Beautiful Virgin Islands

Saturday, Sep 06, 2025

Does the EU understand what sovereignty really means?

Does the EU understand what sovereignty really means?

The UK never tried to have our constitution written in one big session. We made it up by responding to each crisis when it happened. Brexit is just the latest.
The remaining sticking points on a deal are fish and something called the level playing field. Fish is very interesting, I assume, but it is politics, not law. So, as a lawyer who chooses not to speak on politics (some do), fish is none of my business.

But the Level Playing Field (LPF) – which is a legal problem – is. It is the elephant in the room. And yet the EU's response to this issue is deeply unhelpful.

Rightly or wrongly, the public voted for Brexit. Brexit is about sovereignty and sovereignty is a legal question. The EU does not accept the same definition that everyone who is not the EU uses: freedom to make your own law. It is hard for us lawyers to define sovereignty any other way. While we were in the EU, sovereignty was pooled; they had some, we had some. A political choice was made to do that.

Then, there were lots of debates in 2015. They rightly focused on the political question which is: ‘Do we want to pool our sovereignty with the EU or not?’.

What it seems the EU has been doing for the last 54 months is to put differently coloured hats on the elephant in the room that is sovereignty in the hope it goes away. That seemed unlikely to work.

Losing sovereignty; losing the freedom to make laws, or even the freedom to copy someone else’s laws if you choose to, is an oddity of the EU. Plenty of people have tried to blame Boris Johnson for his intransigence in Brexit talks. But when it comes to the issue of sovereignty it is hard to fault him for sticking to his guns.

he issue is this. Some of the businesses in the UK want to trade with the EU. Those ones will obey EU law to do so. If we are sovereign, then the ones that don’t want to trade with the EU would not obey EU law. The UK might voluntarily copy EU law – that is actually quite common, but the EU couldn’t make us.

Now the EU is trying the same strategy – putting a different hat on the elephant. Every new hat gets more elaborate and it is extremely complex by even my standards of complexity. Each hat has a collection of accompanying letters to describe it. If the purpose of law is to be plain and read by everyone, and it is, then LPF is what I would describe to a judge as 'unhelpful'. It is, in every version, not sovereignty. The hat gets increasingly fancy – the elephant remains.

Whether you can live with that or not is a political opinion. I care only about law. The law protects you from having to tell me your political opinions. If I am being politically neutral, then this is the point at which I stop talking.

It is only if you say, 'I don’t want this elephant in my room' that lawyers like me must speak. If my client made such a demand, I would calmly explain the legal options to remove the elephant. If you are a country, like the UK, then you can remove any elephant anytime. The people who put the elephant in your room might not like it. But if they don't, that's a matter for politicians, not lawyers.

The elephant of the EU’s idiosyncratic view of sovereignty has been in the room for some time. The vote did not shift it. And the aftermath of the referendum – and the endless Brexit talks – have highlighted that on the issue of sovereignty, it is the EU which is behaving oddly.

If that looks like I am taking a political view, I’m not, we have ignored this elephant for 47 years. Until anyone asks me to deal with it, I shall simply compliment it upon its new hat.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Threatens Retaliatory Tariffs After EU Imposes €2.95 Billion Fine on Google
Tesla Board Proposes Unprecedented One-Trillion-Dollar Performance Package for Elon Musk
US Justice Department Launches Criminal Mortgage-Fraud Probe into Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook
Escalating Drug Trafficking and Violence in Latin America: A Growing Crisis
US and Taiwanese Defence Officials Held Secret Talks in Alaska
Report: Secret SEAL Team 6 Mission in North Korea Ordered by Trump in 2019 Ended in Failure
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay Secure Places at 2026 World Cup
Florida Murder Case: The Adelson Family, the Killing of Dan Markel, and the Trial of Donna Adelson
Trump Administration Advances Plans to Rebrand Pentagon as Department of War Instead of the Fake Term Department of Defense
Big Tech Executives Laud Trump at White House Dinner, Unveil Massive U.S. Investments
Tether Expands into Gold Sector with Profit-Driven Diversification
‘Looks Like a Wig’: Online Users Express Concern Over Kate Middleton
Brand-New $1 Million Yacht Sinks Just Fifteen Minutes After Maiden Launch in Turkey
Here’s What the FBI Seized in John Bolton Raid — and the Legal Risks He Faces
Florida’s Vaccine Revolution: DeSantis Declares War on Mandates
Trump’s New War – and the ‘Drug Tyrant’ Fearing Invasion: ‘1,200 Missiles Aimed at Us’
"The Situation Has Never Been This Bad": The Fall of PepsiCo
At the Parade in China: Laser Weapons, 'Eagle Strike,' and a Missile Capable of 'Striking Anywhere in the World'
The Fashion Designer Who Became an Italian Symbol: Giorgio Armani Has Died at 91
Putin Celebrates ‘Unprecedentedly High’ Ties with China as Gazprom Seals Power of Siberia-2 Deal
China Unveils New Weapons in Grand Military Parade as Xi Hosts Putin and Kim
Queen Camilla’s Teenage Courage: Fended Off Attempted Assault on London Train, New Biography Reveals
Scottish Brothers Set Record in Historic Pacific Row
Rapper Cardi B Cleared of Liability in Los Angeles Civil Assault Trial
Google Avoids Break-Up in U.S. Antitrust Case as Stocks Rise
Couple celebrates 80th wedding anniversary at assisted living facility in Lancaster
Information Warfare in the Age of AI: How Language Models Become Targets and Tools
The White House on LinkedIn Has Changed Their Profile Picture to Donald Trump
"Insulted the Prophet Muhammad": Woman Burned Alive by Angry Mob in Niger State, Nigeria
Trump Responds to Death Rumors – Announces 'Missile City'
Court of Appeal Allows Asylum Seekers to Remain at Essex Hotel Amid Local Tax Boycott Threats
Germany in Turmoil: Ukrainian Teenage Girl Pushed to Death by Illegal Iraqi Migrant
United Krack down on human rights: Graham Linehan Arrested at Heathrow Over Three X Posts, Hospitalised, Released on Bail with Posting Ban
Asian and Middle Eastern Investors Avoid US Markets
Ray Dalio Warns of US Shift to Autocracy
Eurozone Inflation Rises to 2.1% in August
Russia and China Sign New Gas Pipeline Deal
China's Robotics Industry Fuels Export Surge
Suntory Chairman Resigns After Police Probe
Gold Price Hits New All-Time Record
Von der Leyen's Plane Hit by Suspected Russian GPS Interference in an Incident Believed to Be Caused by Russia or by Pro-Peace or by Anti-Corruption European Activists
UK Fintechs Explore Buying US Banks
Greece Suspends 5% of Schools as Birth Rate Drops
Apollo to Launch $5 Billion Sports Investment Vehicle
Bolsonaro Trial Nears Close Amid US-Brazil Tension
European Banks Push for Lower Cross-Border Barriers
Poland's Offshore Wind Sector Attracts Investors
Nvidia Reveals: Two Mystery Customers Account for About 40% of Revenue
Woody Allen: "I Would Be Happy to Direct Trump Again in a Film"
×