'Europe Says No' to the Lisbon Treaty

A new, pan-European campaign called Europe Says No: No to Lisbon, Yes to democracy has been launched.

The campaign is being organised by a wide range of people across Europe, and across the political spectrum, who want to see the Lisbon Treaty rejected.

In advance of Ireland's outrageous repeat referendum on 2nd October, Europe Says No aims to show how many people across Europe would themselves vote 'No' to Lisbon ... if they could.

The initiative has brought together an excellent range of supporters, including Harry van Bommel (Socialist Party MP in the Netherlands); Gustav Fridolin (Swedish journalist, author and former Green Party MP); British Labour MP and former minister Gisela Stuart; Sari Essayah (Christian Democrat MEP for Finland) and many others.

On 2nd October, Ireland will have an historic opportunity to lead Europe to a better, more democratic future by once again voting 'No' to the Lisbon treaty.

Please show your support for a second Irish 'No' by visiting the Europe Says No website and leaving a supportive comment. Make sure your voice is heard!

The campaign also has a group on Facebook, which needs as many members as possible to ensure a strong message is sent in support of a second Irish 'No' - click here to view.

Schools cuts will only pay for extra £2bn to EU

This weekend Schools Secretary Ed Balls became the first cabinet minister to set out where the axe may fall on public services, in the government's bid to bring Britain's finances back into balance.

But rather than cut the unjustifiable extra £2bn the government plans to give to the EU next year, Mr Balls revealed that he wants to cut the same amount from the schools budget instead.

Speaking to the Sunday Times, Mr Balls said that up to 3,000 senior school staff could be axed instead of excessive spending on the EU.

Primary school heads as well as deputies, assistant heads, plus heads of subject in primary and secondary schools could all find themselves in the firing line.

But any benefit to our public finances contributed by these likely painful schools cuts will be quickly eaten up by the looming 60% increase in the amount Britain pays into the EU's mismanaged accounts.

Rot at the top

As the minister widely recognised to be Gordon Brown's right-hand man, it's fair to assume Mr Ball's stance - that cash for key services must be chopped before cash for the EU - represents misguided attitudes to public services right at the top of government.

But how many MPs - especially those in the most marginal seats - will stand by this twisted credo when schools in their own constituencies face staff cuts?

MPs can't possibly hope that voters will accept an explanation that the state of our public finances warrants cuts when people can see even more billions being splashed on the audit-failing EU.

Angry reaction

The government's plans have been angrily criticised by teachers' organisations and are already being described as a potential 'bloodbath'.

Speaking about Mr Balls, Mick Brookes of the the National Association of Head Teachers, said: "The impression he gives is that head teachers are among the 'bureaucrats' who can be replaced."

"What does he think they're doing all day? We're looking for him to get his own house in order before criticising school leadership."

EU waste

Stopping the complete waste of public money on the EU - at the very least blocking next year's unacceptable £2bn increase - would be a good first step towards the government getting its own house in order.

Two recent examples of how the EU is wasting public money on a grand scale are typical of the stories that now appear regularly.

According to the Irish edition of the Sunday Times earlier this month, retiring Irish Commissioner Charlie McCreevy is set to receive a massive £362,000 (€400,000) EU payoff, having spent five years enjoying a £216,000 (€239,000) EU salary plus lavish expenses.

Worse, Mr McCreevy is just one Commissioner of 27 enjoying that pay packet, and not the only one soon retiring.

And just last week there was news via EUobserver that the EU is splashing £280m on a new, self-titled 'palace' in Brussels to house its top officials.

Take action

To contact Ed Balls and ask him why teachers are getting the chop rather than the £2bn extra the government plans to give the EU, you can email him at dcsf.ministers@dcsf.gsi.gov.uk

EU gets 60% more as public services face 'efficiency savings'

This week, Alistair Darling proclaimed that the government is "ready to make the tough choices necessary" in order to bring Britain's public finances back into balance.

Speaking in Cardiff, the Chancellor warned of "slower growth in public spending in the coming years" and that "setting priorities inevitably means tough choices."

"The first priority", he said, "has to be to look for areas where we can achieve greater efficiency."

The Chancellor's comments have been seen as paving the way for public sector spending cuts expected to be outlined in the Pre-Budget Report this autumn.

Wrong priorities

But in an early example of the kind of priority setting we can expect from this government, just a couple of weeks ago we learnt that one of the most wasteful elements of government spending - Britain's cash contributions to the European Union budget - will next year rocket by 60%.

According to the BBC, the increase will take Britain's annual net contribution to the EU budget from £4.1bn to £6.2bn in 2010 - equivalent to writing a cheque to the EU for £119 million every single week.

