Official website of the BPP

Referendum is needed on Treaty issue

THE European Reform Treaty is becoming a headache for Prime Minister Gordon Brown even though he is adamantly claiming there is no threat to Britain's sovereignty from its various clauses.

A significant number of Labour backbench MPs think differently and they are siding with the Conservative Opposition and Liberal Democrat, Welsh Nationalist and Scottish Nationalist representatives in a call for a referendum to be held to allow the British public to have their say on what is a very fundamental issue.

Gordon Brown's standpoint on the EU Treaty has been weakened by an observation from the influential Foreign Affairs Select Committee in the Commons that the provisions contained in the document were virtually identical to those in the now defunct Constitutional Treaty.

This original document was killed off in 2005 after two decisive "No" votes in referendums held in France and Holland.

A referendum on the Treaty will be held in the Republic of Ireland and unionist MPs at Westminster are among the signatories to the Conservative motion calling on the Prime Minister to honour a pledge given by his predecessor Tony Blair.

North Belfast DUP MP Nigel Dodds is alerted to the encroachments on British sovereignty in the reheated Treaty, warning that it will involve the transfer of British control over vital issues such as foreign affairs, defence policy and energy supply to the Brussels bureaucrats.
"It is disappointing that this Treaty is being implemented with the connivance and complicity of our Government at Westminster whose job it is to defend the sovereignty of our national Parliament from encroachment by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats," said Mr Dodds.

Even on criminal law, immigration and border controls, there will be a transfer of authority and there is obvious bewilderment among many Westminster observers over Gordon Brown's relaxed attitude.
Democracy works best when the people are given their day and a referendum would precisely put down a marker on where Britain stands.

The Labour Party, the party who can, quite within the law, accept this European Reform Treay without the consent of the people, received a mere 35.3% of the VOTES CAST in the last General Election (2005). 38.9% of the electorate didn't even bother to vote. Labour was given a large working majority as a result of this election. In Britain today we are controlled by a party the majority of people did not vote for. Some democracy.