Opposing the EU Bill

The EU Bill is back in parliament today, amid speculation that Cameron has a Europe-fuelled rebellion on his hands. Despite the talk, the chances are that the Bill will go through Parliament wholly unscathed in its first test.
 
Today’s debate is about the so-called ‘sovereignty clause’ – or Clause 18 – within the EU Bill. Of the Bill’s 17 pages, the clause only takes up four lines, but has still managed to cause the most fuss (the vast majority of the text relates to the EU ‘referendum lock’).
 
The government claims that Clause 18 confirms that EU law “is only recognised by virtue of the authority of acts of Parliament”, and that it seeks to counter fears that parliamentary sovereignty can “be eroded by decision of the courts”.
 
Such reasoning hasn’t convinced some Tory backbench MPs. They say that parliamentary sovereignty is not based on common law – which is hammered out by judges not MPs – but on parliament’s victory over the monarchy hundreds of years ago.