Alexander Stubb EU Neo-statists Statism UK

THE CYNICAL LIE: STATE SOVEREIGNTY A RELIC OF THE PAST…….

That’s right, they push the ”illusion of sovereignty” meme to trash any move towards it, while pushing an illusion of (small-d) democratic self rule. 

Finland’s Minister of Finance, Alexander Stubb (neo-statist) is pushing exactly that, in a yesterday tweet he wrote: ”Vintage” and linked to an article in the Economist pushing exactly that meme:

The message is basically this; – Individual states are all tied down by treaties individually and globally, no one state is “sovereign”- So in essence we all should just such the hell up, allow others to determine our fates for us and remove ourselves from politics altogether, let the elites run our lives, state sovereignty as well as individual sovereignty, are ”trappings of the Enlightenment”, get over it.

Yep, Alexander Stubb is fine with that.

stubb 2

Michael Gove: ‘It is hard to overstate the degree to which the EU is a constraint on ministers’ ability to do the things that we were elected to do.’

DOMINIC LAWSON: Cameron and the cynical lie that’s festered for 45 years

On yesterday’s Andrew Marr Show (pictured),  David Cameron, dismissed the presenter’s question about whether we, the British people, would regain sovereignty if we were to vote to leave the EU

On yesterday’s Andrew Marr Show (pictured),  David Cameron, dismissed the presenter’s question about whether we, the British people, would regain sovereignty if we were to vote to leave the EU

The man — or woman — in the street probably does not think much about sovereignty. Yet the true meaning of this word will be at the heart of the referendum campaign on whether we should remain in, or leave, the European Union.

It is the debate we should have had in 1972, when Parliament passed the European Community Act. The then Conservative government led by Edward Heath skilfully evaded the issue — and that is putting it politely.

On yesterday’s Andrew Marr Show, the current Tory leader and PM, David Cameron, dismissed the presenter’s question about whether we, the British people, would regain sovereignty if we were to vote to leave the EU, arguing: ‘That might give you a feeling of sovereignty, but it would be an illusion of sovereignty.’

Cameron went on to say that the real meaning of sovereignty was ‘the ability to get things done’.

This was a pathetic response from a man who got a first-class degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford.

Sir Noel Malcolm, that great university’s most distinguished historian of such matters, set out the truth in his 1991 work, Sense On Sovereignty: ‘What qualifies a state as sovereign is a matter of plenary and exclusive competence, of enjoying full authority internally and not being subordinated to the authority of another state.’

On that basis, the British Parliament and Government are not sovereign.

Inadequate

This was laid bare with devastating clarity by the Lord Chancellor, Michael Gove, when he gave his reasons for joining the campaign to leave the EU: ‘As a minister, I’ve seen hundreds of new EU rules cross my desk, none of which were requested by the UK Parliament, none of which I or any other British politician could alter in any way and none of which made us freer, richer or fairer.

‘It is hard to overstate the degree to which the EU is a constraint on ministers’ ability to do the things that we were elected to do.’

He went on: ‘Every single day, every single minister is told, “Yes Minister, I understand, but that is against EU rules.” I know it. My colleagues in Government know it. And the British people ought to know it, too: your government is not, ultimately, in control in hundreds of areas that matter.’

Michael Gove, pictured yesterday after joining the campaign to leave, said hundreds of new EU rules pass that ministers can do nothing about

Michael Gove, pictured yesterday after joining the campaign to leave, said hundreds of new EU rules pass that ministers can do nothing about

And with that, David Cameron’s response to Andrew Marr was exposed by his close friend as not just pathetically inadequate, but as the complete opposite of the truth: for it is within the EU that Britain has ‘the illusion of sovereignty’.

Funnily enough, it was an earlier Lord Chancellor, Lord Dilhorne, who told the truth (but in a private note) to his party leader Harold Macmillan, in 1962, when that Conservative Prime Minister was preparing the ground to apply for membership of the Common Market: ‘These organs have supra-national powers which override those of the national constitutional bodies, and which are also incapable of challenge in the national courts of the member states.’

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