Constitutive and Federative Power: A Problem from Locke

We owe to John Locke the distinction between constitutive and constituted powers. Constituted powers have no mandate to change the conditions under which they operate. But entry into or exit from federations, in the exercise of ‘federative’ power, is to be subject to parliamentary oversight, i.e. to constituted, not constituent power. If we assume that entry into and exit from federations may have or affect constitutional quality, how can they be justified?