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EUreferndum

Andrew:
RN
There is a profound difference between a normal international treaty (eg. NATO) and our relationship with the EU as I’m sure you realise: a normal Treaty is NOT part of domestic law (not being passed as an Act by Parliament) but EU law obviously is.
Consequently, your point about “binding successors” misses the point. A new Government is not “bound” by a previous Treeaty in the way it is bound by EU law because the former is not law at all and is an entirely political question (eg. shd we stay in NATO) while the status of EU law means that one is bound in a way that is conceptually different from all previous English law (though new ideas about “human rights” law of domestic origin use the same arguments).
Nobody in the media seems to understand the actual position regarding EU law but it was explained very clearly by the Court of Appeal in the 2002 Metric martyr Case. This made clear that Parliament can amend or repeal the ECA 1972 as it wishes (though such action may be against “international law” in various forms, which raises other questions)…

Denis Cooper:
We’re only bound by these EU measures because Parliament has agreed that they will bind us, and Parliament could still change its mind on that either in one specific instance or more generally.
It’s better to have a convincing case why it’s necessary for us to renege on an international agreement, or people will think that we can’t be trusted to keep our word in the future. But our national courts have agreed that Parliament retains the right to do so.
However if we accept the EU Constitution, it may be more difficult for Parliament to say “We’ve changed our minds on that”, because by Article I-6 we will have explicitly agreed to give primacy to the EU Constitution. It would then be a question of what our national courts said, and whether they decided to defy the European Court of Justice. If not, how the government of the day would react when the highest British court (whichever that may be at the time) told the government that it had to obey the EU Constitution.
The government could then use its Parliamentary majority to pass a Bill re-asserting British sovereignty and directing the British courts to disregard any provisions of the EU Constitution that contradicted British laws. The judges might then conform to that, or they might still say that the EU Constitution was now the supreme source of law and therefore they must continue to defy the government.
In that event, they would have to be removed, which would need a vote in both Houses of Parliament I believe. If necessary, the police would have to be told to keep them out of the court rooms so their successors could take over. So then there’s the question of whether the commanders of the police would be loyal to HMQ and Parliament, or to the EU …..
Article I-6 contains the seeds of a major constitutional crisis, not just for us but for all of the EU member states.