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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

> I hope that word doesn't stick. All EU countries are independent, as is the UK. For the sake of all 27 EU countries , please stop using divisive and wrong rhetoric.

Lesson from the US: You can't have sovereigns with superior sovereigns. Individual US states are on paper sovereign, but in reality have been relegated to being administrative districts of the federal government with little meaningful right to self-determination independent of other states.

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Its not like that, without a common language and currency, EU presence in the UK is not much more than a common set of certain standards.

Standards like Human Rights, which is something the UK has already expressed an interest in removing.

I don't think thats true

Conservative manifesto of 2015. "Scrap the human rights act" and "curtail the role of the European court of human rights". This seemed to be reported more reputable UK news sources than just reddit (though your opinion of the guardian might vary).

There certainly seems to be more substance to it than just "random internet claims" :(

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/21/govern...

It's like some people here are basing their opinions completely on "I read it online".

Nothing to do with EU, Councel pf Europe != European Councel.

The EU is not some sort of sovereign. It's an organization staffed by bureaucrats (i.e., unelected officials) for the purpose of furthering the agreed upon goals of the member sovereign states. Comparison with U.S. is ridiculous.

There is an EU Parliament, and it can make binding law. So it's pretty disingenuous to make it seem like the UN or WTO.

Not binding for citizens. local governments have to conform to EU laws though.

Nope. There are a few different types of EU legislation. Some have to be implemented by local governments as you say (e.g. EU directives), but some immediately become the law of the member countries after being passed in the EU. These are known as EU regulations. You can read more about the different types of EU legislation here:

http://europa.eu/eu-law/decision-making/legal-acts/index_en....

Thanks for that. I would suggest anyone who thinks an analogy of EU to U.S is appropriate review what the EU actually is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union

The European Parliment doesn't have the power to propose new laws.

Nope. As much as the EU is meant to promote trade, it is also self-serving, putting the interests of a fuller union ahead of the interests of member countries. To give an example, if member countries were truly respected then the Lisbon Treaty would not have passed, as similar proposals were democratically rejected by public referendums.

The EU is not nearly comparable to the US from a state-theoretic point of view.

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