Allen has long waged what has seemed at times a quixotic quest to talk Britain into writing down what it stands for. His committee even commissioned a four-year effort by scholars at King’s College London to craft a model constitution that can be used as a blueprint if the nation ever comes around on the issue, which tends to rate low in surveys of which issues matter most to voters.

The result was published last year. At 71 pages, it lays out everything from the formal name of the country (the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) to a bill of rights.

Allen then sought feedback from the public, and “for the Jeffersons or the Mandelas amongst us,” he promised a bottle of House of Commons champagne to whoever could come up with the most eloquent preamble. The winning entry begins: “United, we stand in celebration of the diverse voices that make up the great chorus of our nation.”