31 August 2007
Once and for all?
Former Europe minister Keith Vaz has joined in the debate about holding a referendum on Europe, calling for a vote on the same day as the general election next spring (not that a general election has to be held until 2010, but that’s another matter). Read the story here. His proposed question is:
“Do you support Britain’s continuing membership of the EU as set out under the terms of the Reform Treaty?”
This has been hailed by the eurosceptic press as support for their demand for a referendum on the Reform Treaty, but actually it’s not.
The consequence of a No vote to Keith Vaz’s question is not that the treaty fails to be ratified and the EU is left treaty-less, but rather that Britain chooses to leave the EU with the Reform Treaty going ahead anyway. I guess that is what the anti-Europeans want.
But, a note of warning. The Keith Vaz plan would not “settle the Europe question for a generation”, as he hopes, for two reasons.
First, a No vote would lead to an intensive negotiation and possibly a further referendum to settle the final terms of whatever new relationship Britain adopted with the rest of the EU. There are several options, which I wrote about here when Tony Blair announced his commitment to a referendum on the old constitutional treaty – http://www.federalunion.org.uk/europe/ifbritainvotesno.shtml - and we would have to argue and haggle over those. If the current discussion about Europe is often hard to follow, the next one would be much worse. Nothing would be settled in the referendum decision itself.
And secondly, a Yes vote wouldn’t settle matters either. That is because the No campaign would not give up at that point. Even though the result of the 1975 referendum, won 2 to 1 by the Yes side, led prominent anti-European Tony Benn to say “When the British people speak everyone, including members of Parliament, should tremble before their decision and that's certainly the spirit with which I accept the result of the referendum”, only a year later a new campaign was launched to get Britain out.
The truth is that opponents of the Reform Treaty do not see a referendum as a matter of principle, but merely as a mechanism in order to get what they want. (Read a briefing on this point here. ) If they don’t get it that way, they will try and get it some other way. Whatever the arguments for and against a referendum on the Reform Treaty, no-one should concede the moral high ground to those who are in favour.
“Do you support Britain’s continuing membership of the EU as set out under the terms of the Reform Treaty?”
This has been hailed by the eurosceptic press as support for their demand for a referendum on the Reform Treaty, but actually it’s not.
The consequence of a No vote to Keith Vaz’s question is not that the treaty fails to be ratified and the EU is left treaty-less, but rather that Britain chooses to leave the EU with the Reform Treaty going ahead anyway. I guess that is what the anti-Europeans want.
But, a note of warning. The Keith Vaz plan would not “settle the Europe question for a generation”, as he hopes, for two reasons.
First, a No vote would lead to an intensive negotiation and possibly a further referendum to settle the final terms of whatever new relationship Britain adopted with the rest of the EU. There are several options, which I wrote about here when Tony Blair announced his commitment to a referendum on the old constitutional treaty – http://www.federalunion.org.uk/europe/ifbritainvotesno.shtml - and we would have to argue and haggle over those. If the current discussion about Europe is often hard to follow, the next one would be much worse. Nothing would be settled in the referendum decision itself.
And secondly, a Yes vote wouldn’t settle matters either. That is because the No campaign would not give up at that point. Even though the result of the 1975 referendum, won 2 to 1 by the Yes side, led prominent anti-European Tony Benn to say “When the British people speak everyone, including members of Parliament, should tremble before their decision and that's certainly the spirit with which I accept the result of the referendum”, only a year later a new campaign was launched to get Britain out.
The truth is that opponents of the Reform Treaty do not see a referendum as a matter of principle, but merely as a mechanism in order to get what they want. (Read a briefing on this point here. ) If they don’t get it that way, they will try and get it some other way. Whatever the arguments for and against a referendum on the Reform Treaty, no-one should concede the moral high ground to those who are in favour.
¤ ¤ ¤
Jeremy Hargreaves has written interestingly about the prospect of a referendum here(he's against): http://www.jeremyhargreaves.org/blog/2007/cameron-is-wrong-about-the-european-referendum-%e2%80%93-and-by-making-it-an-issue-hes-hauling-up-the-white-flag-for-the-next-general-election/
Posted by Richard Laming at 11:39
This comment came in by e-mail:
Richard Laming's article mentions the 1975 referendum in which 67% of voters acquiesed in our continued membership of the European Community, and seems to imply that that fact is the bedrock of his argument against holding a referendum in respect of the "Reform Treaty". However the 1975 referendum result was secured against a very specific and unequivocal government assurance viz;-
"NO IMPORTANT NEW POLICY CAN BE DECIDED IN BRUSSELS OR ANYWHERE ELSE WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF A BRITISH MINISTER ANSWERABLE TO A BRITISH GOVERNMENT AND A BRITISH PARLIAMENT".
