Some countries have constitutions that forbid giving up any parts of its territory, but apparently our government can hand over sovereignty without even a vote in parliament
There is no general rule that parliament has to ratify, or even scrutinise, a treaty. The main exceptions are if the treaty requires domestic legislation to be passed by parliament, or if the treaty has significant constitutionap implications. Given our un-codified constitution here in the UK, I would imagine the latter constaint comes with some wriggle-room.
This [2] briefing by the House of Commons Library lays it all out.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_prerogative_in_the_Unite...
[2] https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-...
Not the case. The executive makes treaties. Parliament can scrutinise them but has no general ratification or veto role. See https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-... .
My point was that there is no constitutional requirement for parliament to ratify treaties.
Yes, it can delay a treaty. It could even pass legislation preventing a treaty from having legal effect. But that would require a extraordinary breakdown in parliamentary party discipline.
The real lever of power in congress is the parliamentary process in the Senate.
Wyoming has more sheep than people, but they are represented on the same basis as California, Florida, etc.
The Republicans do end up with a small (up to 5%) advantage in the Senate but that's it. Nothing remotely close to the Labour party getting a near supermajority in the Commons from 34% of the vote. It's simply much much worse in practice than the situation in the United States.
But yeah, Jersey is also an overseas territory, can the government just give that away?
I vaguely remember handing over the Falkland Islands to Argentina was actually on the cards before the invasion, so perhaps surprisingly the answer is "yes".
It seems like people forget that the UK ceded everything from Ireland which was a UK constituent as opposed to a UK subject as well as Canada, Australia, India and numerous other territories.
In the UK, parliament is supreme and has the final authority.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
High level overview is that it doesn’t look that different, and like most things concerning UK law and the laws of Crown Dependencies, a lot of it is just custom. There’s long been a debate over how much the UK’s Parliament can unilaterally legislate over them without their consent which remains largely untested because by custom they don’t. Overseas Territories are to my understanding creatures of the UK Parliament and remnants of the Empire whereas Jersey and Guernsey are the remnants of Normandy which the British Crown managed to retain when they lost the mainland to France. I don’t remember much about Manx history though, so I’ll refrain from commenting on them specifically.
But since you put out an AMA: how’s life in Bermuda? Would you recommend it?
The weather is delightful, the taxes acceptable, the digital infrastructure ok. It can be an expensive place to live but a single person with no dependants could live here on $4k a month. The path to permanent residence is difficult but manageable for those who bring real value to the place (think jobs or significant capital). The people are generally friendly (though as with anywhere there are exceptions) and the Premier has at least some Software experience.
It is a very interesting question, in my humble opinion, As to Bermuda's relations with the British crown. So far as I am aware there has never been a law passed by the British parliament and enforced through the privy council which was not passed by the Bermuda Parliament before commencement. Importantly (and uniquely for the OTs). Bermuda was established prior to the Act of Union and so has a relationship with the "crown of England" rather than the "crown of Great Britain" having been settled in 1612.
If Parliament tried to ban booze (as the US Federal Government once did) that's probably not going to go well, and maybe they would (like the US government) be forced to undo that - but all they did here was give away something very few of their citizens likely even knew they had. I was surprised it made headlines.
They might get punished in the next election or they may not.
More precisely only the PM can call an election I believe.
If what they do is sufficiently contrary to the will of the people (or at least, those with weapons and the will to use them), they'll get punished sooner than that. Laws and constitutions are a useful abstraction but ultimately an imperfect one.