Prime Minister Gordon Brown's decision to reject a referendum on the new European Union Reform Treaty (Treaty of Lisbon) should be viewed as one of the biggest acts of political betrayal in modern British history. Despite a rebellion by 29 of its own backbenchers, the Labour-led government defeated a Conservative proposal to hold a popular vote on the Lisbon Treaty by 311 votes to 248 in the House of Commons on March 5. Brown's refusal to support a referendum represented a stunning reversal of the government's 2005 manifesto pledge to hold a plebiscite on the European Constitution.
The Commons vote flew in the face of fierce public opposition to the Lisbon Treaty and mounting calls for the British public to have its say. In a series of unofficial mini-referenda held across several marginal seats in early March, 89 percent of the more than 150,000 voters who took part voted against the treaty, with just 8 percent in favor.[1] These votes reflected consistently high levels of opposition to the treaty in virtually all major polls on the issue in the
Most British voters have already concluded that the Lisbon Treaty is almost identical to the old European Constitution, which was emphatically rejected by electorates in
The new Treaty poses the biggest threat to national sovereignty in
A Blueprint for a
Like the rejected constitution, the new Reform Treaty is also a blueprint for a European superstate dreamt up by unelected bureaucrats in
Originally envisioned as a single market within
Drafted in 2004, the European Constitution was a huge step forward in the evolution of what is commonly known as the "European Project," or the drive toward "ever closer union." With its 448 articles, the constitution was a vast vanity project, conceived in
The new treaty contains all the main elements of the constitution, repackaged in flowery language. According to the European Scrutiny Committee, a British parliamentary body, only two of the treaty's 440 provisions were not contained in the original constitution.[2]
The Reform Treaty paves the way for the creation of a European Union foreign minister (high representative) at the head of an EU foreign service (with its own diplomatic corps) as well as a long-term EU president; both positions are trappings of a fledgling superstate. As European Parliament member Daniel Hannan has pointed out, the treaty will further erode the legal sovereignty of European nation-states, entrenching a pan-European magistracy ("Eurojust"), a European Public Prosecutor, a federal EU police force ("Europol"), and an EU criminal code ("corpus juris").[3] In addition, countries such as
A Democratic Deficit
The European Constitution and its successor treaty are all about the centralization of political power in the hands of a gilded ruling elite in
The notion that the people of
A Threat to the Special Relationship
For both sides of the
An
A Future British Government Must Hold a Referendum
The next British government, which must be elected by 2010 at the latest, should listen to the growing calls of the British people for a vote on the Lisbon Treaty. The public should have the final say on an agreement that will dramatically undermine the
The next Prime Minister, if Brown is replaced, should heed the words of Lady Thatcher, who wrote in her seminal book Statecraft: "That such an unnecessary and irrational project as building a European superstate was ever embarked upon will seem in future years to be perhaps the greatest folly of the modern era."[4] The Iron Lady's instincts are right: Common sense must prevail, and the British people should have the freedom to reject an Orwellian vision of
Nile Gardiner, Ph.D., is the Director of, and Sally McNamara is Senior Policy Analyst in European Affairs in, the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation. Erica Munkwitz assisted with research for this paper.
[1]Toby Helm, "Poll Shows Overwhelming Support for EU Referendum," The Daily Telegraph,
[2]"Q&A: EU Treaty," The Daily Telegraph,
[3]Daniel Hannan, MEP, "Those Euro-Myths Exploded," The Daily Telegraph,
[4]Margaret Thatcher, Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World (