A question for my MP Robert Smith

I have a question for my MP Robert Smith. It is a simple question.

Why do you not honour your promises. Specifically your pledge to give me a Referendum on the European Constitution or as it is now known the "Lisbon" Treaty.

Back in 2003 and when writing about the then EU constitution in the Guardian, Nick Clegg, the present LibDem leader had the following to say about the need for a Referendum.

To consult the people, or not. That is the question. A question which is now setting pro-Europeans against each other. A question which is straining what is left of the cross-party pro-European alliance in British politics.

Cemented by a collective drive to urge both Tony Blair and the country towards the euro, politicians from all three major parties have worked more closely together in recent years than is often appreciated. Gordon Brown's grumpy refusal to budge on the single currency reinforced the common cause: to overcome the Treasury's myopia and allow the country to have its own say.

It is ironic, then, that the new source of internal dissent within the Europhile camp should be precisely the catalyst which brought the camp together in the first place: whether or not to hold a referendum. Yet the unity mobilised in favour of a referendum on the euro has evaporated when faced with the question of a referendum on the EU's new constitution.

Opinion on both sides is turning sour. The other day, a Labour colleague in the European parliament let slip the depth of feeling. "You're just playing straight into the hands of the Eurosceptics!" he wailed. We have worked together closely for years in an effort to drum up a bit of enthusiasm for the European project in our Midlands constituencies and rarely disagree on matters European. I admire him enormously and would almost count him a friend. This made his reprimand all the sharper.

Tony Blair, I'm told, has reacted with derision to the Liberal Democrat decision to call for a referendum on the new EU constitution. With that partly in mind, perhaps, he loftily declared in a newspaper interview this week that New Labour is "the only serious game in town". With his habitual amnesia he went on to assert that holding a referendum was out of the question since it was not consistent with British political "traditions". This from the man who gave us referenda on a Hartlepool mayor and Scottish autonomy. Never let the facts get in the way of a good political putdown.

The real reason, of course, why the government does not want to hold a referendum is the fear that it may lose. It is the same fear that has paralysed Blair on the euro for six long years. It is the same fear that led Peter Hain to camouflage the constitution with comic inaccuracy as nothing more than a "tidying up exercise". It is the same fear which has long restrained New Labour from expressing the courage of its meagre convictions on Europe. And it won't do.

The alternative, now unfolding before us, is infinitely worse: a false assumption that anti-Europeans are democrats, and pro-Europeans are not. By shilly shallying with semantic half-truths about the content of the constitution, and now haughtily dismissing all calls for a referendum, it is New Labour which is, to cite my friend, "playing straight into the hands of the Eurosceptics". By providing the hapless Iain Duncan Smith with a pretext to champion people's democracy, Blair is unwittingly doing more to reinvigorate Euroscepticism than John Redwood could manage in his wildest fantasies. Nothing will do more damage to the pro-European movement than giving room to the suspicion that we have something to hide, that we do not have the "cojones" to carry our argument to the people.

And our argument is strong. The constitution, assuming it emerges roughly in its present draft form, provides ideal ammunition to call the Europhobes' bluff. While it is no mere "tidying up exercise", it is galaxies away from the "blueprint for tyranny" laughably paraded by the Daily Mail. Even a cursory glance at the text - and I remain struck how few Europhobes seem to have bothered to read the offending document - would reveal that it is a significant reorganisation of how the EU will take decisions in the future, with some well reasoned pooling of sovereignty in areas such as a common asylum and immigration policy. It takes only hesitant steps towards greater EU coherence in foreign policy, and arguably weakens the position of key federal institutions such as the European commission. Far from being a Napoleonic plot to overturn centuries of plucky British autonomy, it represents a logical evolution in EU governance.

Compared to many of the previous steps in European integration, not least the Single European Act negotiated by Margaret Thatcher, it is fairly modest in scope. The bulk of the innovations in the constitution relate to the archane mechanics of the EU institutions themselves - the size of the commission, voting weights in the council of ministers, etc - rather than any revolutionary creation of new EU powers. The measured modesty of the constitution is precisely what is being obscured by the government's refusal to hold a referendum. In doing so, it has allowed the phobes to shift the argument away from the constitution itself and onto shriller claims about the democratic legitimacy of the whole EU. By forcing the phobes to argue on the substance of the text, a referendum would expose the hollow hysteria of their polemic.

