My understanding is he’s simply trying to replicate the position under the German constitution – which is fine, but then the existing constitutional position is already equivalent to that in Germany.

It is the UK courts which rule on all law in this country (applying ECJ case law where appropriate, as the German courts do); they have in the past been called on to consider the lawfulness of the UK’s signing up to further EU integration, just as the German courts have. And Parliament can theoretically overrule EU law internally, just as Germany can. The reason neither does in practice (Jon is quite right – Germany hasn’t done so and its Constitutional Court has said it will not do so as long as the EU continues to respect human rights – which is one reason why Germans and others like the Charter) is that each has accepted Treaty obligations to comply with EU law, and to refuse to do so is not politically compatible with EU membership.

Cameron’s bill would I think, at most, be a “clarification” of the existing position.

Whether this constitutes an actual breach of treaty obligations by two-thirds of the EU I’ll leave to someone more expert than me to indicate.

However I think Unseen and Jon are right – Cameron can pass any law he likes to pander to the Eurosceptics – however we will only break our treaty commitments by taking concrete actions that violate them and I very much doubt a) that he will risk doing so or that b) if he did the relevant EU bodies will do anything much about it.

Italy for example is in radical breach of several economic commitments it entered into as part of the Eurozone – but as there is no practical prospect of them being able to reduce their budget deficits by anything like the requisite amounts for at least a decade nobody is talking about expelling them.

Thanks for your comment. The referendum promise was different from his proposed “uk sovereighty act”. This is the text of what Cameron said yesterday:

“So as well as making sure that further power cannot be handed to the EU without a referendum, we will also introduce a new law, in the form of a United Kingdom Sovereignty Bill, to make it clear that ultimate authority stays in this country, in our Parliament …

And he went on to say:

“That will mean limiting the European Court of Justice’s jurisdiction over criminal law to its pre-Lisbon level, and ensuring that only British authorities can initiate criminal investigations in Britain.”

This sounds very similar to the bogeyman bill that Clarke so feared six years ago:

“Ideas such as a ‘supremacy act’ asserting the superiority of British law or giving the British courts the power to overrule judgements of the European Court of Justice undermine one of the fundamentals of the European Union”

And there’s more in the report if you download it (link above).

All the best,

Will

“The single market without supremacy of EU law doesn’t work”

Absolutely – and the Sovereignty act doesn’t question the supremacy of EU law once it’s been drawn up and agreed across 27 members states. All Cameron’s proposal does is force any UK government embarking on that road to seek approval via a referendum.

Still much to criticise there and questions about whether it’s workable but absolutely nothing in this post or Clarke’s response to today’s announcement which demonstrates a sovereignty act is incompatible with EU membership.

All of which, ironically enough, makes the sleight of hand in your post title very ‘Daily Mail’…