Is it a massive oversight that Parliament could legally undo democracy and no one seems to be fixing it?

This is not a post about a specific political party or person

I have been following parts of the British online right recently, especially Carl Benjamin’s Lotus Eaters podcast. One of the recurring themes is the idea that “you can just do things”. It is about taking initiative and not waiting for permission, and it seems to draw some inspiration from Donald Trump’s approach to politics, where action comes first and justification comes later.

That got me thinking about how this principle applies to Britain’s political system. Parliament is sovereign, which means in theory it can make or unmake any law. No court can strike it down. So in theory, could a government just “do things” that completely upend democracy?

For example, they could: Repeal the Human Rights Act (1998). This is just an ordinary statute, so a Commons majority could vote it out and send it for Royal Assent.

Withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The government could give six months’ notice under Article 58. Parliament would likely debate it, but legally it could happen. Abolish the House of Lords. If the Lords refused to pass a bill abolishing themselves, the Commons could use the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949 to pass the bill again in the next session and send it straight for Royal Assent. That would legally end the upper chamber.

Repeal the Representation of the People Acts of 1884 and 1918. The 1884 Act extended the vote to rural working men and standardised voting qualifications between towns and counties. The 1918 Act gave the vote to all men over twenty-one and to some women over thirty with property. It is the foundation of mass democracy in Britain.

Repealing these acts would remove the legal basis for universal suffrage. Pass a new law limiting the vote to only certain people or groups. There is nothing in statute that could stop Parliament from doing this.

Legally, none of these steps breaks parliamentary procedure, but politically it would cause a complete crisis. The monarch might refuse assent, the public would revolt, and international agreements would be broken.

Yet the fact that this loophole exists seems insane. Why is no one, talking about this oversight? If parliamentary sovereignty allows for something that could effectively destroy democracy, surely there should be some kind of safeguard or reform to prevent it.