How ever, it should be stressed that national governments are still the most powerful actors with in the EU, practically on issues such as treaty change, on which they retain the veto. In the domestic arena, parliament retains the final legislative authority as it has the right to with draw from the EU (2). So this argues weather ‘federal Europe’ is actually a threat to Britain and her domestic policies.
Because Many of Britain’s jobs and a great deal of businesses depend on trade with Europe, working with other nations can solve problems that Britain can not tackle successfully on there own. So conservatives believe that Britain cannot and should not turn its back on Europe and allow other nations to help with some domestic issues. Conservatives still believe in putting Britain first and want a New Deal for European constitution whereby they can still control domestic policy. Conservative leader in 2003 Iain Duncan Smith said “Labour want the EU to be a super power. Conservatives want it to be a partnership of Nations’’ (3). Meaning Labour are willing to let the EU have more power. Chancellor Gordon brown also made a passionate plea the day after for Britain to stay out of the single Currency for the foreseeable future. Meaning to stay out for domestic, national and economic reasons (4).
Where as the Labour and the Liberal democrats party are still determined to vote for more EU power and EU control. More so for Liberal democrats who also want to scrap the pound and join the single currency (5). Labour had originally promised to keep home affair matters (domestic policy) – asylum, immigration and criminal law - intergovernmental not subject to European commission. Labour has now gone back on these promises. Eurosceptics and pro Europeans disagree about the nature of sovereignty and the impact of the EU upon Britain’s democracy. Eurosceptics believe sovereign authority should be located with the nation state rather than the EU with citizens can identify. According to Eurosceptics, the transfer of decision –making powers to the EU has weakened democracy by fracturing the bonds between policy makers and the people (6). Pro-Europeans believe Britain has achieved policy objectives (for example, the Single European Market) which it could not have achieved alone. So believe the EU should be helping to deal with issues such as the environment and migration in Britain, which is the same as what the Liberal Democrats think.
Another argument on joining the EMU which is damaging the control on Domestic policy is the lack of public accountability in the EU which is known as the ‘Democratic Deficit.’ The term, ‘Democratic Deficit refers to, “The growing gap between the power and authority of EU institutions” (7). As more aspects of national sovereignty are transferred to the European level, the ability of citizens to influence and supervise this new power base has declined significantly.
Britain is said to be democratic under the new labour government and if they join the single currency they’ll be giving away more sovereignty, so the peoples influence on domestic policy’s would not be dealt with because the public would not be heard by the EU’s ministers and councils . Therefore policies made for Britain would not really be democratic because citizens haven’t been able to influence them, therefore limiting the government’s power in controlling domestic policies.
More and more powers are being transferred to these so far unelected regional authorities. Ultimately they will have their own education authorities and police forces. This is being done in the hope that, when the electorate is presented with the possibility of directly elected assemblies for these regions, people will vote for their creation.
This is part of the continuing attack on our state: EU diktats from above, making laws which Westminster has no power to prevent or amend; and regional government from below, competing with Westminster and dependent on Brussels finance.