Britain in the European Union: Law, Policy and Parliament

Contemporary Review, Oct, 2004

Britain in the European Union: Law, Policy and Parliament. Philip Giddings and Gavin Drewry, editors. Palgrave Macmillan. [pounds sterling]18.99 p.b. xi 277 pages. ISBN 1-4039-0452-9. This collection of eleven essays is a follow-up to Westminster and Europe (1996), also sponsored by the Study of Parliament Group.

This second instalment has a more legal and constitutional approach to the relation between Parliament and the ever-developing EU. As the editors write, the EU 'has permeated every aspect of public life', whether for good or evil is open to debate if not to popular control. How Parliament, once sovereign, has been affected by 'Europe' is the theme of these papers. They look at the theory of constitutional sovereignty vis a vis the EU, the problems of enlargement, employment law, Parliamentary scrutiny of European regulations, EMU and the Euro foreign, security and defence policies, immigration and asylum as well as devolution. There is also an Afterword by the editors in which they show the difficult position in which MPs now find themselves: as the proposed 'constitution' hovers over them public opposition to rule by Brussels grows and hardens. The essays here give a good over-view of the situation as it is now. What it will be in a year's time no one can say. (T.E.W.)