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To what extent has the location of sovereignty changed in the UK? Essay Answer
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Summary Edexcel UK Government and Politics for AS/A Level, ISBN: 9781471889318 Full Paper 1
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To what extent has the location of sovereignty changed in the UK?In this essay I will be discussing the extent of the change in sovereignty which can be argued
is a big change or a small change. Sovereignty is a political concept that refers to dominate
political power or supreme authority. There are three types of sovereignty popular, political
and legal. Popular sovereignty is the principle that a government is sustained by the consent
of its people. Popular sovereignty is the location of real power and is based on who
realistically can exercise power within state. Finally, legal sovereignty is who has power to
make binding laws. I believe the location of sovereignty has changed a lot because political
and popular sovereignty has changed through referendum and devolution however, I don’t
believe it has changed completely as parliament still has legal sovereignty.
AO3-A strong argument that shows there has been major change in the location of
sovereignty is devolution. Devolution is the delegation of power from Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland.AO1- An example of this is the Wales Act of 2014 which devolved tax
powers to Wales for the first in 800 years. A02- This show that the location of sovereignty
has changed a lot in recent years as Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have been given
more powers from parliament than they ever have done. This can be seen as a weak
argument as parliament can take back powers they have given. AO1 - An example of this is
Westminster has taken back what they have devolved to Northern Ireland 3 times in the last
in 10 years. However, this may not be seen as a fair argument as Northern Ireland have had
many terrorists’ attacks in the past 10 years.AO3- Also, theoretically parliament could take
back powers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but in reality, parliament wouldn’t
take it away from Scotland as the Scottish like devolution AO1- 74% said yes to devolution in
the 1997 referendum and there was a 60% turn out which AO1/2- shows that the Scottish
care about devolution and the government wouldn’t take it away as they want to keep
votes and would lose voters if they took it away. AO3-Therefore, devolution is only
increasing and links to popular sovereignty as the voters affect parliaments decision on
devolution
Another argument that shows there has been a major shift in the location of sovereignty is
AO2-referendum as there has been a greater emphasis on popular sovereignty.AO1- An
example of this is referendums. Before 1997 the UK had only used them 4 times and since
them, we have had over 8 of them. It’s seen as a convention to have a referendum on an
important topic to let the people decide (e.g. EU referendum 2016) and for parliament to
follow the result of the referendum. This shows the location of sovereignty has changed as it
is now a convention to give the powers of important decisions to the people through a
referendum. However, you could argue that this is a weak argument as theoretically popular
sovereignty is not as supreme as parliament and parliament could ignore the referendum if
it was decided by a narrow majority or low turnout, but parliament haven’t done this and
realistically wouldn’t.
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