TELEGRAPH - Leader 3.11.09
Europe: will the voice of the people ever be heard?
Telegraph View: Only hardline Eurosceptics would now press for a referendum.
Later today Neelie Kroes, the EU's competition commissioner – an unelected Brussels technocrat – will order the restructuring of a large part of the British banking industry. That she has the power to do so is a telling illustration of the extent to which this country has ceded sovereignty to Brussels over the past three decades. During that period the British people have not once had the opportunity to make their voices heard on our changing relationship with Europe. We joined a common market and are now part of something with a more than passing resemblance to a superstate.
The Lisbon Treaty has been an important milestone in that process, marking the most significant extension of EU powers since the creation of the single market almost a quarter of a century ago. That is why the Labour Party promised in its 2005 manifesto to put the new constitutional treaty to the people in a referendum. This commitment ensured the issue of Europe barely featured in the election because we knew we would have our say in the subsequent referendum campaign. We had not allowed for the boundless cynicism of Labour, which abandoned the pledge once it had been safely re-elected. [AND the LibDems -cs]
David Cameron described this breach of trust as part of the "cancer" eating away at the body politic when, two years ago, he gave his own "cast-iron guarantee" to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. [Almost immediately afterwards when Brown ‘chickened-out’ of an election Cameron amended that pledge to preface it with “If the Lisbon Treaty is not yet in force at the time of the next general election,” . He and and Hague have repeatedly said that -cs] Yesterday, the Conservative leader began the painful process of abandoning [er - carrying out! -cs] that pledge. We have some sympathy for his plight. In his 2007 "guarantee", Mr Cameron said "no treaty should be ratified without consulting the British people in a referendum". Yet with the Czech President Vaclav Klaus on the verge of signing the treaty, it is evident that it will be ratified well before Mr Cameron is able to deliver on his promise. [as he foresaw! -cs] Only the most hard-line Eurosceptics will see any point in calling a referendum on a treaty that has already passed into law in all 27 member states.
Even so, Mr Cameron has painted himself into a corner from which he has now to extricate himself. For some time he has been claiming to have a fall-back strategy: well, we are about to see the colour of his money. The favoured option appears to be a binding "manifesto mandate" empowering him to renegotiate important aspects of our relationship with the EU. Such a plan has some merit but is a poor second-best to the referendum, so solemnly promised by both main parties, that might now never be called. For the majority of voters who, according to the polls, remain unhappy about our relationship with Europe, this is a scandalous state of affairs.
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