I followed the link Perry gave us re the Metric Martyrs case, and read the piece by Helen Szamuely with interest, indeed fascination.
Now I realise that nothing involving the EU is ever quite what it seems, but my understanding of Helen Szamuely’s understanding of the case is not that the EU now rules Britain, but that the EU now rules Britain on British sufferance, which can, any time we like, be unsuffered. The basis of EU rule in Britain is that Britain switched it on with a Parliamentary Statute, and Britain can switch it off. The British Parliament is and will always remain sovereign.
At the heart of the EU project is the claim that once you’re in, you can’t leave. Not so, say our judges.
The Metric Martyrs lose, not because the EU says so, but because the EU says so and we say, for the time being: okay. But in the future, we could decide to say: not okay. Britain is not yet a province of the European Superstate, according to these judges. It would be complicated to unravel, very complicated, and it would require a great and highly self-conscious, so to speak, Parliamentary convulsion, in the manner of, say, contriving a new amendment to the US Constitution. But, say Their Lordships, we could unravel it if we chose to, and declare national independence again.
Which means that, in a sense, they just did.
