Have your Say!

What do you do when you join a club, are not very happy about its direction or some of its rules, but it is the best club in town and you don't fancy being out there on your own? Isn't that precisely where we are with the European Union? (Now that I have mentioned the E word, 70% of you have stopped reading while a trenchant minority have started swivelling your eyes.)
We are between a rock and a hard place. We joined the Common Market 35 years ago and really only wanted the trade advantages, not full blown integration. Most of us have never really agreed with the focus on ever closer union or some of the institution's barking mad rules. But other members of the club have successfully pushed an integrationist agenda which has taken us to a degree of shared decision making that would have horrified the British people in 1975. Of course, our membership of the club has brought many benefits; mainly economic, but also travel freedoms, opportunities as well as underpinning peace and stability in western Europe. So we like being in the club, (apart from a determined handful) even though the committee keeps making decisions that frustrate us!

Starting shortly, the House of Commons will be debating the new Treaty for 20 days. As we cannot amend the treaty, but only accept or reject it, the logic behind allocating so much time to debate it is beyond me, but others have so decided. There is only one vote during this long process that really matters and that is whether or not the people of this country get a say on ratifying this treaty.

I am not the world's greatest believer in referendums, but I do feel strongly that we should have one on this treaty. Every political party promised that the European Constitution would go to the people for formal approval in the run up to the last election. That Constitutional Treaty was stopped dead in its tracks by a vote of the French people, but most commentators privately agree that the revised treaty is substantially the same text as the one that was thrown out.
As this treaty does give more power to European institutions it would seem a good time to test British public opinion. So watch out for a close vote coming up soon in both the Commons and the Lords. It could give you the final say.

Any thoughts?
Gary

posted by Gary Streeter M.P. on Sunday, January 27, 2008