Field of Dissension?

Four Labour MP's who are trying to keep their Election promises are in trouble with the Parliamentary Labour party and according to one of them, Frank Field,

had been "shouted at" by Mr Hoon and he accused the party leadership of "ineptness" for "trying to expel people from the Parliamentary Labour Party for keeping their election promises".

Oh how fun it is to watch Labour having problems with its MP's on the EU.

BBC NEWS | Politics | MPs face action for EU poll plans

Bollocks from the FCO

Yesterday I highlighted an article on the EU Constitution or what is now disingenuously called a "Treaty".

During my search on the web I turned up the "Official" Supporters club for the Treaty at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website, this was not difficult to find as it is currently an advertised (paid for by us) link on Google.

Now today we find out via the Coffee House blog in the Spectator that the Independent has peddled out some of the Labour spin on the site as original work. The article examines some supposed myths about the "Treaty". Unfortunately most of these myths have now been discovered to be truths.

This is not the worst of the FCO site taking the following on the front page.

Why is the Reform Treaty in the news now?

The mandate for the EU Reform Treaty was agreed by the prime ministers or presidents of all EU countries in the European Council in June.

The final text of the Treaty - which is currently being written - will have to be approved by all EU countries, following their own constitutional procedures, before it can come into effect.

In the UK, all Treaties, including EU Treaties, are submitted to Parliament, which has the right to examine and debate them in detail.

There is currently a lot of speculation in the media about what the Reform Treaty will mean for the UK. Some people believe that the UK should not agree to the Reform Treaty until it has been put to a public vote in this country (a referendum).

Many people who are opposed to the Reform Treaty are also opposed in principle to the UK's membership of the EU; others want a referendum because they believe that the Reform Treaty would transfer too much power from the UK to the EU.

These are serious issues that demand public attention. However, the fact is that many things that have been said and written about the Reform Treaty are simply not factually accurate.

It then links to the EU Treaty myths, the subject of the Independent Front page.

Lets look at the implications here

1) That it is only Eurosceptics who don't want the treaty, it lumps the many People who are opposed in the group of people who don't want Britain in the EU at all. This is simply incorrect. Whilst it will be true that virtually all people who oppose the EU will oppose the treaty, there are many more who support the EU but oppose the Treaty (myself included).

2) That some people believe that the UK should not agree to the Reform. No mention that only 29% would vote for the treaty against 47% who would vote against it.

3) That some people think there should be a referendum, no it's not "some" people it is 66% of people who want Labour to keep their promise of a referendum.

4) Of course it doesn't mention any of the major reasons that it might just be in the news, such as the frailty of the red lines, the manifesto promises that are being broken, the Parliamentary committee who reported that the Treaty was the constitution in all but name, etc, etc.

This is just one example of the crap that the FCO is trying to peddle to the country as the truth on this website. It is a disgrace to the Government and to this country.

EU Reform Treaty Foreign & Commonwealth Office

EU Treaty - A Cynical Stitch-up

Have a quick read of this article on the EU Constitution or rather "Treaty".

Feartie and his sidekick the Millipede are still banging on about red lines and how big and courageous they have been standing up to all those johnny foreigners in the EU and how nothing will change.

This is a complete and utter mockery, all that has happened is that the Constitution has been obfusticated and rewritten as a "Treaty" to sound better. It will now be passed on the nod by Gordon tomorrow night and there will be little we can do about it now or in the near future. The Treaty is the old Constitution in all but name.

Our protection will of course will be the infamous "Red Lines" that have either already been effectively bypassed or can be got round like the infamous Maginot Line.

Even the The cross-party European Scrutiny Committee in its report finds that the new Reform Treaty is “substantially equivalent to the Constitutional Treaty”.

It also notes that the Government’s “red lines” are substantially the same as before, and questions whether the various safeguards for the UK will work.

It notes that the Treaty would

“change the legal relationship between the EU and national Governments”

particularly by giving the European Court of Justice new powers over criminal law and policing.

