Note :  Legislative Supremacy of UK Law

No Treaty ever written is superior to the will of the people in a democratic nation. There is no power, no superior legal system, which can take away our right to repudiate any Treaty any policy or any agreement. That is enshrined in the very nature of democracy and nothing can take it away.

When Britain signed the Treaty of Accession in 1972 the obligations of that Treaty could not become effective in the UK until a British Act of Parliament paved the way. The sovereignty of Parliament remained unchallenged and Community law only applied as it passed through the drawbridge of the European Communities Act 1972.-particularly Section2.i thereof. Therefore Parliament can at any time cancel the applicability of EU law either in whole or in part. The sovereignty of Parliament means that EU legislation shall only apply for as long as and to the extent to which Parliament allows.

The British courts must uphold any new Act of Parliament or any amendment of the European Communities Act, which contains the wording- “Any provisions of the European Communities Act notwithstanding”.

Parliament cannot bind its successor nor can its predecessor bind it.

The most important principle of British Constitutional law is the legislative supremacy of the British Parliament. Parliament can make or unmake any law that it likes at any time apart from one---it cannot legislate to surrender its own sovereignty.

When Parliament eventually re-asserts its sovereignty over our “exclusive fishing zone” there will be a challenge by the EU authorities before the ECJ. However the jurisdiction of that Court in the UK is also subject to Parliament’s approval and an appropriate clause excluding that jurisdiction could also be inserted in the Act or amendment disapplying the CFP.

Westminster control of the UK fishing zone of 200 miles, or to the median line, does not necessitate leaving the EU. Some other Member States might not like it, but there is no mechanism within the EU rules for those States to force the UK out of the EU.

To withdraw from the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) requires a majority vote in our Westminster Parliament, to create new legislation to amend the 1972 Act.  It oes not require the unanimous agreement of the other EU Member States.
      
Extract from
SOVEREIGNTY AND THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES
Foreign & Commonwealth  Office Paper examining the implications of entry into the European Communities for British Sovereignty

FCO 30/1048 - 1971

 Internal Sovereignty

The implications of membership for Parliamentary sovereignty and for the legal system which is closely related to it are more immediate.

(i)   By accepting the Community Treaties we shall have to adapt the whole range of subsidiary  law which has been made by the Communities.  Not only this but we shall be making provision in advance for the unquestioned direct application (i.e. without any further participation by Parliament) of Community laws not yet made (even though Ministers would have a part, through membership of the Council, in the making of some of these laws). 

Community law operates only in the fields covered by the Treaties, viz, customs duties; agriculture; free movement of labour; services and capital; transport; monopolies and restrictive practices; state aid for industry; and the regulation of the coal and steel and nuclear energy indus¬tries.  Outside this considerable range there would remain unchanged by far the greater part of our domestic law (see Annex).

(ii) Community law is required to take precedence over domestic law: i.e. if a Community law conflicts with a statute, it is the statute which has to give way.  This is something not implied in other commitments which we have entered into in the past.  Previous treaties have imposed on us obligations which have required us to legislate in order to ful¬fill the international obligations set out in the treaty, but any discrepancy between our legislation and the treaty obligations has been solely a question of a possible breach of those international obligations the conflicting statute has still undoubtedly been the law to be applied in this country.  But the community system requires that such Community Law as applies directly as law in this country should by virtue of its own legal force as law in this country prevail over conflicting national legislation.  The Law Officers have, however, concluded that while the European Community will uphold the supremacy of Community Law in its application within the United Kingdom, our Courts, if faced with a statute intended by Parliament to override Community Law, are most unlikely in the immediately foreseeable future to be restrained from giving effect to the statute.

(iii) The power of the European Court to consider the extent to which a UK statute is compatible with Community Law will indirectly involve an innovation for us, as the European Court’s decisions will be binding on our courts which might then have to rule on the validity or applicability of the United Kingdom statute.