Leader: EU Referendum never more essential
Tuesday 6th December 2011, 12:30PM GMT.
A central plank of the big European dream – a common currency for supposedly merged economies – has turned out to be a misconceived disaster which now lies in tatters.
Yet even as eurozone countries face the prospect of having their creditworthiness downgraded, the dream lives on. France and Germany have come up with a wheeze to keep the eurozone alive. They are putting forward proposals for a treaty change which will reinvent the EU as a yet more integrated political and economic federation.
This is David Cameron’s cue to start ducking below the parapet and put his fingers in his ears as his own MPs and the public at large start to ask a simple question: With fundamental, sweeping changes in the EU in the offing, is it not time that the public was given a direct say for the first time in over 30 years through a referendum?
The argument for a referendum is stronger than ever. As the price of forging a coalition, Mr Cameron agreed to one over Britain’s voting system when, bizarrely, not even the Lib Dems who wanted the referendum were wholeheartedly behind the alternative voting system on offer.
So much then for arguments against referendums on principle.
What, then, is Mr Cameron afraid of? Everybody knows of the strong Eurosceptic element among his MPs, so denying they exist is pointless.
It has to be that the Prime Minister fears that the result might not be as he would like. However, it is also possible that the result would be a lot closer than people assume.
Mr Cameron should have the confidence in himself and his persuasive powers to put the issue to the British people. To fail to do so would be an act of political timidity and weakness.
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Hear, hear! How can these Eurocrats resolve the € crisis, when they can’t even balance their own books at Strasbourg and Brussels?
Enough of the UK pouring £bns into the bottomless pit of the Eurozone. Out, now!
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I couldn’t agree more – if the argument for the EU stacks up then they won’t have a problem, especially if you factor the pro EU BBC.
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The only thing we would learn from a referendum on this scale is which national daily has the most influence.
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Really – what newspaper are you controlled by?
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30 yrs ago we voted to become part of the common market. That is a commmon trading partnership to make business and trade easier within a “common market”.
We never voted for becoming a EEC member, or thats how I understand it.
Being a trading partner and being partof a political organization which controls our everyday life is not what we wanted. We are now controlled by two political organizations.
With all this beurocracy our lives are becoming increasingly controlled and it will only get worse. Maybe just maybe this financial crisis within the EEC will change this. Just be thankfull we never joined the EURO. What a mess!
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As Brian says, we are only involved in this EU quagmire because the Edward Heath administration lied by omission when we voted in favour of joining the ‘Common Market’, no mention was ever made of a ‘Federal’ Europe. Heath was a traitor to his own people.
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No referendum on the cards by the looks of it. Cameron isn’t signing up to any treaty change but only because such a change might mean that the dubious activities of his Etonian pals in the City of London would be looked at a bit more closely. Nothing at all to do with British sovereignty or democracy. Otherwise, Britain’s position in the EU is all fine and dandy with him.
In fact, he ended his press conference this morning so that he could go and quaff champagne and canapes to celebrate Croatia’s accession.
Btw Dave Jones, there was no referendum under Heath. There was one under Wilson. Perhaps all those who voted to stay in the Union back then and now regret it are wishing they’d listened to Tony Benn, Barbara Castle etc – people who did actually try to make clear that Britain’s parliamentary sovereignty would be diluted if there was a yes vote.
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