No, it's exactly the same thing. We made a treaty with the EU, and it's power enters our legal system on exactly the same basis as other international law. That this is true is obvious from the simple fact we're having a referendum on staying in the EU. Our parliament reserves the right to reverse prior treaty. Doing so does, of course, have consequence.
That's not right. There's a mechanism that allows us to leave (Article 50) and if we do that we can repeal the European Community Act 1972, which established the concept of EU law being supreme. Section 3(1) for example says that decisions of the ECJ overrule UK precedents. Unless we leave, the EU will continue to be the supreme legislative power.
No, it's chosen by our democratically elected government. Just as our representatives in other international negotiations are chosen by our government. The number of people who are directly elected in the UK is tiny compared to the number of people who serve in our government. Democracy is achieved not directly but by accountability to the elected positions.
So you're saying the UK government choosing two individuals out of the entirety of the EU bureaucracy means.......the EU is therefore democratic and accountable? Come on, that's a tenuous link. The commission initiatives all the law and is unelected, unaccountable and frankly, most people have never heard of any of them. We're letting a body which is wholly undemocratic create laws that are supreme to our own.
The UK Government picking a representative for itself in negotiations is very different to how the EU is run as above.
The EU is much bigger than the UK. I don't expect us to have an unreasonable level of say in its running anymore than I expect Leicester South to dictate policy to the UK.
The question is how big should Government get? Are you accepting that remain means we continue to move toward further integration and power continues to move away from the UK? If so then how far should it go? It seems the current 28 countries and 500m people isn't enough, so 5 more are on the candidate list. How many more will be added in the next 40+ years?
If the EU was a genuinely progressive, democratic, representative institution then the above might be OK. But it isn't, it works in favour of corporate interests, removes democracy and centralises power in the hands of an unelected few.
It all comes back to the old saying -
the further power is away from you the less able you are to influence it.
I keep making the point because you never address it. How does being bound by rules we no longer have any say over increase our sovereignty? Or are you arguing that it does reduce our sovereignty but that we make more back elsewhere?
Being in the EU means they have power/sovereignty over more areas of our laws than if we're outside the EU. It's as simple as that. You keep banging on about influence, but the EU means we have
less influence over our own lives, for example:
The EU trade deal with Australia is being held up because some Italian tomato-growers are challenging it. The EU trade deal with Canada is being held up due to an unrelated dispute about Romanian visas. We cannot influence these things because they're outside of our control, but if we left we could, and we could negotiate deals in our best interest.
And again, if it's such a bad deal then why are the Norwegians and Swiss happy with what they've got?
I find the idea that the UK has no influence silly, so I feel little need to address it.
Fine, but being unable to prove it doesn't help your case much, and won't sway those on the fence who can patently see we have little influence.