New And Improved?

The Telegrah website may have had a visual revamp but it still churns out the same old ignorant nonsense:

We are sovereign, but no longer independent.

Well we're either one or the other we can't be both. It's like saying I'm a little pregnant.

....are we any longer an independent, sovereign country?

Er contradiction with your headline:

To the extent that we have transferred decision-making powers to supranational bodies such as the EU and Nato, the answer to that question must be no.

The Telegraph doesn't even know the difference between a supranational and intergovernmental organisation. Here's a clue - NATO is an intergovernmental organisation not a supranational one. No wonder the Tories get it so wrong.

The Telegraph's praise of the Tories policy continues (my emphasis):

Yet none of the major developments in Europe since 1972 – the Single European Act, the Maastricht Treaty and, most recently, the Lisbon Treaty – has been forced on the country: they were debated and voted on by Parliament.

Debated?

The Single European Act was passed within six days with very few MPs in attendance - starting on a Thursday because most MPs would be eager to go home for the weekend. After 3 sessions of the committee stage, the Tory government abruptly curtailed any further discussion by passing a 'guillotine' motion. Peter Tapsell MP reflected later; "We didn't give it the attention we should have done".

The Maastricht Treaty was only passed eventually, because John Major called a vote of confidence on it against the wishes of the House who had effectively voted the Treaty down. Every tactic was used, short of physical violence, against Tory MPs.

The Lisbon Treaty passed despite promises by the overwhelming number of MPs for a referendum.

Some Parliamentary debate. Then:

Once they became law, the primacy of the EU’s jurisdiction was asserted – even if the results were not always foreseen, or welcome.

EU law is supreme, yep:

None the less, in a succession of rulings over the years, the courts have asserted that Parliament does remain sovereign. If it passed an Act to rescind or repudiate any provision of the Treaty of Rome, the British statute would prevail.

Did the Telegraph actually read its own paragraph above regarding EU law and being supreme? And then there's the Lisbon Treaty which negates Parliamentary sovereignty to rescind EU treaties:

In order to remove any doubt that this is so, and to prevent judges concluding that a new legal order has evolved, the Government is today publishing a Bill that encapsulates the sovereignty of Parliament in statute.

We don't need one, parliament is either sovereign or it's not, and since Lisbon it's not otherwise Cameron could repeal the Lisbon treaty via an act of Parliament which he can't - by his own admission:

The increased use of referendums is itself a diminution of parliamentary sovereignty;

As opposed to EU membership which of course is not a diminution of parliamentary sovereignty is it? The Telegraph concludes:

On Armistice Day of all days, some might consider that a betrayal of those who fought for Britain to remain an independent country. But in truth, that pass was sold long ago.

We'll just give up then? Eh?