I’m afraid I think this definition of sovereignty (“freedom to make your own law”) is either useless or incoherent.

Very large numbers of international treaties require the UK to make, or not make, law. The UN Treaty requires us to impose sanctions. The Antarctic Treaty requires us to prohibit unlicensed operators organising tours to Antarctica. GATT restricts our ability to set tariffs.
@SBarrettBar appears to think that such provisions do not infringe his definition of “sovereignty”, but he fails to explain why not.
He asserts, without explaining why, that a level playing field term would infringe “sovereignty”. But the LPF terms being discussed simply set out actions that the EU is able to take if the UK legislates (or does not legislate) in certain ways.
Why is that different in legal principle from WTO rules that (for example) allow other states to impose high tariffs on our widget industry if we exercise our sovereign freedom to pass laws that exempt widget-making from UK tax?
Ultimately, the error here is to see “sovereignty” as something you either have or don’t have: a binary. But it isn’t, unless your definition is one that leaves only North Korea as a “sovereign” state.
It’s a very English peculiarity - possibly dating back to Hobbes, certainly to Dicey - to think about sovereignty in that peculiar reductionist, binary, way.
In the US, for example, States are often talked of as “sovereign” though their sovereignty is limited by the Constitution (which as from 1865 it has been clear they cannot leave): and even where they are sovereign their conduct is often affected by eg conditional federal grants.
In any event, if those invoking “sovereignty” want to wave it around as the basis for taking highly consequential political decisions, they need to do rather better at explaining what they’re talking about, and why things they dislike infringe it and things they like don’t.
NB there is a useful sense in which the EU Treaties affect sovereignty in the way that eg GATT doesn’t: the EU Treaties require Member States to accept as law - and to require their courts to apply - rules made collectively by the EU. Direct effect.
Note that in that sense the Withdrawal Agreement infringes UK sovereignty, since eg the NI Protocol and citizens rights provisions have direct effect and allow EU rules to have direct effect.
Parliament can always legislate to the contrary - and stop that happening in domestic law - but then it always could have done that while the UK was in the EU.
But as far as I can see nothing in the EU’s proposals for an FTA require direct effect. In Stephen’s language, no elephant (if that’s how he defines it).

More from For later read

@snip96581187 @Daoyu15 @lab_leak @walkaboutrick @ydeigin @Ayjchan @franciscodeasis @TheSeeker268 @angie_rasmussen Clearly, because as I have been saying for 8 months now, DTRA and DARPA have been using Ecohealth and UC Davis to collect novel pathogens for gain of function work back in the USA. I have documented this in many threads which I will post here just to annoy everyone.

@Daoyu15 @lab_leak @walkaboutrick @ydeigin @Ayjchan @franciscodeasis @TheSeeker268 @angie_rasmussen


@Daoyu15 @lab_leak @walkaboutrick @ydeigin @Ayjchan @franciscodeasis @TheSeeker268 @angie_rasmussen


@Daoyu15 @lab_leak @walkaboutrick @ydeigin @Ayjchan @franciscodeasis @TheSeeker268 @angie_rasmussen


@Daoyu15 @lab_leak @walkaboutrick @ydeigin @Ayjchan @franciscodeasis @TheSeeker268 @angie_rasmussen

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Recently, the @CNIL issued a decision regarding the GDPR compliance of an unknown French adtech company named "Vectaury". It may seem like small fry, but the decision has potential wide-ranging impacts for Google, the IAB framework, and today's adtech. It's thread time! 👇

It's all in French, but if you're up for it you can read:
• Their blog post (lacks the most interesting details):
https://t.co/PHkDcOT1hy
• Their high-level legal decision: https://t.co/hwpiEvjodt
• The full notification: https://t.co/QQB7rfynha

I've read it so you needn't!

Vectaury was collecting geolocation data in order to create profiles (eg. people who often go to this or that type of shop) so as to power ad targeting. They operate through embedded SDKs and ad bidding, making them invisible to users.

The @CNIL notes that profiling based off of geolocation presents particular risks since it reveals people's movements and habits. As risky, the processing requires consent — this will be the heart of their assessment.

Interesting point: they justify the decision in part because of how many people COULD be targeted in this way (rather than how many have — though they note that too). Because it's on a phone, and many have phones, it is considered large-scale processing no matter what.