Letter: John Locke was one of England’s most enlightened thinkers.
In his famous Second Treatise on government, he opined that if a sovereign government transfers the sovereignty freely granted by its ancestors to an external power without the consent of its people, it ceases to be sovereign and thereby forfeits allegiance.
The Government, having broken its election pledge to allow the electorate a referendum on the European Constitution on the vacuous grounds that the Lisbon Treaty is less important, has broken faith with the electorate who are subsequently under no moral obligation to comply with legislation issued from Brussels.
Any new government should not be bound by the requirements of the treaty and it should not be implemented before the electorate are consulted. If Cameron cannot see that, the Tories may yet suffer humiliation at the general election.
Robert Jenkins
Stirchley
3 Comments
Thank you for that historical reminder, Robert. It’s just a pity that the English are no longer as passionate as they were centuries ago.
The English are too law abiding and will accept any laws that that come from Brussels. It’s a pity that one PM did not heed a fellow Scot!
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It is not a case of English but british and the british people were not asked English/welsh/scots/irish can’t do anything solo IT HAS TO BE DONE TOGETHER.
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@ Andrew Finch,
you are missing the point Andrew. John Locke was addressing the English people. It is fairly clear that the EU are partly responsible for countries such as Scotland and Wales having their own parliaments or assemblies.
Do we have a British football team?
However, I do agree that where there is unity, there is strength — this would be a great weapon against the EU.
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