UK no longer a sovereign state

**Spartan198** · December 03, 2009, 08:50 PM

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/da...vereign-state/

Sorry if this has already been posted (I didn't find anything on it).

**Sphere** · December 03, 2009, 09:11 PM

Really poor article, eg..

Until yesterday, the EU qualified on grounds (a), (b) and (c). Now it has ticked the final box. Under the Lisbon Treaty, which came into force today, it acquires “legal personality”, which gives it the right to sign accords and treat with other states. Nor is this right simply theoretical: the EU now has a foreign minister, a diplomatic corps (the European External Action Service) and 160 overseas embassies.

Any EU Foreign policy action still has to have support of each and every member state, which is the exact same situation as before the Lisbon treaty, nothing has changed except the diplomatic core has been put under one roof.

Until yesterday, Britain could simply walk out of the EU by abrogating the Treaty of Rome and repealing the 1972 European Communities Act. Henceforth, it will have to go through the secession procedure laid down in Lisbon. In other words – in the minds of Euro-lawyers, at any rate, if not of British constitutionalists – the EU gets to settle the terms on which its members are allowed to leave. Formal sovereignty has been shifted from the national capitals to Brussels.

This procedure was specifically introduced by the British to quell public unease about the treaty.

I am not sure about the paragraph below but based on the other parts, I would bet it is also a gross misrepresentation.

Until yesterday, the EU could not annex additional policy areas without a new treaty, which needed to be ratified by all its constituent nations. Now, it has the so-called “passerelle” clause, or self-amending mechanism. Parliament, in other words, no longer has the final say on extensions of EU jurisdiction. The EU derives its authority, not from its 27 members, but from its own foundational texts.

**Armenum** · December 03, 2009, 09:51 PM

as a euro-skeptic, this are very sad days for me...

**CtrlAltDe1337** · December 04, 2009, 12:41 PM

And so we see the small beginnings of the United States of Europe...

**Stavroforos** · December 04, 2009, 12:45 PM

No, we don't.

**Poach** · December 04, 2009, 12:50 PM

I reckon if the UK seriously wanted to leave the EU, a bunch of lawyers in brussels couldn't really do much to stop it...

As for the claim we're now a subject people, sensasionalist

. We might not send British diplomats any more but European diplomats require our involvement to be sent.

**emperorpenguin** · December 04, 2009, 02:16 PM

Look at the author of the article: Daniel Hannan. The same guy who criticised the NHS on American tv and also told them that Enoch "Rivers of Blood" Powell was his hero.

I'd not listen to a word that moron says.

**~~removeduser_487563287433~~** · December 04, 2009, 02:47 PM

God, Hannan. Without reading it, it's some sensastionalist bollocks about the EU, which we can leave, so the UK is completely sovereign. Next.

**the Black Prince** · December 04, 2009, 03:35 PM

Posting a link to a blog hardly constitutes a debate, does it? If you'd like to give your thoughts on the article, I would be happy to respond!

**Astaroth** · December 04, 2009, 05:07 PM

Sorry, but the thread starter has to provide a basis for an actual debate. Since that doesn't seem to be the case here (posting a link does not suffice) I will close this topic now.

If you have any questions or would like this to be reopened, please PM me.