Bob Piper has been a Labour Councillor for the Abbey
Ward in Sandwell, West Midlands, for 10 years. He is a lifelong supporter of Aston Villa Football Club and a follower of Yorkshire County Cricket Club.
The views expressed here are mine in a personal capacity, not those of the Labour Party, Sandwell MBC, Aston Villa or Yorkshire County Cricket Club. Get it! Mine... just mine!
I think there should be a referendum on the revised European Treaty. Having said that I think there are significant differences for Britain than the proposals in the original constitution and what I do find amazing is the fact that as someone who favours a referendum, I am now joined by all sorts of johnny-come-lately Tories who are suddenly fired up by notions of sovereignty and democracy.
Heath took us into a Common Market with no referedum. Wilson had a referendum and the British people voted in favour of common trading arrangements with the other Common Market countries.
Thatcher signed the Single European Act with no referendum. That fundamentally changed the position from a trading arrangement to a political arrangement. It introduced Qualified Majority Voting, European Political Co-operation, and laid the foundation for the full harmonisation by 1992.
Major signed the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 (Oh, and he never had a referendum). Despite some halfwit muppet calling himself Newmania who states with staggering stupidity on Iain Dale's site that Maastricht was "irrelevant" what it actually did was significantly transfer sovereignty to Brussels, it created the Single Currency with all of its implications, whether you were in or out of the currency, a Common Foreign and Security Policy, and measures designed to harmonise criminal justice, law enforcement, civil legal matters, and asylum and immigration agreements.
Tories who rebelled against the Treaty and voted against the signing of the Treaty were physically abused and spat on by their Tory colleagues (I wonder how many of the are still in the House calling enthusiastically for a referendum).
Now, I opposed the Common Market in 1975, although unlike some of my colleagues I accepted the outcome of the referendum. I also argued against the SEA and Maastricht, so I suppose I can be dismissed as a Eurosceptic. However, for me it is a matter of principle. We should not give up the sovereignty of Parliament, no matter how wonderful an economic benefit may be perceived, without asking the British people to endorse that. What I object to is the crass hypocrisy of Tories who NOW demand a referendum, but who slithered like snakes in the grass to avoid asking the question on far more important issues when their government was in power.
Let them join with me and condemn Thatcher and disassociate themselves from Major... then I'll give their bleating some credibility.
I certainly won't go into bat for previous Tory obfuscation on EU treaties but a couple of things:
(1) Yes it's tempting to play the politics card when your opponents are clambering for something they rejected out of hand not so long ago but that doesn't mean it's right. It should be a 'grit your teeth / swallow the bile' moment but join with Tory calls for a referendum - otherwise you put party loyalties ahead of more fundamental beliefs.
(2) As ever NM massively overstates his point but there is a difference between what Brown did last night and previous treaties - there is a fairly unprecedented level of public hostility to this treaty and Brown knows that. There are always anti's and in most cases I was too young to know but from what I have read neither Heath, Thatcher or Major had anything like that backdrop to their actions so arguably their deriliction of democratic duties wasn't as marked as Brown's last night (even if the actual impact of the docs they signed was greater).
Not sure if this post was independent of the challenge I issued over at my place but thanks nonetheless...
Gary Elsby stoke-on-trent said:
October 19, 2007 2:06 PM | permalink
Quite right, Bob. They create what they now perceive as a mess.kick themselves out of office over it. Then go on to condemn Labour for not sorting it out.
I personally think that everything has been done quite correctly. I don't particularly go along with the referendum agenda, but perhaps we should be big enough to kickstart a Country wide campaign to discuss the potential benefits of membership or not.
For many a politician, this is an argument too many and one they would rather not ignite or inflame.
There is the lack of honesty and is seen as such. I'm all up for this fight as it's worth fighting for.
Gary
Bob Piper said:
October 19, 2007 3:15 PM | permalink
Liam, I agree there was not the same level of public (is it public, or the media? No-one has raised this issue with me at all) concern over this as opposed to Maastricht, but that is because Labour did not play the cynical party politics card and oppose Maastricht unless there was a referendum. Wrongly, of course, in my opinion, because we should have had a referendum on Maastricht over and above any other piece of legislation on Europe.
Bob: Ireland, under a Constitutional provision has had referendums on all the changes you mention. We should have a similar practice, even though we don't have a written Constitution. What line we should then take on the current proposals is more problematic. Since the "no" position which I adopted at the time of Harold Wilson's referendum, I have retrained many of my original criticisms of the EU but have argued for a democratic, social and genuinely federal EU. Yet the moves they make are often to a mainly sham federalism, with occasional minor democratic gains. Whether we should adopt a pro or anti attitude to the current proposals seems to me to be less important than the fact that a referendum (which is a democratic must)would provide a platform for the democratic-social-federal argument. Whether that argument would go much beyond my blog is another matter. But the overall stance is one which Ken Livingstone shared in the past.
