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UNISON, and now TUC
policy is to call for a Referendum on the E.U. Reform Treaty, which many
people say is overwhelmingly the same (97% the same in the words of one
UNISON National Executive Council member) as the E.U. Constitution which
was thrown out by referenda in The Netherlands & in France. This Treaty
was signed behind the backs of the British people by Gordon Brown in
Lisbon recently, in spite of the fact that his predecessor Tony Blair
promised a Referendum on the Constitution.
The London Ambulance
Service Branch wants to be the first – the only? – organisation in
London giving Londoners the chance to vote on whether or not there
should be a Referendum on this Treaty, which is widely believed to
change fundamentally our ability to govern ourselves.
Throughout 2004 and 2005 Tony Blair promised a
referendum on the Constitution. On 13 May 2005, he said, “Even if the
French voted No, we would have a referendum. This is a government
promise.” Just three weeks later, the French and the Dutch voted no,
sinking the Constitution, and the Labour government broke that promise.
The EU then renamed it the Reform Treaty. But, as Blair said, “What you
can’t do is to have a situation where you get a rejection of the treaty
and then you just bring it back with a few amendments and say we will
have another go.” Gordon Brown said, “The manifesto is what we put to
the public. We’ve got to honour that manifesto. That is an issue of
trust for me with the electorate.” The Labour Manifesto for the May 2005
election said, “We will put it to the British people in a referendum.”
The House of Commons Select Committee on European Scrutiny, 35th
report, printed 2 October 2007, summed up, “Taken as a whole, the Reform
Treaty produces a general framework which is substantially equivalent to
the Constitutional Treaty. Even with the ‘opt-in’ provisions on police
and judicial cooperation in criminal matters, and the Protocol on the
Charter, we are not convinced that the same conclusion does not apply to
the position of the UK.”
The Committee also warned that despite the government’s claims that it
had defended its ‘red lines’ on foreign policy, labour legislation, the
common law and the tax and social security systems, Britain might find
itself signed up to the provisions set out in the Constitution. The
Committee’s Chair, Labour MPMichael Connarty, said,“We believe that the
red lines will not be sustainable. Looking at the legalities and use of
the European Court of Justice, we believe these will be challenged bit
by bit and eventually the UK will be in a position where all of the
treaty will eventually apply to the UK.”
The Committee also said, “We wish to emphasise that the proposals in the
Reform Treaty raise a serious difficulty of a constitutional order in as
much as they appear to impose, whether by accident or design, a legal
duty on national parliaments ‘to contribute actively to the good
functioning of the Union’ by taking part in various described
activities. National parliaments, unlike the European Parliament, are
not creations of the Treaties and their rights are not dependent on
them. In our view, the imposition of such a legal duty on the Parliament
of this country is objectionable as a matter of principle and must be
resisted.”
Giscard D’Estaing, the drafter of the Constitution, wrote, “the
institutional proposals of the constitutional treaty … are found
complete in the Lisbon Treaty, only in a different order and inserted in
former treaties.” He suggested that the new more complicated layout was
only to avoid putting the treaty to a referendum: “Above all, it is to
avoid having a referendum thanks to the fact that the articles are
spread out and the constitutional vocabulary has been removed.”
Even those in favour
of the Treaty should vote for a Referendum – a Yes vote would enhance
its credibility.
The Ambulance Service
is crucial to London. The NHS is crucial to London. The ability to have
a say over whether changes are made to the way we are governed is
crucial to London.
So tell London, and the
world, what you think.
“Do you think there
should be a Referendum on the E.U. Reform Treaty/Constitution?”
Yes or No?
Vote Now
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