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What is sovereignty?

• In May 2004 the Guardian defined Sovereignty as “supreme and unrestricted power residing in an individual or group of people”.
• In Britain Parliament is held to be sovereign: “Parliamentary sovereignty is the dominant characteristic of our political institutions” (A V Dicey)
• In modern political theory there are two systems of sovereignty
  1. Legal sovereignty and Political/Power sovereignty
  2. Real sovereignty and theoretical sovereignty
• Real sovereignty is the “degree of control which a nation can exert on its own destiny” (Anderson and Weymouth)
• “Theoretical sovereignty is defined as symbolic control signifying little if any substance”
• Very often therefore it is theoretical sovereignty that causes concern and Anderson and Weymouth in their book, The British Press and the EU, give 2 examples or symbols of British sovereignty which can be said to be theoretical rather than real:

1. The “Independent Nuclear Deterrent” – From the 1950s control of this was shared with the USA and it is unthinkable that those weapons could have been used without US permission. Therefore it is argued that the UK didn’t have independence of actions with sovereign control over its defence, but that it was a fiction to bolster British self-esteem
2. The £ Stirling – The Eurosceptic argument against the UK membership of the EMU is based on the undesirability of the Bank of England having to surrender control of interest rates. It is true to say that the UK within the EMU would lose the ability to deal with short term economic issues, but the UK economy with many national economies lost the ability to deal with these issues many years ago e.g. the Stirling crises of 67, 86 and 92 had very little to do with British economy and was in fact a result of global problems associated with German, US and Japanese economies

Has membership of the EU meant that Britain has surrendered its sovereignty?

• Please read Hughes dictate on the impact of membership on the British constitution.
• Since the Treaty of Accession in 1972, Britain accepted the Treaty of Rome and subsequently the SEA as well as the Maastricht and Amsterdam treaties, and so it can be argued that Britain has accepted a diminution in its legal sovereignty for the following 3 reasons:

1. Laws enacted by the EU are directly applicable to the UK
2. The British Parliament can’t pass laws in areas where Community Law already exists
3. British courts must accept and enforce decisions made by the ECJ

• Quote from Community law: “On the basis of the powers conferred on them the community institutions can act independently of the member states and are binding on the member states and on all their citizens”
• David Walker Smith argued that parliamentary sovereignty was incompatible with the Treaty of Accession because it made Community law supreme, over parliamentary statute.
• This surrender of sovereignty is not however all embracing.
• The Community works according to the principle of the specific attribution of powers. This means that the scope of community competences are limited and vary according to the task at hand e.g.:

1. There are some areas where there is no Community law
2. There are areas where community law give general principles but where national governments have latitude as to how the laws are applied

• However in a book entitled The ABC of Community Law, the author argues that members have pooled certain parts of their legislative powers and placed them in the hands of community institutions, but in return they have substantial rights of participation.
• Enoch Powell emphasises that he feels that sovereignty cannot be pooled.
• Enoch Powell went on to say that sovereignty was “the final and absolute authority within the political community.” Therefore sovereignty according to Powell was incompatible with membership because community law would take precedent over any parliamentary law.
• The New Statesman argued that sovereignty had already been conceded to international business, and thus “to enter into collective social and economic arrangements is to retrieve sovereignty, not to surrender it”
• Another argument held by Tony Benn is that EU has not taken sovereignty from Parliament because “in practice political sovereignty has long rested with the executive”
• The Factortame case in 1990 demonstrates the supremacy of Community law. The ECJ ruled that the UK Merchant Shipping Act of 1988 was invalid, as it clashed with Community law.
• In the words of The New Statesman in June 1990 “This is a historic judgement…it overturns the English feeling that no injunction can be granted against the Crown…the Europeans are rewriting [the British] constitution.
• In the Factortame case it became clear that it was the duty of any UK court to overrule any law that was in conflict with European law.
• The Economist at the time of the Factortame case argued “The Europeans are rewriting our constitution”
• However Norton argues that the defining moment was the preceding SEA of 1986 where Britain accepted QMV, which meant that Britain law could be changed by directives even if Britain voted against the change i.e. what had traditionally been a national veto was in certain areas removed
• Joining of the European Union led to a national referendum on membership. A referendum would supposedly result in the matter being decided outside of Parliament and so it would “impinge on the power of Parliament (Alan Davis)
• However the result was not binding, and thus Parliament maintained its sovereignty as the final decision was still theoretically theirs.
• Some commentators, such as Norman Lamont, have pointed out that “membership of the EU has not been settled for all time; it is provisional, not unconditional.” Hence any changes that have occurred, as a result of membership of the EU can be undone by leaving the EU, and thus sovereignty is ultimately not surrendered.
• However the body of commentators view this argument as a delusion. Due to the level of involvement and the obvious benefits of membership, it is very unlikely that Britain would remove themselves from

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Original content by joker13na.