The key points from the report are

1) The new treaty is the same as the rejected EU Constitution

From Para 45:

* “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 under the Reform Treaty. We look to the Government to make it clear where the changes they have sought and gained at the IGC alter this conclusion in relation to the UK.”

The Government has repeatedly insisted that “the constitutional concept has been abandoned – most recently in the Prime Minister’s press conference today. But the Committee’s Report notes that this is “misleading”.

* Para 50: “we do not consider that references to abandoning a ‘constitutional concept’ or ‘constitutional characteristics’ are helpful and consider that they are even likely to be misleading in so far as they might suggest the Reform Treaty is of lesser significance than the Constitutional Treaty. We believe that the Government must offer evidence if it is to assert that the processes are significantly different.”

2) The red lines won’t work

The report also publishes correspondence with ministers. Initially the Government claimed that it had secured an “opt out” from the Charter of Fundamental Rights. In his statement on 25 June Tony Blair said, “It is absolutely clear that we have an opt-out from both the charter and judicial and home affairs.” However, in a letter dated 31 July Europe Minister Jim Murphy admitted:

* “The UK specific protocol which the UK secured is not an ‘opt-out’ from the Charter. Rather, the protocol clarifies the effect that the Charter will have in the UK.”

The Committee warns that the European Court of Justice will simply sidestep attempts to limit the impact of the Charter. The report gives a number of examples:

* Para 58: “To take a possible example, the Working Time Directive contains provisions limiting the weekly hours of work of a worker to 48 hours per week, but with the possibility of agreements to waive those limits. As Article II-91 of the Charter provides that “every worker has the right to limitation of maximum working hours” we have some concern that following a reference to the ECJ from some member state, the Court might find that, in the light of the Charter, the [UK] derogation from the Directive allowing such waivers has to be interpreted more restrictively than before (i.e. before the Charter had legal effect).”

* Para 59: “We would be concerned that, following a reference to the ECJ from some other member states the Court might find that a measure adopted at EU level (such as Council Directive 200/43/EC) had to be given an extended interpretation in light of the wide grounds for prohibiting discrimination under the Charter.”

On criminal justice and policing the report notes that:

* Para 21: “We are concerned that removing the “distinction” between the EU and the EC in relation to matters currently dealt with under the third pillar (with the subsequent increase in the powers of the Commission to bring infraction proceedings and those of the ECJ to interpret and apply Union measures) will change the legal relationship between the EU and national Governments in a way that will increase their powers in relation to UK law. We call on the Government to set out the safeguards which they will expect to gain at the IGC to prevent this happening.”

On future treaty change the report notes that the new “simplified revision procedure”, - which would allow the treaties to be incrementally changed in future with no need for any further treaties - would lead to even less transparency and accountability in the way the EU is run:

* Para 42: “We are concerned that these provisions could allow substantial changes to be made without convening an IGC and so lead to even less transparency in the way the EU is governed, and less accountability of governments to their national parliaments. We ask the Government to outline what safeguards they would put in place to prevent this further erosion of transparency and accountability.”

Contrast this with the Official Foreign and Commonwealth Website and its pages on the EU Reform Treaty. This is supposed to be an unbiased website, but just try and find anything in it that does not toe the Labour Party Line, The only mention of cross-party European Scrutiny Committee's damning report is as follows

Minister for Europe, Jim Murphy, has responded to the report on the EU Intergovernmental Conference by the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee:

"I welcome the publication of this report, just as I have welcomed opportunities to provide evidence to this Committee, to its House of Lords equivalent, and to the Foreign Affairs Committee. I am pleased to note the Committee's recognition that by defending its 'red lines' the UK has secured a specific deal different to that on offer to the other 26 EU member states."

Which must be one of the most cynical of replies to a report that rubbishes everything the government has said.

So there we have it Gordon Brown will go back on his party's word that we would have a referendum on the EU Constitution, as it is now a Treaty, and as such we don't need to be consulted. Perhaps he should listen to some of his EU buddies

The author of the Constitution, Valery Giscard d’Estaing, says: “All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way.”

