Reform Treaty: Why Gordon Brown’s Britain Is Now a ‘British Dog in the Federal Manger’

Jim McConalogue of the European Foundation said:
“Gordon Brown’s proposal today that ‘The red lines have been secured’ and that ‘The British national interest has been protected,’ is deceitful and treats the British public with absolute contempt. As Lord Tebbit said at our press conference yesterday afternoon, Britain has become the ‘British dog in the federal manager’.”

The Red Lines have NOT been secured, since the UK’s All-Party House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee has not only concluded in its report that this “new Treaty produces an effect which is substantially equivalent to the Constitutional Treaty” but that “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 th[is] 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’s case for defending any of the red lines is as clear as mud and as far as the European Foundation can determine, the Government’s claim to have completely protected the UK’s existing labour and social legislation, our common law system, and our police and judicial processes, our independent foreign and defence policy and our social security system, is false. The only remedy for this state of affairs is to hold a referendum – let the 27 million people who have never once had the opportunity to vote on Europe since 1975 have the final say on this Treaty and all its amending Treaties.

The British national interest has NOT been protected given that:
The British nation has been barred from having a say on this European Treaty and all the European Treaties – including Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice – which directly affect their everyday lives. This Treaty among the tide of existing European Treaties, enforces a European government and its legislation upon the British people, without their consent or wish, and is tantamount to rule by a renewed European empire. A referendum is required on the constitutional basis that the Reform Treaty with the merger of the existing Treaties, into a Union with an embracing single legal personality and a self-amending text amounts to “substantial constitutional change” on basic terms that demand a referendum according to the government’s own criteria.