Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

Because as part of being part of EU you sign up to a common set of rules and requirements and acknowledge that EU has the jurisdiction in the area? Such as oh I don't know, judges not being controlled by politicians, respecting LGBTQ+ rights, human rights, democratic elections etc. But hey, that has to be something completely new that they never heard of when they signed up or something, not like it's been a fundamental part of EU and nothing to do with corrupt politicians getting into power or something. After all, why would EU get involved in something like that since it's a pure trade union, right?

Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU): EU values. The EU’s founding values are ‘human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities’

Article 6 of the TEU: the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights. Although the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (Article 6(1)) only explicitly refers to the implementation of Union law, the EU’s institutions and bodies and its Member States must also respect the Charter in the EU’s external relations. Countries joining the EU must also comply with the Charter. Article 6(2) requires the EU to accede to the European Convention on Human Rights (for more information, please refer to fact sheet 4.1.2 on the Charter of Fundamental Rights);

This is evident of course in the initiative to establish the Council of Europe in 1949, within which the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) was adopted in Rome in 1950, as a bulwark against any possible slide back in the direction of the human rights horrors committed during the war. But this also transpires from the post-war debates and the proposals in favor of establishing a political, federal-like organization, between France, West Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries. This effort, which took off with the Schuman declaration of 1950, and the establishment of the European Carbon and Steel Community (ECSC) by the Treaty of Paris in 1951, had immediately a clear human rights dimension. In particular, as Grainne de Búrca has recently explained, the importance of the protection of fundamental rights for the founding generation emerges from the early attempts to endow the new Europe with a human rights instrument, and to ensure a formal connection between the EU and the just-enacted ECHR [2]. The draft Treaty establishing the European Political Community (EPC), drafted in 1952-53 as a follow-up of the ESCS, specifically provided that the ECHR would become an integral part of the basic law of the EPC [3]. In the work of the drafting committee, moreover, it was clearly assumed that the instruments of human rights protection being created would operate both vis-à-vis the public authorities of the Community, and vis-à-vis the states, hence ensuring respect for common values also at the national level [4].This fact challenges the widespread view that the process of European integration was initially concerned only with free markets, and proves how instead human rights shaped the early debates about the future set-up of the EU already in the 1950s [5].

Taken from the summary of this white paper.

But as I wrote; completely new idea, must have been snuck in hidden or something out of the blue on the countries involved and has not been there since the creation of the original union or something.