Bill Cash MP today insisted that a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty was absolutely necessary:
“A referendum on the Lisbon Treaty was promised by the Labour Government. Whatever weasel words have been used to suggest otherwise, the Lisbon treaty combines all the Treaties and therefore is about all the Treaties since 1972 but has been pushed through with bullying of smaller states and the breaking of promises in a monumental cascade of deceit.
“As David Cameron has said, we need an association of member states. In order to achieve this, we cannot simply cherry-pick individual aspects of the treaty and call for renegotiation of those. We need a full referendum on Lisbon as we were promised and as we voted in the House of Commons. No ifs or buts. This is about the Government of the United Kingdom operating in line with the democratic wishes of the electorate.
“Future referendums will be ruled out with the arrangements in the treaty which allow amendment of treaties by internal self-amending text, and with a massive transfer of powers under the system of co-decision.
“The British people were lied to when they were told this was no more than tinkering with the existing European arrangements and just ironing out a few problems. We can see from the furore over Tony Blair’s apparently failed bid for President and David Miliband’s plan to take the glittering prize of a failed European foreign policy just how far and how deep the ambitions of the Euro-fanatics are against the background of failure of the European Union, politically and economically. They are hell-bent on enlargement with other countries which cannot be possibly be admitted.
“The common immigration policy, as I pointed out in the House of Commons, would do nothing to stop the millions of illegal immigrants already in Europe, not to mention those in the United Kingdom.
“The Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy are an unmitigated failure and have cost the taxpayer in efficiency and fraud whilst damaging the less well off in the third world. There is nothing to be said for this obsolete and failed system which needs to be radically reformed and we need to return democracy to this country as well as other Member States.
“As David Cameron and William Hague have repeatedly indicated, the EU is over-centralised and undemocratic and we need it to be radically reformed into a democratic association of member states. This can only be done with Britain taking a firm lead over this gerrymandered treaty, returning democratic power to the people.
“Accompanying this, we mist insist on the supremacy of the United Kingdom Parliament where necessary over the European Union and oblige our judiciary to give effect to Westminster enactments based on the wishes of our electorate. It is important to remember that Lord Randolph Churchill said ‘Trust the people’ and John Bright said we had the ‘Mother of all Parliaments’. We need radical reform, but so does the European Union. Winston Churchill said we should be ‘associated, not absorbed’ with the European Union. It is clear that we now need a relationship which is worthy of the twenty-first century.”
Over at Conservative Home there’s been a whole succession of blogs today including an excellent one from Jim McConalogue.
Some argue that it’s too late now and we should move on to other means of seeking improvement. But the question for David Cameron remains: If an unratified treaty was worthy of Conservative opposition, why isn’t an undemocratically ratified treaty worthy of repudiation? Saying “we would not let matters rest there” gives the impression that they don’t know what to do. To be frank, this has been my impression all along.David Cameron has been giving the impression of following the Micawber policy, hoping something will turn up to spare him embarrasment.Unfortunately the Czechs (no pun intended) have let him down and he is scrabbling round to find a policy at the last minute.
This is going to be the acid test of David Cameron’s leadership. A strong clear policy that will redress the imbalance between Brussels and Westminster and that will address the current democratic deficit will mark him out as a true leader of the nation.
Any equivocation or evasion will expose him as merely a shallow politician lacking real gravitas. There is a real risk of losing votes to minor parties like UKIP or even the BNP. If that happens, don’t blame the voters, blame the leaders of the three main parties for their refusal to defend the interests of the country.