum
(2016)		 +The vote to reclaim pooled sovereignty - political sovereignty exercised by the electorate. -The result bound governments for four years - the people, not ministers, set the policy. -Parliament felt unable to ignore an advisory vote. +Scotland and Northern Ireland voted Remain - the mandate split by nation. -Not yet - the litigation came later. -Answered membership; started every other argument of the era. +The biggest single constitutional decision since 1973.
Miller 1
(2017)		 +Confirmed only an Act of Parliament could trigger Article 50. -Prerogative power cut back. +Parliament's legislative role protected - the EU (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017 followed. +Sewel confirmed politically binding only - devolved consent has no legal teeth. +The Supreme Court at the centre of the era's biggest political question. -Settled the trigger question only. +Defined the limits of prerogative power over constitutional change.
EU
(Withdrawal)
Act (2018)		 +Repealed the ECA 1972 - the legal core of Brexit. +Henry VIII powers let ministers amend statutes. -Vast delegated powers shifted the detail away from Parliament. +Returning powers were retained at Westminster first - the power-grab argument. -The litigation lay elsewhere. +The legal mechanics of exit, settled. +The statute that unwound 47 years of EU law primacy.
Miller 2 /
Cherry
(2019)		 +Protected Parliament's right to sit at the height of the crisis. -The prorogation was quashed - prerogative cut back again. +Parliament recalled the next day. -Not a devolution case. +The first ruling on the personal prerogative - the courts' deepest step in. -Sharpened the courts-against-politics argument instead. +High constitutional watershed.
Internal
Market Act
(2020)		 +Westminster legislated for the whole UK market - sovereignty asserted. +New UK government spending and regulatory reach in devolved areas. -The real argument was with the devolved legislatures, not the Commons. +Passed over the objection of all three devolved legislatures. -A political fight more than a judicial one. -Reopened the territorial argument. +The sharpest post-Brexit assertion of Westminster's last word.
Windsor
Framework
(2023)		 -EU law still applies to goods in Northern Ireland - sovereignty shared at the edge. +Negotiated by the executive at treaty level. -Presented largely settled, with one Commons vote on the Stormont brake. -Eased the strain - the Stormont brake gave the NI institutions a voice. -Not a court matter. +The nearest the era has come to a settled arrangement. +Proof that full separation and full sovereignty do not coexist easily in Northern Ireland.
What the filled grid shows. Read down the columns. Sovereignty restored is plus almost everywhere - legally, Brexit did what it said. Executive empowered is the quieter story: Henry VIII powers, treaty-level deals with one Commons vote, prerogative pushed to its limits twice and stopped twice by the courts. Devolution strained is plus in nearly every row - the constitutional cost of Brexit landed hardest on the Union. The judgement line: Brexit restored legal sovereignty to Westminster while shifting practical power towards the executive and turning the territorial constitution into the era's open question.
See also
David Clayton Tutoring | davidjclayton@proton.me