Fun with numbers: Call Me Dave's "Sovereignty Bill"

Ho hum, he's come up with another cast-iron guarantee. There are recent precedents for this, as it happens, so to recap:

Number of Tory MPs elected on 6 May 2005: 198.

Number of MPs who voted for Bill Cash's Clause 17 "Disapplication of European Communites Act 1972" on 16 May 2005: 136 (see Division 239, virtually all of these were Tory MPs).

Number of MPs voting for a referendum on Lisbon Treaty on 5 March 2008: 248 (AFAIAA, that's virtually all the Tory MPs and some from Labour etc).

Number of MPs voting in favour of Bill Cash's Clause 9 "Supremacy of Parliament*" on 5 March 2008: 48 (see Division 120. These were virtually all the Tory MPs still present after the rest had been sent home).

* "Notwithstanding any provision of the European Communities Act 1972, nothing in this Act shall affect or be construed by any court in the United Kingdom as affecting the supremacy of the United Kingdom Parliament."

Email to William Hague

"Dear Mr Hague

I note that on March 11th you replied to an intervention by Bill Cash as follows:

11 Mar 2008 : Column 167
"Mr. Hague: Given the growth of the EU’s powers, British sovereignty and the ultimate supremacy of Parliament need a constitutional safeguard, but I also say to my hon. Friend that the legal implications of any such provision must be absolutely clear. More work would need to be done in the future on the context and formula by which it is achieved, but I have great sympathy with the constitutional safeguard of ultimate supremacy."

I wonder whether the Conservative party is now doing that work, and whether it will be attempting to insert such a constitutional safeguard into the European Union (Amendment) Bill during its passage through the Lords?

Yours faithfully

Dr D R Cooper"

Misplaced loyalty (and that's putting it mildly!)

Here's Dennis Cooper's letter on the Tories' ultimate act of treachery on 5 March 2008, so far printed only in The Scotsman. The only other person to cover this story was Vindico.