We can look at the text from any angle. We can prowl about it,
searching for a more flattering light. But we keep coming back to an
unavoidable truth: this is the constitution on which all three parties
– indeed, 98.8 per cent of MPs – promised a referendum, and now WE DEMAND A REFERENDUM.
Daniel Hannan writes in the Daily Telegraph:
Suppose – and you might not find this easy – that you
were a committed Euro-federalist. Imagine that you wanted the EU to go
the whole hog, totus porcus, toward statehood. What would you have most
wanted to get out of the recent Brussels summit?
In
fact, much of your work would already have been done. The EU currently
possesses many of the attributes and trappings of nationhood: a
parliament, a supreme court, a passport, a currency, a national anthem,
a flag, external borders. There are, though, four more pieces to slot
into the jigsaw before the EU can properly call itself a sovereign
polity.
First, a head of state. Second, a foreign policy,
complete with a foreign minister, a diplomatic corps and accredited
embassies. Third, a system of criminal justice, including a European
Public Prosecutor and a police force. Fourth, the “legal personality”
of an independent government, which confers treaty-making powers and
the right to sit in international associations.
All
these things are in the draft “Reform Treaty” – along with the Charter
of Fundamental Rights, the abolition of some 40 national vetoes, new
powers for the European Parliament and a 30 per cent reduction in
Britain’s ability to block new initiatives.
The purpose of the Brussels summit was to allow the seven EU leaders
who had promised a plebiscite to tiptoe away from their pledges.
The people of Ireland and Denmark are lucky enough to have rules that trigger a vote
whenever any constitutional change is proposed. But the other leaders
have joined hands and sworn a terrible oath: no referendums anywhere,
in case the sight of one country voting should prompt demand in others.
We don’t want the voters picking up any ideas, hein?
The UK Government PROMISED a referendum.
Brown doesn't have to start his premiership as big a liar as Blair.
“The fundamentals of the Constitution have been maintained,” says
Angela Merkel.
“The great part of the European Constitution is in the
new treaty,” agrees José Luis Zapatero.
“Thankfully they haven’t
changed the substance; 90 per cent of it is still there,” echoes Bertie
Ahern.
WE NOW DEMAND A REFERENDUM.
add your name to the Telegraph petition.
