Over the next few months I will be posting occasional exclusive articles from John McGuirk, who is part of Libertas, the group campaigning against the EU Reform Treaty. There will be a referendum on it in May or June this year. He's just sent me this initial despatch.
Over here in Ireland, - where we’re constitutionally bound to have a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, things are hotting up. Although the referendum is not expected until May 19th, - Europe Day, the Government has already begun a massive PR effort to lift the “Yes” vote out of the doldrums and solidify support for the Treaty.
Their most recent stunt involves launching – in a blaze of publicity – a website funded by the Taxpayer that is touted as providing impartial information on the Lisbon Treaty, and simplifying the issues – making it “accessible” and “understandable”.
In reality, the website, www.reformtreaty.ie, is in effect a political platform for the pro-treaty side, - it even has Press Releases on the front page attacking Libertas! Our Press is being filled on a daily basis with reports of comments made by various eastern European leaders who are urging for a yes vote, and saying that an Irish rejection will be a “death-blow to Europe”, and our Foreign Minister is telling anybody who will listen that the “No” campaign is backed by Jean Marie Le Pen, - this of course is a total invention designed to make people equate opposition to the Treaty with racism and Fascism.
The entire “Yes” campaign thus far seems to be centred on one single narrative: “We have to vote yes to this treaty, because if we don’t we’ll be holding back the rest of Europe, who are watching us and praying for a “yes” vote. This campaign should be very closely watched by those of you in the UK who are concerned at the approach of the European Union, and the Pro-EU movement, to democracy. To find out more about our campaign, and our activities, visit us at www.libertas.org.
17 comments:
Even 'if' the irish vote no (they wont - but if they do) the EUSSR will just instruct them to hold another referendum until they vote the "right way" just like a few years ago with the Nice treaty.
Its about time ENGLAND had a referendum on EUSSR MEMBERSHIP nevermind the EUSSR not-a-constitution-constitution.
The welsh, scottish, Northern irish and Irish regions of EU can do as they please!.
There is a link to the treaty itself and having heard so much about it thought that it would be worth a quick look.
Any pretence that this is other than a constitution must surely be blown by the terms of clause 17
17. Declaration Concerning Primacy
....." in accordance with well settled case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the Treaties and the law adopted by the Union on the basis of the Treaties have primacy over the law of Member States "
So what role will Parliament have in the future?
Ireland's constitution provides for referendums on almost all constitutional issues. The Irish government is not under any duty, either legal or moral, to remain neutral on the questions submitted to the public. I don't therefore see what the complaint is: the Irish government is entitled to express its clear opinion and campaign for its preferred outcome.
So, David, does the UK constitution provide for UK governments breaking clear manifesto commitments? I ask merely for information.
And what's more Le Pen is of course a Europhobe in the extreme and your guest is at best being disingenuous. Le Pen is a bad nationalist. Your friend may be a good one. Then again writing from Ireland that term may be somethingly loaded.
PS Would clause 17 be a new thing? or something previous governments' have agreed?
Actually David the government needs to give equal funding to both sides of the agurement. (A supmere court judgement a few years back. Brought by Pratrica McKenna ). The political parties can of course endorses it but only as parties not as the government. All parties save Sinn Fein/IRA support it.
No question of manifesto commitments even enters into this issue. The Reform Treaty was not even in prospect at the time of the 2005 election - and a manifesto is not written with the assistance of a crystal ball.
What is sometimes misleadingly touted as a broken pledge refers to having a referendum before a quite different treaty was adopted. But since that treaty was abandoned, it couldn't be adopted, hence no referendum.
Very encouraging to see we have a Gordon Brown acolyte (David B ) who has learnt the skill of splitting hairs. The Reform Treaty is the ConstitutionTreaty , only the name has been changed to save the blushes of the failed political classes who sit in their Ivory Brussels Tower and ignore the electorate.
David Boothroyd knows he is writing rubbish - and he also knows that we know !!
The Reform Treaty is not the abandoned Constitutional Treaty, nor is it the same as the abandoned Constitutional Treaty, nor is it even remotely similar to the abandoned Constitutional Treaty. The Constitutional Treaty was an attempt to rewrite the whole of the European Union fundamental texts in a single document. The Reform Treaty is a series of very minor changes to the current situation.
The fact that some of the changes in the Reform Treaty may also have appeared in the Constitutional Treaty is really quite irrelevant because they were not the reason the Constitutional Treaty was abandoned. It was rejected in France and ultimately abandoned because it was a 'start from scratch' document which would have a greater significance; the Reform Treaty is precisely the opposite.
Please note that no Eurosceptic has even attempted to dispute this analysis.
"... some of the changes in the Reform Treaty may also have appeared in the Constitutional Treaty"
So, would you care to say what you mean by "some"? Is that just a few, or a lot, or most?
I'll save you the trouble of answering - VIRTUALLY ALL the changes in the Reform Treaty previously appeared in the Constitutional Treaty, and VIRTUALLY ALL the changes in the Constitutional Treaty have been carried across to the Reform Treaty.
If you doubt that, have a look at the analysis on the Open Europe website, or the analysis on the website of Jens Peter Bonde, or those on many other websites.
So here's my question to you: are you a fool, or liar?
Hardly a surprise that when 27 governments go back to renegotiate minor changes, they come up with broadly the same results as they had previously agreed, is it? But these were the minor tinkering that was not the fundamental part of the Constitutional Treaty, and they were not the reason it failed to win support and then got abandoned.
Can you tell me what percentage of the Constitutional Treaty is comprised in the Reform Treaty?
The Pro EU-POLITICIANS love the 'EU Gravy Train' that is why they want the people, the voters to say 'YES'. But more people are waking up to this new Fascist Regime in the making in Brussels. The People do not, even if the politicians do, and that is 'To Escape from Freedom'.
David Boothroyd, it's been widely publicised, and so you already should know, that various foreign politicians have said between 90 percent and 99 percent.
Open Europe says 96 percent, as "only 10 out of 250 proposals in the "new" treaty are different from the proposals in the original EU Constitution".
Moreover the UK "opt outs" are the same as in the original Constitution.
That percentage is the reverse of what I asked for. It is the supposed percentage of issues covered in the Lisbon Treaty which were also in the abandoned Constitutional Treaty.
I am asking for the percentage of issues covered in the Constitutional Treaty which are also in the Lisbon Treaty. Please can you answer this question?
The answer is the same, within the limits of identifying and counting separate proposals.
As I said above, VIRTUALLY ALL the changes in the Reform Treaty previously appeared in the Constitutional Treaty, and VIRTUALLY ALL the changes in the Constitutional Treaty have been carried across to the Reform Treaty.
If you're trying to suggest that there were masses of important proposals in the previous treaty which have now been abandoned and left out of the new treaty, that is totally misleading. Hardly anything has been left out.
When Open Europe made their count in August, the extent of overlap between the two sets of proposals was 96 percent. Their line by line comparison between a consolidated version of the Reform Treaty, and the Constitution, is here:
http://www.openeurope.org.uk/research/comparative.pdf
If that percentage overlap has changed at all in the final version signed on December 13th, the change will have been a slight increase.
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