The War Powers of the UK House of Commons: What Can We Learn from History?

This paper considers what we can learn about the war powers of the contemporary House of Commons - specifically the ability of MPs to veto decisions by the government to launch or continue military action - by studying historical precedents. It introduces a series of case studies dating back to the fall of Lord North’s ministry over the North American War in 1782, and reflects on the prospects and limitations of comparing these to more recent experiences since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Given the broad acceptance that MPs gained new conventional powers in this period, evidenced most clearly by their veto of military action in Syria in 2013, this paper asks how much, actually, has changed? Along the way, it comments on how appropriate different historical comparisons are, and attempts to identify both the strengths and the weaknesses of this sort of historical approach to studying parliament.