The Spanish Prime Minister Jose Zapatero admits: “We have not let a single substantial point of the Constitutional Treaty go… It is, without a doubt, much more than a treaty. This is a project of foundational character, a treaty for a new Europe.”

The German Chancellor Angela Merkel says simply: “The substance of the Constitution is preserved. That is a fact.”

This is one of the biggest lies that Labour has hoisted on us in recent years and will, I predict, become as infamous as Tony's whoppers about Iraq.

The only obvious solution to this may be to declare Independence in Scotland as soon as possible and hope we are not allowed into/thrown out of the EU, as even getting out of the EU is a tricky business nowadays.

If you want some more forthright and perhaps rather more forcefully reading try Polly the Euro-crazies: A cautionary tale Not for the nervous or easily shocked reader!


We must stand up to this cynical stitch-up | Camilla Cavendish - Times Online

EU treaty same as Constitution

This article in the Scotsman will not leave Feartie Broon much room to move after his answer to questions about why there would not be a Referendum on the "new" EU Treaty yesterday.

The Parliament's all-party European Scrutiny Committee concluded in a report that the effect of the entire new treaty was "substantially equivalent" to that of the Constitution.

The Conservatives' Europe spokesman Mark Francois said in view of the committee's conclusions, Brown was "morally bound" to offer Britons a referendum.

But Europe Minister Jim Murphy insisted that the new treaty was "significantly different to the old constitutional treaty in intent, form and substance" and that the version Britain would sign up to was even further from the old Constitution.

So when Gordon takes out his "red pen" to compare them he will find his work has already been done for him and they are virtually the same. He will then have to as a "conviction" politician honour the Labour Party manifesto which, in 2005, promised the voters a Referendum.

I have no doubt though that Gordon using his own special "moral compass" will find a new direction to move that will not allow us to have the promised Referendum.

Never mind perhaps it was just a "Vision" when Blair promised us the Referendum.

Just in case you wondered 9 out of the 16 members of the Committee were LAbour MP's.

Scotsman.com News - Latest News - UK - UK report says new EU treaty same as Constitution

EU Constitution "Lite"

Angela Merkel is trying to push through a "lite" version of the trashed EU Constitution by weasel-wording the original version. She says in the letter leaked to the Times:

“Every effort will have to be made to restrict change to what is absolutely necessary to reach an overall agreement and to ensure ratification by all member states.”

She then posed a dozen key questions, including: “How do you assess the proposal made by some member states to use different terminology without changing the legal substance — for example with regard to the title of the treaty, the denomination of legal acts, and the union’s minister of foreign affairs.”

In the same way, she asks whether to “replace the full text of the Charter of Fundamental Rights by a short cross reference having the same legal value”. As proposed by Mr Blair, the replacement for the Constitution could be presented as a treaty that amends the Nice Treaty of 2001, she said, “with the necessary presentational changes resulting from the return to the classical method of treaty changes”.

Mr Blair was trumpeting on about this the day before here. He says in the interview with European newspapers and the Financial Times,

that the plan proposed by Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, will not be a “constitutional treaty” that alters the relationship between Europe and member states, thus avoiding a referendum. But he steers clear of saying how far the treaty will go in extending qualified majority voting and installing a permanent Council president.

So here we go again having failed to get this through the normal methods of democracy and having been thrown out in both France and Netherlands, a few changes will make it all right and nobody has to approve it let alone put it to a referendum

Let me quote from the inimitable SeanT on PoliticalBetting

Unbelievable. They are nakedly - brazenly - trying to bring back a Treaty already voted down in two states, and this time trying to avoid a referendum by minor cosmetic changes. Utterly disgraceful. If you believe in Europe - and many good, honest people do - you cannot want your project to proceed in this fashion: by deception of the people, by treachery, evasion and sleight of hand.

Just give us a vote. That’s all we want. Whoever wins, wins. But let us vote.

Blair is the most disgusting man in the history of modern British politics. May he rot in Hell, if Hell will have him.

I'd agree with SeanT all the way on this.


Merkel revives a slimline constitution