Sovereign State vs Federal State, Which is bestist? Options

[Andy Capp]

I see some argue for either, but what would you say are the pros and cons?

[Simon Kirby]

I see some argue for either, but what would you say are the pros and cons?

The UK is of course a federation of states already with a degree of power and autonomy delegated from the UK federal government to the constituent state parliaments of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and within England other powers are devolved down to local government. We are also already in a federation of sorts with the European Union in that Directives control matters such as employee rights, environmental protection, state subsidised industry, health and safety, consumer rights, and civil rights.

If the question is one of the pros and cons of formal federation with Europe you have to specify the terms of that federation because a federated Europe could look exactly as it does right now with no additional powers ceded to the federal government.

So having a guess at what might change:

A federated Europe might well organise defence at a national level. That's not really much different from now because our membership of NATO already obligates us to defend our NATO allies as we would the UK itself, and as the rest of Europe are generally more reticent than the UK to use military aggression we might not kick quite so many hornets nests if the UK military was under the supreme control of the European Federation. It would be good to think that a European Federation would also unilaterally put its nuclear weapons beyond use.