Date: 25 January 2008

EU Referendum

When I meet people around the Moorlands, I like to find out what it is that local people are concerned about. Invariably, crime and the fear of going out after dark is raised.  The state of the NHS and other public services are also important topics. But I also find widespread uneasiness about losing our identity – both the identity of Staffordshire Moorlands and our British identity.  People are worried about immigration and the growing powers of unelected bureaucrats in Brussels.

This week saw the beginning of the Parliamentary debate on the EU Reform Treaty. It is now known as the Lisbon Treaty but was previously called the Constitutional Treaty. So it seems to be the original EU constitution in disguise.  Unfortunately, despite manifesto promises from all three main parties, we are very unlikely to get our say on whether we want this treaty in a referendum.

The Government’s excuse for breaking this  promise is that the Lisbon Treaty is not the same as the old Constitutional Treaty. That one was rejected by voters in both France and the Netherlands – hardly renowned as hotspots of Euro-scepticism. But this isn’t the same story as the rest of Europe is being told. 

For example, the author of the Constitution, the ex-President of France, Valery Giscard d’Estaing, says: “All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way.” In Spain the 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.”  And in Germany, the Chancellor Angela Merkel says simply: “The substance of the Constitution is preserved. That is a fact.”

So despite reams of evidence to the contrary – and I could fill this newspaper with the evidence – Labour will not keep their promise. They will deny the British people a say on whether we want to hand over even more powers to Europe.  And they will be able to do this because they will be helped by the Liberal Democrats who will vote against a referendum.

Politicians often wonder why turn out keeps going down at elections and why people don’t trust them .  It seems to me that there is a simple answer.  People won’t trust politicians while politicians keep breaking their own promises. I have no time for those that do.. As William Hague said on Monday, “The fact the electorate elected an entire House of Commons committed to a referendum was of no account, that the government of the day regarded that commitment as a technicality to be escaped from rather than a promise to be kept, that the promises made at election time don't really matter at all?”

We must keep on fighting for our say on this Treaty. We must fight for a referendum and I hope that all politicians elected on the promise of a referendum will vote for one.  We will all be let down by those that don’t.