ABSTRACT
Methodologically, this project has, thus far, taken the form of a close reading of constitutional texts, analysing how each constructs an idea of the nation that it simultaneously calls into being. These readings of what have been termed both ‘colonial’ and ‘post-colonial’ polities have made reference to a relationship – whether one of repudiation, family or partnership – with Britain, as all of these now more-or-less sovereign nations were once part of the British empire (or, in the case of Ireland, ‘Britain-within-the-empire’).1 To avoid thinking in terms of a simple centre-periphery model, I have sought to analyse how these processes of national constitution might have interrogated the constitution of Britain. Therein, however, lies the rub: Britain itself has no comparable constitutional texts that might be read in this way. When making a case in my previous chapters for texts that are perceived as foundational, there was a certain ‘self-evidence’ about them; they continue to signify in national debates and, more specifically, in debates concerning what constitutes the nation. Moreover, these foundational texts are all written documents: reified as much for their rhetoric, ‘original’ appearance and supposed uniqueness as for their constitutive effects. Feeling some of the frustration of historian Peter Hennessy, who has been searching for the ‘ “great ghost” of our constitution since the autumn of 1966’,2 I began to think the ‘problem’ of the British constitution is where it might be located, or, indeed, where one might start looking. Although one might refer to such key historical documents as Magna Carta (1215)3, the Bill of Rights (1689), the Act of Settlement (1701) and, more recently, the Human Rights Act (1998), no single text has captured the national imagination in the way that the Easter Proclamation, the Mabo decision and the Treaty of Waitangi have in their respective nations.