The government assurance went on to state,-
" THE MINISTER REPRESENTING BRITAIN CAN VETO ANY PROPOSAL FOR A NEW LAW OR TAX IF HE CONSIDERS IT TO BE AGAINST BRITISH INTERESTS"
So there it is in black and white. The prime minister of the day,Mr Wilson, gave the above categorical assurance to the British voters that the British Parliament would reign supreme despite the fact that QMV was implicit in the Treaty of Rome. Some voters, who might not have been 100% sure of which way to vote, might have taken that Government assurance as sincere, and reasoned-----let's give it a try, after all we will always have our backstop position that The Minister can always veto any new EU law that he considers not to be in Britains best interests.
Since the introduction of QMV on 1st Nov 2004 that veto no longer can be applied, so the information given to the UK voters in 1975 was flawed, therefore the result of the referendum is flawed and should be set aside!
To put the matter into perspective, can one imagine the Government winning consent to stay in the Community if they had told the voters,--"Eventually we will be ruled from Brussels and we will have to obey their laws, even those with which we disagree" --I think not!!
Something that the electorate was lead to believe could not and would not happen ------has happened, and our politicians have acquiesced in this scandalous betrayal of the trust of the UK voters. The Government of the day was either naive and incompetent or they deliberately lied in order to achieve the result that they wanted.
Additionally, no citizen in the UK under the age of 50 has had any opportunity to have their say on the terms of, or indeed our continued membership of the EU. This cannot be right!
Taking the above factors into account the moral argument in favour of a referendum on the Reform Treaty is undefeatable.
The argument is based on FACT, not conjecture, not influenced by political or commercial arguments,--JUST FACT.
My reply to this is of course that, even if unanimity was the rule at the time of the referendum in 1975, changes to that rule since have been made with the approval of the House of Commons. By all means object to this approval if you wish, but realise what you are doing. The demand for a re-run of 1975 is a reflection not on the EU but on the British political system.
Of course, whatever the government of the day (in 1975) might have said, it was a subsequent Conservative government that introduced QMV through the Single European Act in 1987. It is hardly far to blame Harold Wilson for that.
And, as to the fact that no-one under 50 has ever voted on EU membership, they haven't voted on abolishing the monarchy, changing the electoral syatem, nor moving the capital city from London to Skelmersdale, either.
Laming's article demonstrates the obfuscation applied to non-conformist (ie non eu) thinking. We do not want a referendum because of something that can be described as procedural. Our extremely reasonable demand for a referendum is because the Constitution (treaty if you really do prefer presentation over substance) does transfer to the eu all the powers necessary to create the eu state. Laming also refers to the eu's achievements; from a British perspective there are no achievements.
Laming asserts that Irish politicians must, constitutionally, obtain contain via a referendum whereas The British Parliament is not so required. Why? Because we do not have a written constitution and our MPs have adduced to themselves the right to representative democracy. This is no longer acceptable today. Where our MPs wish to give away any aspect of our sovereignty they would now be well advised to seek consent via a referendum.
Laming also overlooks the possibility that some future British government will regain sanity and invoke the well established principle that it cannot be bound by its predecessor.
Laming makes no mention of the catastrophic impact on Justice and Home affairs when the usual creep takes place and British law is further replaced/superseded by eu court decisions.
Gisela Stuart commented:-
“The repeated assertion by the government that this treaty strengthens national parliaments is wrong. There is a mechanism whereby the European commission has to justify a proposal, but this is a charade.
In the unlikely event that a third of national parliaments, in nine countries, all vote against a proposal within an eight-week period then the commission has to “reconsider” the proposal – but having done so it can still ignore national parliaments.
The new treaty introduces provisions of the rejected constitution that allow EU leaders to change treaties incrementally without the need for more new treaties. Such agreements have to be ratified by each country in line with its own constitutional requirements (a bill or a statutory instrument in the UK), but since no new treaty is required integration can proceed by stealth. Beyond that, the new treaty allows EU leaders to move to majority voting in any of the remaining areas covered by unanimity (including foreign policy, but excluding defence) and such changes do not need to be ratified by parliaments. Any proposal goes through unless a national parliament objects within six months: but this requires a government allowing parliament time to vote against something to which it has already agreed.”
Need I say more?
I've just finished reading your comments about a referendum on the old Constitutional Treaty (CT), your current msg (Once and for all?) and the comments of these two Euroskeptics.
I am French and still deeply sad about the French rejection of the CT in 2005. Fortunately, this rejection was due to other reasons than the British fear of INTEGRATION.
From discussions I have with some of my British friends, everything said and written against the EU is, at the end the result of this fear.
I have no idea why such a fear.
Now, GB would go out of the EU, this could have a double impact :
1) clarify the position of other nations upon the subject and speed up the integration of some of them into a super-state
2) give the British people the opportunity to check what they loose and/or benefit, one way or the other.
In this world of globalisation and total competition, I prefer to change my French nationality into a European one, rather than proudly suffer the fact that I belong to a small and isolated country.
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