"To make this clearer, joining the EU made it obligatory for the UK to accept and enact on EU laws and regulations. This means that the UK parliament’s supremacy over making laws has been arguably reduced, even though the UK participated actively in the EU’s decision-making processes. This is also despite that it enjoyed possibly the most privileged membership that enabled it to be selective, and opting out from EU legislation on various occasions; the European Monetary Union, the Schengen Agreement and so on.6
"It seems that the fact that the UK, much like Denmark, Poland and Ireland, had the opportunity to negotiate and opt-out from EU legislations is evidence that sovereignty, at least in terms of the power to negotiate, remains with the member-state; it is not exchanged for membership. That could be the case, if the UK parliament had lost its authority to withdraw the UK from the EU.7 That would be the case in which it could be said that the supremacy of the UK government has been lost.
"However, Brexit is the best example that the UK has remained a sovereign country throughout and there is no reason to believe that this would not be the case for an independent Scotland joining the EU as an equal member. In other words, the necessary sharing of sovereignty, in terms of having to accept EU legislation, is inevitable in the same way it is inevitable for everyone that decides to be a member of a democratic society to follow its laws and norms as well as to participate actively in their making. This is actually something that arguably enhances rather than reduces sovereignty.
"Being part of a community of nations requires putting the whole above the individual parts and thus voluntarily sharing individual sovereignty, to gain access to a larger pool of opportunities for development alongside other member-states. As Aristotle said, thousands of years ago: ‘those that live in isolation and not in political communities are either beasts or gods.’8 Similarly, any country in the modern political world that chooses isolation over participation in the global political community is either not rational or is suffering from delusions of grandeur. Without saying that the EU, or any other political community for that matter, is perfect, Scotland should be wise and choose participation over isolation."
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