No Referendum? No Wonder Brits Have Stopped Voting

As Gordon Brown returned to the UK Parliament at 3.30pm this afternoon in order to defend his agreement to the Reform Treaty in Lisbon, the Conservative MP and Chairman of the European Foundation, Bill Cash, told Brown that since he had failed to take responsibility in holding a referendum on the Reform Treaty, it was “no wonder only 59 per cent have bothered to vote at all” in a national election (referring to the low post-war turnout for the UK’s 2001 general election). Cash made clear that 27 million voters have been denied a Referendum on the European issue since 1975. As it was pointed out to Brown in the House of Commons, his pledge to restore "trust" in the UK Parliament no longer had any credibility.

David Heathcoat Amory, MP, who also questioned Brown’s continued opposition to the referendum, earlier pointed out to the European Foundation in their publication, The European Journal, that “[i]t is in fact the content and reality of parliamentary democracy that is at stake here. A referendum would in essence be about where people are to be governed from, and how, and whether they wish to be ruled by people they elect and can remove, or do not elect and cannot remove.” Click here.


Jim McConalogue of the European Foundation, said:
“There we have it. No matter how well Brown sings from the Brussels hymn sheet, we can see his own Party Members, his Members in the European Scrutiny Committee and most in the Parliamentary opposition did not have a good word to say about the shady Lisbon deal. It is not about this or that line on Europe – it is about the British people’s trust in democracy and the authority of the Westminster parliament, with its assembly of elected representatives, all of which have been compromised.”