Sovereignty

From the very beginning, the whole question of British and European integration has turned fundamentally on the question of sovereignty, as Ursula von der Leyen accepted this afternoon. Those who favoured membership then and now dismiss sovereignty as a meaningless or outdated notion in a world of interconnection. The events of the last four years, and perhaps even more the last few days, should have made them think again. The question of fishing had the merit of making sovereignty concrete and understandable, which is why it became suddenly so crucial. You may decide to give or lend certain rights or powers to others, but who makes that decision? Who has

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