For the first time it gives real control to Parliament and every voter in the country over the most important decisions a government can make in the EU.So now, of course, we can expect copious referendums on the transfer of power to Brussels as promised. Can't we?
"This is good news for our democracy and will significantly strengthen it.
"For the first time it gives real control to Parliament and every voter in the country over the most important decisions a government can make in the EU.
Thursday, 21 July 2011
EU Bill Receives Royal Assent
On the 19th July Cameron's much lauded (by himself) 'referendum lock' bill became law. Hague says:
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We'll see, won't we? Or not, as the case may be. I don't believe anything that Mr Hague or Mr Cameron say about the EU. Or the Conservatives, or the Labour or the other party. Only the UKIP party appears to give us an out promise.
ReplyDeleteI know, make me dictator for 5 years and I'll put everything back together again, as it was, should have been and should be for future generations of our people. Just beware that I don't have the interest of inclination to be dictator for more than 5 years.
I strongly suspect we won't get a thing. Given the quotes of Merkel, Sarkozy and Lagarde out of the recent bailout summit, there is some kind of plan afoot for consolidation of fiscal and economic policy in the form of an EU treasury.
ReplyDeleteThis will be an obvious increase in EU competency which according to Hague in his famous Sunday Telegraph article would invoke a referendum through this act.
And yet we have all these little twisty bits in the act that will probably make it impossible for us to get our say, added to the idea that Dave won't give us a referendum because apparently he's going to use it as a bargaining chip at forthcoming talks - which means that he needs the power to refuse it to the British people.
Referendum? In your dreams. That's the sorry truth of the matter.
ReplyDeleteThe transfer of 'competences' is largely done. The transfer of powers is piecemeal, no one example seeming particularly significant. Who decides on whether a referendum is triggered under the act anyway? It's only an Act and can be repealed or diluted at the whim of the ruling party, there's no attempt to entrench it.
ReplyDeleteIt's a cynical gesture to maintain the deceit that the Conservatives have some sort of Eurosceptic intentions, whereas they clearly have none. You have to look at what they say, and what beliefs they don't discourage, and what they do.
Only a fool would take the European Union Bill at face value.
As Frederick Forsyth pointed out in a wonderful letter to the Sunday Telegraph, this whole thing is a complete sham.
ReplyDeleteThe body which will decide whether the next Euro power grab is sufficiently significant to trigger a referendum is...the government, advised by the Foreign Office.
So no case will ever be so judged, and no referendum will ever be held.
It's hard to decide which is more insulting - that they don't think we notice these things, or that they do but don't care.