[rich_sasha]

Without going into the sentiment of this, I suppose Chaos Islands are not part of the United Kingdom but rather an overseas territory, so more like "property", to put it bluntly. I guess the government can just give away a building it owns, and this is more analogous than giving away "territory". And there is no current indigenous population there either.

But yeah, Jersey is also an overseas territory, can the government just give that away?

[SllX]

Jersey is a Crown Dependency, not an Overseas Territory. They share a King and the UK is responsible for their defense, but domestically Crown Dependencies are more independent of Parliament than your average British overseas territory.

[rich_sasha]

Ok, fair point. Can the UK hand over Bermuda, or Cayman isles?

I vaguely remember handing over the Falkland Islands to Argentina was actually on the cards before the invasion, so perhaps surprisingly the answer is "yes".

[SllX]

Yes. Parliament can. The people living there may not be particularly happy about it though, e.g. the entire population of the Falkland Islands save like the three people who voted in favor of linking up with Argentina that one time.

[Maxatar]

While I was downvoted my answer is correct. The UK parliament can and has ceded territory and all that is required is an act of parliament.

It seems like people forget that the UK ceded everything from Ireland which was a UK constituent as opposed to a UK subject as well as Canada, Australia, India and numerous other territories.

In the UK, parliament is supreme and has the final authority.

[forinti]

Which highlights how stupid the war was. Argentina should have invested in a better relationship with the islands. They would all be speaking Spanish by now.

[Maken]

At the time Argentina was under a military dictatorship that didn't have a good relationship even with its own people.

[etothepii]

Do you have a source for this? I am not aware of any practically significant way in which the crown dependencies are different from the OTs. AMA 7.5 year resident of Bermuda.

[SllX]

Sure. Here’s the UK’s fact sheet on their relationship with the Crown Dependencies including some of the differences with overseas territories.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

High level overview is that it doesn’t look that different, and like most things concerning UK law and the laws of Crown Dependencies, a lot of it is just custom. There’s long been a debate over how much the UK’s Parliament can unilaterally legislate over them without their consent which remains largely untested because by custom they don’t. Overseas Territories are to my understanding creatures of the UK Parliament and remnants of the Empire whereas Jersey and Guernsey are the remnants of Normandy which the British Crown managed to retain when they lost the mainland to France. I don’t remember much about Manx history though, so I’ll refrain from commenting on them specifically.

But since you put out an AMA: how’s life in Bermuda? Would you recommend it?

[etothepii]

Bermuda is trully wonderful. If you read HN you can easily figure out my e-Mail, feel free to drop me a message if interested further. Bermuda is the place to be if founding an insurance related start-up and probably of doing anything fintech related.

The weather is delightful, the taxes acceptable, the digital infrastructure ok. It can be an expensive place to live but a single person with no dependants could live here on $4k a month. The path to permanent residence is difficult but manageable for those who bring real value to the place (think jobs or significant capital). The people are generally friendly (though as with anywhere there are exceptions) and the Premier has at least some Software experience.

It is a very interesting question, in my humble opinion, As to Bermuda's relations with the British crown. So far as I am aware there has never been a law passed by the British parliament and enforced through the privy council which was not passed by the Bermuda Parliament before commencement. Importantly (and uniquely for the OTs). Bermuda was established prior to the Act of Union and so has a relationship with the "crown of England" rather than the "crown of Great Britain" having been settled in 1612.

[Maxatar]

The United Kingdom has parliamentary supremacy with little to no checks or balances, so if the parliament wants to give away something, there is nothing that can really stop them.

[tialaramex]

Indeed. The only practical constraints on parliament are the Laws of Nature, which unlike man's laws cannot be broken, and the will of the People, in defiance of which a Parliament necessarily would fall since the Parliament is constituted from those people.

If Parliament tried to ban booze (as the US Federal Government once did) that's probably not going to go well, and maybe they would (like the US government) be forced to undo that - but all they did here was give away something very few of their citizens likely even knew they had. I was surprised it made headlines.

[kmonsen]

Parliament can for sure overrule the will of the people, and very often do.

They might get punished in the next election or they may not.

More precisely only the PM can call an election I believe.

[lmm]

> They might get punished in the next election or they may not.

If what they do is sufficiently contrary to the will of the people (or at least, those with weapons and the will to use them), they'll get punished sooner than that. Laws and constitutions are a useful abstraction but ultimately an imperfect one.