Bill Cash: Act now to return sovereignty to the British

This is a vital matter as we approach the General Election which will probably be in May. It is therefore also a vital element in the political manifestoes. The issue of Parliamentary sovereignty is essentially a practical question and affects every voter and every man, woman and child in the country on a daily basis and in a very direct way.

So, the protection of our sovereignty is essential. European Union legislation invades every nook and cranny of our daily lives. On any reasonable estimate, it affects at least 70 per cent of laws governing us – as I witness every week in the European Scrutiny Committee.

It controls major aspects of state aids, financial regulation, energy bills, relations with Russia and internal security, the running of our own degraded, chatting-shop Parliament, control of public and local authorities, burdens on business and over-regulation, debt levels and questions of public expenditure through the absurdly named Stability and Growth Pact – which provides neither stability, nor growth nor a pact.

It also controls the whole of our justice and criminal law, the regulation of the City of London and the role of the Bank of England and financial services, family law, the Common Agricultural Policy, the Common Fisheries Policy, the rebate, regional policy making, energy policy, consequences of immigration.

According to the Taxpayers' Alliance, the EU costs 2,000 for each man, woman and child and now we have the new and unacceptable proposals for enlargement of the union involving countries who are neither

appropriate allies nor intrinsically democratic.

The sovereignty of Parliament has been and continues to be under

serious threat. This is not a theological or academic question but is one of the most, if not the most, important issues of our time and directly affects the democratic choices of the voter.

Apart from the contempt with which the Government treats Parliament by drastic guillotining of Bills and manipulation of committees, there is as well the fundamental question of the undermining of parliamentary sovereignty by the European Union and the European Court of Justice through the European Communities Act 1972. Through the use of majority voting, the requirements under the 1972 Act and the making of European regulations now stretching into every aspect of the lives of the United Kingdom electorate, the legislative programme of the British Parliament and therefore the British voter is under an absolute obligation to accept European laws whatever the impact.

The Government's position, by contrast with that of the Conservative Party, is one of the abandonment of the fundamental truths of parliamentary sovereignty and the dangerous waters into which the Government has duped the British people with the betrayal represented by the signing and enactment of the Lisbon Treaty. However, David Cameron has now reaffirmed my call for an association of nation states, which would be founded on the principle of parliamentary sovereignty.

He has proposed a Sovereignty Bill within this framework because he recognises the dangers we are in. In the interests of what this Sovereignty Bill might mean in the near future, I introduced a debate in Parliament this month and drafted a Parliamentary Bill as a "gold standard" for how the Conservative Party might seek to draft its Sovereignty Bill.

I doubt whether the mainstream media will have even referred to my debate on the Sovereignty of Parliament on January 13 or my United Kingdom Parliamentary Sovereignty Bill published on the following day, as the establishment, of course, would wish to keep it all under wraps – don't tell the people and it will all go away.

I have full confidence that my Bill reaffirms the sovereignty of the United Kingdom Parliament. It asserts that "No Minister of the Crown shall sign, ratify or implement any treaty or law", which does not reaffirm sovereignty.

My Bill states that if legislation seeks to increase the functions of the European Union affecting the United Kingdom it must then require it to be approved in a referendum of the electorate.

The referendum is essential as it gives the Parliament a mandate on behalf of the British people. The Bill also demands that the Queen shall not signify her Royal Assent to any Bill which contravenes the Act until that Bill has been approved by both Houses of Parliament, and has also been approved in a referendum of the electorate in the United Kingdom, which itself must be issued by Parliament.

The idea that this is not possible is simply wrong. It is legally watertight, with the backing of several pre-eminent constitutional authorities, it is right, it is in the public interest, it is for the re-establishment of democracy for our deteriorating Parliament and the British people have every right to demand it of their MPs at the next General Election.

Bill Cash is a Conservative MP and leading Eurosceptic.