&gt; I think many people in the UK admire the Swiss and Norwegian models of participating in the &quot;European project&quot;. The country retains sovereignty and only implements laws that suit its citizens.<p>Since they participate in the EEA, they don&#x27;t really have a choice to say no to the EEA legislation. They are required to implement similar legislation within a certain time period, otherwise the EEA will sue the government for not fulfilling their contract. About the only way to really say &quot;no&quot; to something is to rescind their EEA membership.<p>Case in point: data retention was forced through in Iceland through the EEA agreement. This unpopular legislation went through because &quot;it&#x27;s an EEA requirement, you don&#x27;t want to leave the single market do you?&quot;. After it was implemented, the directive was struck down by the EU court, so it&#x27;s no longer required for EEA area countries to implement. But Iceland is still stuck with the data retention laws, and they&#x27;re unlikely to go anywhere as revoking laws is much, much harder than passing them.