Britain does not have a safe system of political decision-making. Important decisions are made unilaterally by the government, the prime minister really, with Parliament having next to no role, except to finally ratify the government’s decisions. Prime ministerial whims prevail.

It is a law of public policy that good decisions depend on good process. If the process is flawed, the outcome is likely to be flawed. If you want good decisions, take care of the process.

The reason the British system is unsafe is that governmental decisions are not adequately deliberated on, scrutinised and tested. That’s why public policies are a parade of blunders, small and large.

In preparing for Brexit, the prime minister’s whim is to protect the prime ministerial system of government. This is the system once famously branded an “elective dictatorship” (by Lord Hailsham, in 1976). It is the system that allowed Britain to stumble into the invasion of Iraq on the then prime minister’s whim. In this system alternative views to that of the government count for nothing. Public policies are the government’s dictate rather than the outcome of national compromise.

In her Brexit speech yesterday, the prime minister made clear that decision-making is to be in the government’s hand and that Parliament’s role will be to ratify the outcome. This is an unsafe process towards a likely flawed result.

The process has already caused visible damage. Brexit is being made infinitely more confrontational than needs be. The divisions at home from the referendum campaign are not being healed. The views of the 48 percent count for nothing. Britain is causing a monumental fall-out between the democratic countries of Europe in an acrimonious divorce. Once Brexit was a fact, a coming together at home would have been possible, as would a rational collaboration between European friends towards an amicable settlement. But the process the prime minister is clinging on to is leading us to conflict on both fronts.

It is not too late to improve on the process. But it depends on Parliament not accepting yet again to be side-lined. It is for Parliament to temper the prime minister’s whim. It is not good enough for MPs to sit around on their backsides, sulk, and beg to be consulted. Parliament needs to assert itself.