Bob Piper said:
October 20, 2007 10:58 AM | permalink
I agree 100% with that Harry, including the fear that a debate over this latest Treaty would be likely to descend into the sort of jingoistic xenophobia that the likes of Newmania have spouted elsewhere on blogs. The 'True Brits don't want to be ruled by johnny foreigner' rubbish that The Sun and the Mail will push would be the main thrust. I'm all for greater European co-operation, but not by handing over powers to bodies with virtually no democratic control or transparency.
The trouble is that Edward Heath lied to us about the treaty when he said:-
"There is no question of eroding any national sovereignty; there is no blueprint for a federal Europe. There are some in this country who fear that in going into Europe, we shall in some way sacrifice independence and
sovereignty. these fears I need hardly say are completely unjustified"
Edward Heath, British Prime Minister 1972
"The aim was, and is... ever closer political union. Edward Heath 1989
In response to the question "Did you have in mind a United States of Europe in 1972?"
"Of course, yes"...Edward Heath 1990.
Margaret Thatcher did sign the Single European Treaty but again changed her mind as recently as this month when she told Gordon Brown:-
"May I say to the Prime Minister, don’t believe the assurances from Brussels — they gave similar ones to me. It’s not too late to listen and it’s not too late to act. This Treaty matters, Prime Minister, so be bold and let the British people have the final say.”
Also this one from a Labour MP, one Peter Hain:-
"The policy, legally enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty, of a European bank independent of democratic control and
dedicated almost exclusively to price stability must be reversed. It is economically disastrous and politically dangerous.."
Is it not amazing how being offered a government job with your own chauffeur can change your views? http://www.europeantruth.co.uk
I don't like referendums mainly, but not exclusively, because they undermine Parliament.
This one is especially problematic and not just because of the Tory hypocrisy in demanding what they refused to deliver themselves under similar circumstances. Has anyone thought through what would have to happen if the answer is "no"? Back to the drawing board for a new treaty inevitably but, unless lots of questions were to be included, our negotiators would have no more knowledge about which of the many provisions the naysayers had objections towards nor how strong were those objections. So the next treaty might also get the thumbs down. And the next...
Perhaps lots of questions would be a good idea; such a referendum might show how much attention the voters had been paying to the provisions of the document rather than to their prejudices. About a hundred questions might just about suffice but obviously such a small number wouldn’t allow any real detail about the views of 40 million voters’ thoughts to be captured...
What we would be doing IMO if we did have a referendum on this treaty is allowing one on all the pent up anti-Europeanism of the past however many years. Whatever the question was people would be stirred up to vote on (against being in the EU which has protected us to an extent agsint the worst of neo-liberalism and union-bashing):
1. Save the Pound Sterling
2. Save the Pound Weight
3. Save the Bent Banana
4. Save our Cod
5. Save our Freedom
6. Save us from Frogs and Krauts and the Rest
7. British Jobs for British Workers
etc etc etc
And so on and so forth. Certainly NOT on the details of this amending treaty or where the red lines are.
If it is on the detail of the treaty it is much more straightforward. If it is on every phantom Euro hoax and Napoleon Bogeyman and Stalin and Hitler and Save Our Pound and the rest of it is is a drawn out struggle with an uncertain conclusion.
If we have one and the NOES win what on earth happens then?
As you say Bob no one but no one on the doorstep where I knock on, and in most places in these Isles ranks Europe above the bottom of their top ten. There are far more important things to debate.
25 other countries are not having referenda. Ireland have a grand time with theirs. They have had plenty of practice and tend to stick to the question at hand instead of surrogating.
Hughes Views: the case for referendums applies only to proposals to alter the legal scope of Parliament itself. Parliament should not be allowed to give away areas of authority without the endorsement of the people in a referendum. It is a principle that would apply if we ever moved towards a form of World Government.
Chris Paul: democrats can't use your argument against a referendum as it is an argument for doing away with all elections. The fact that various forces abuse democratic systems is no case for shutting them down. It is up to those committed to democracy to use elections properly and to try to convince the rest about democratic values.
October 19, 2007 12:18 PM | permalink
I salute your consistency Bob.
I certainly won't go into bat for previous Tory obfuscation on EU treaties but a couple of things:
(1) Yes it's tempting to play the politics card when your opponents are clambering for something they rejected out of hand not so long ago but that doesn't mean it's right. It should be a 'grit your teeth / swallow the bile' moment but join with Tory calls for a referendum - otherwise you put party loyalties ahead of more fundamental beliefs.
(2) As ever NM massively overstates his point but there is a difference between what Brown did last night and previous treaties - there is a fairly unprecedented level of public hostility to this treaty and Brown knows that. There are always anti's and in most cases I was too young to know but from what I have read neither Heath, Thatcher or Major had anything like that backdrop to their actions so arguably their deriliction of democratic duties wasn't as marked as Brown's last night (even if the actual impact of the docs they signed was greater).
Not sure if this post was independent of the challenge I issued over at my place but thanks nonetheless...