All MP’s swear an Oath of Allegiance to be faithful and TRUE to the Crown, so how can they pass a Law which would set aside the very Law they had so recently sworn to uphold in the first place before they actually take up their places in Parliament? They knew very well when they put themselves up for election what it means if the people vote for them. If they will not resign, we at least know the names of those 22 MP’s so that we can avoid voting for them again.

Martin McGuinness refused to swear the Oath of Allegiance to the British monarch, was refused his seat in the British House of Commons, and took his case to the European Court of Human Rights in 1997. The application was deemed inadmissible on the basis that the requirement of an oath of allegiance to a reigning monarch is "reasonably viewed as an affirmation of loyalty to the constitutional principles which support... the workings of representative democracy in the respondent State."

As a resident of Lewes I can tell you that this isn't going down too well with Norman Baker's constituents.  Lewes is a radical place, but it's also possibly the most patriotic place in Britain - certainly the only place I've been to when I've heard hundreds of people singing God Save the Queen on the streets to accompany public pledges of allegiance.

I suspect these kind of scandals give succour to the British regime for all their apparent 'radicalism'. Obviously MPs in Westminster cannot be asked to swear allegiance to the 'nation' as there is no British nation, as David of BritologyWatch has meditated upon with some eloquence, and he is not alone. MPs cannot "swear an oath of allegiance to their constituents" as the whole point of their being members of parliament is to articulate the larger interests not just sectional ones. So the motion is a silly one and indeed constitutionally illiterate as Tom implies. But it permits the Daily Mail to have a one day shock, sell some papers and renew the idea of loyalty to the Queen as at least implying loyalty to something.

We have a perfectly understandable written constitution -it`s called " The Bill of Rights". It`s the very document that gives MPs the right to speak in parliment.
The only problem with The Bill of Rights is that it also grants more fundimental basic rights to common people than our present government is prepared to uphold.

Well done Norman Baker. Neither myself nor any family members or friends have any allegiance at all to any members of the rather disfunctional Windsor family. We, the public, should be deciding who is our Head of State. The position should not, just because of an accident of birth, be given to a family dynasty for life. Until we introduce a written Constitution, Proportional Representation and an elected Head of State, who has a fixed term of office, we cannot even pretend to live in a democracy.