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The conception of the separation of powers has been applied to the United Kingdom and the nature of its executive (UK government, Scottish Government, Welsh Government and Northern Ireland Executive), judicial (England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) and legislative (UK Parliament, Scottish Parliament, National Assembly for Wales and Northern Ireland Assembly) functions. Historically, the apparent merger of the executive and the legislature, with a powerful Prime Minister drawn from the largest party in parliament and usually with a safe majority, led theorists to contend that the separation of powers is not applicable to the United Kingdom. However, in recent years it does seem to have been adopted as a necessary part of the UK constitution. The independence of the judiciary has never been questioned as a principle, although application is problematic. Personnel have been increasingly isolated from the other organs of government, no longer sitting in the House of Lords or in the Cabinet. The court's ability to legislate through precedent, its inability to question validly enacted law through legislative supremacy and parliamentary sovereignty, and the role of the Europe-wide institutions to legislate, execute and judge on matters also define the boundaries of the UK system. ==Approach== Although the United Kingdom recognises parliamentary sovereignty, writers have stressed the importance of the independence of the judiciary in establishing the rule of law, among them Trevor Allan.〔Bradley, Ewing (2007). p. 81.〕 The role of the separation of powers has changed with the rise of judicial involvement in the affairs of government.〔 Albert Venn Dicey, writing in 1915 in ''Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution'', described the separation of powers as "the offspring of a double misconception".〔Dicey (1915). p. 13.〕 More recently Sir Ivor Jennings has argued that it is of little relevance,〔 and, faced with the role of the executive within the legislature, some authors describe only the independence of the judiciary as evidence that the model applies to the modern United Kingdom.〔Daintith, Page (1999). p. 10.〕 Few critics of the applicability of the separation of powers to the United Kingdom question the basic division.〔Daintith, Page (1999). pp. 10–11.〕 The separation of powers has come under the stress of increasing government intervention into social issues outside its former remit dominated by administration and foreign and military policy – the creation of big government.〔Drewry in Jowell, Oliver (eds.) (2011). p. 191.〕 This has been seen by some as having led to a weakening of the concept of government, replaced with the concept of governance. This lends itself to a more flexible approach considering the wide variation in the sorts of things that the "executive" does.〔Drewry in Jowell, Oliver (eds.) (2011). p. 192.〕 A similar approach is to take an approach of public choice theory. The self-interest of political actors, under this theory, bridges the separate sections of government, drawing upon the approach of the Committee on Standards in Public Life which applies the same rules to different organs, although heir approach to judges is separate.〔Daintith, Page (1999). pp. 11–12.〕 Either theory would accept that there are wider decision making processes which are not restricted to a single branch of government.〔Drewry in Jowell, Oliver (eds.) (2011). pp. 192–193.〕 Another important idea is that variations within each separate part of government are as significant as differences in approach between branches, and require similar consideration.〔Daintith, Page (1999). p. 12.〕 However, Lord Mustill summarised the prevailing modern viewpoint in the 1995 judgment, ''R. v Home Secretary ex parte Fire Brigades Union'':〔〔''R v Secretary of State for the Home Department ex parte Fire Brigades Union'' () 2 AC 513 at 567.〕
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