Naive? Perhaps, a little. Inevitably, any referendum campaign is unlikely to be a scholarly examination of the legal content of a complex constitutional tome. It is possible that it will soon escalate into an unconstrained debate about the very place of Britain in the EU - in or out. So be it. A combination of outright isolationism, which remains the overriding instinct of the Conservative party and significant parts of the press, combined with mendacious claims about the constitution itself, will soon repel the vast majority of British voters. The electorate is not enthusiastic about the EU, that much is obvious from a volley of opinion polls. But, when push comes to shove, it is not prepared to countenance withdrawal, and more susceptible to reasoned support for European integration than is commonly assumed.

Blair has already jeopardised his place in history by failing to put the case for the euro to the British people. He now risks blowing it altogether.

Now in this new age when we look at the Lisbon Treaty Mr Clegg has changed his mind. Apparently the Lisbon Treaty is different, it must be, as according to him it is "smaller" despite being 8000 words longer, how did they manage this, oh yes they changed the line spacing. It is different despite being according to Parliament 96% the same (only 10 out of the 250 proposals have changed).

The following statements have been made about the "Treaty"

1. The author of the Constitution Valery Giscard d’Estaing has said that “All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way.”
2. Former Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato has said that: “They decided that the document should be unreadable. If it is unreadable, it is not constitutional, that was the sort of perception... Should you succeed in understanding it at first sight there might be some reason for a referendum, because itwould mean that there is something new.”
3. Belgian Foreign Minister Karel de Gucht has said that, "The aim of the Constitutional treaty was to be more readable; the aim of this treaty is to be unreadable… The Constitution aimed to be clear, whereas this treaty had to be unclear. It is a success.”
   

So all three of the above has wanted to dupe the European public into believing this Treaty was not the constitution.

I can understand why Mr Brown does not have the courage to go for a Referendum. He knows that despite his pledge in June 2007 that

“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.”
(Gordon Brown, interview, 24 June 2007)

He cannot honour Labour's Manifesto Pledge (Page 84 of the 2005 Labour Manifesto) as he will lose.

So I ask you Mr Smith why you cannot have the strength of your convictions as laid down in the Lib Dem 2005 Manifesto that

Membership of the EU has been hugely important for British jobs, environmental protection, equality rights, and Britain’s place in the world. But with enlargement to twenty-five member states, the EU needs reform to become more efficient and more accountable. The new constitution helps to achieve this by improving EU coherence, strengthening the powers of the elected European Parliament compared to the Council of Ministers, allowing proper oversight of the unelected Commission, and enhancing the role of national parliaments. It also more clearly defines and limits the powers of the EU, reflecting diversity and preventing over-centralisation. We are therefore clear in our support for the constitution, which we believe is in Britain’s interest – but ratification must be subject to a referendum of the British people.

Do you no longer believe this or are you just a stooge for the party rather than the public who elected you. Have you as Mr Hague said yesterday about the Lib Dems become

"so shrill - they have become separated from their cojones".

This despite a promise from Mr Clegg that his Lib Dems would 'prove their cojones' on the issue of Europe.

Now, Mr Smith, I didn't vote for you, I voted for a party that has held strong on it's promise to vote for a referendum, but you are my representative in Parliament and I could at least support you on your promise to give me a referendum, so why have you reneged on this.

You could have done what you promised your constituents and voted for a referendum but instead you toed the party line, despite many of your fellow Lib Dem MP's having the cojones to vote for what they had been elected on.

At the next election I will try to ensure you are not voted in again. I may just even, for the first time in my life, vote tactically to ensure you are no longer my MP.

My MP is supposed to put his constituents first, he is their representative in parliament, You have failed on this basic task, so why do you deserve to be in Parliament?


We need an EU referendum | Politics | guardian.co.uk