The government's ability to control domestic policy would be limited

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Hypotheses one:

The government’s ability to control domestic policy would be limited

Joining the European Union, Britain has already lost some of her power to control Domestic policy, but will joining the single currency lead her to losing more? Will Britain’s government eventually lose sovereignty to the European Union? Britain originally had ultimate decision making authority and was able to act with out undue external constraint; however now Britain has to obey EU laws. Making federal Europe a threat to Britain.

The EU has extended its policy control into areas such as home affairs, security and defence, Environment, monetary policy (which Britain have not yet signed too) and foreign policy etc which were formally the preserve of national governments I.E. all of Europe have the same basic pay wages, health and safety rules, employment rules etc. For this to happen, Britain had to agree to it by John Major signing the Maastricht on 7 February 1992, so in a way it is the governments own fault for losing control on domestic issues.

EU has primacy over national law (parliament and Westminster) meaning that British law can be overturned if it conflicts with EU law. The European Communities act 1972 gave EU law legal force in Britain and denied effectiveness to national legislation conflicting it. An example of this is the 1990 Factor Tame Case, the House of Lords overturned parts of the 1988 Merchant shipping act, which it found to be contrary to EU law(1). This therefore showing that Britain could lose more domestic power and give away more of her traditional values as well as her sovereignty to the EU.

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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 ...

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