Unjustifiable increase

Handing this much extra cash to the EU is completely unjustifiable, not just in today's tightened financial circumstances, when public services are clearly facing cuts.

But also in light of the fact that the EU's accounts have been severely criticised by auditors now for 14 years running. Even the EU's auditors have trouble telling us how EU institutions are spending the money they currently receive.

That any public money at all is still being handed to the EU, given the
on-going uncertainty by auditors over how it is being spent, is scandal enough. But now Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling plan to give the EU billions more.

Short-sighted deal

The increase comes as a result of the 2007-2013 EU budget deal done by Tony Blair in late 2005 and pushed through Parliament by Gordon Brown in 2007. All highlighted by the Democracy Movement at the time in a campaign called Stop the Cheques.

Some of the main myths perpetuated by the government to justify the deal were dismantled in our December 2005 EU budget factsheet and these points remain just as relevant today.

Because if you tackle the government over their enthusiasm for splashing billions more on the EU, you'll get the same old myths in response.

The full consequences of that short-sighted deal are today hitting home at the worst possible time for Britain's public finances.

EU waste

The EU has to be by far the least deserving of all possible recipients of extra public cash.

Beyond the critical role of public services like the NHS, on which so many depend, you only have to watch programmes like Channel 4's Secret Millionaire to see how many people are struggling with next to no financial help to support the worst off in our society through small, local charitable initiatives.

For these people, often working to improve people's quality of life in struggling communities where the local council cannot or will not provide much-needed facilities, even small amounts of money can make a huge difference to their work continuing.

Next to such real life realities on our screens every week, news that the audit-failing EU, with its legions of pampered hangers-on and lavish glass palaces in Brussels, is being given an extra £2bn by the government - despite no-one being absolutely sure how such money is being spent and regular reports of waste and fraud - is a glaring injustice.

Real message

The message from Alistair Darling is clear. Swathes of services on which people depend for their health, care, education, financial security and much more will shortly find themselves in the firing line. But spending on the EU is sacrosanct.

The reality is that, as public finances are squeezed, the government plans to deprive essential services of funding and cause cuts in order to pay for this outpouring of cash to the wasteful EU.

Unless the government and the MPs who voted to approve this EU budget deal take urgent action now to reverse it - to refocus public money on real needs in a very different economic situation than when the deal was agreed - they must accept personal responsibility for the resulting public service cuts to come.

Short-sighted decision-making, disinterest in correcting their mistake despite the billions at stake, topped with hypocrisy over the proper funding of public services will hardly be the best scenario for success in the looming general election.

Alistair Darling may talk of his "tough choices", but inaction now over the unjustifiable scale spending on the EU will mean that he makes the choice of many at the ballot box very easy indeed.

Cameron must clarify referendum pledge

The fate of the EU's Lisbon Treaty is set to come to a head in just a few weeks time.

A repeat Irish referendum is due on
2 October and ratification by Germany is expected shortly afterwards.

EU pressure will then fall on Czech President Vaclav Klaus, who has indicated that he will hold out as long as he can before signing the treaty into law.

Here, continued vague statements from the Conservative party on whether they will hold the referendum promised for the Lisbon treaty or give people a say on an alternative don't lend credence to the party's idea of being seen as the next government.

So DM campaign director Marc Glendening has this week written to Conservative leader David Cameron, asking for clarity.

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Dear Mr Cameron,

I am writing to you to try and ascertain what exactly is the current position of the Conservative party in relation to a referendum on the Lisbon treaty.

The consensus of opinion in the media and political worlds is that if, by the time the Conservatives form the next government the treaty has been ratified in all the other EU member states, you will drop the Lisbon referendum pledge.

Ken Clarke, appearing on the BBC's Politics Show on June 14, said that: "If the Irish eferendum endorses the treaty and ratification comes into effect, then our settled olicy is quite clear that the treaty will not be reopened."

A Tory Central Office spokesman was quoted as saying in response to Mr Clarke's that "There is no change to Conservative policy. As Ken Clarke explained, if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified and in force across the EU by the time of the election of a Conservative government, we have always made clear that we would not let matters rest there." This seems to implicitly confirm what Ken Clarke said.

When William Hague was challenged on Newsnight by Jeremy Paxman during the recent European parliamentary election campaign to say one way or the other whether the party would still adhere to the referendum pledge following a possible 'yes' vote in the second Irish referendum, and ratification in the other countries that have not yet done so, he refused to answer the question. He too fell back on the "we will not let matters rest" mantra.

However, in contrast, Dan Hannan MEP has said recently that he remains convinced that you are still committed to consulting the British people directly in a post-ratification referendum on the treaty.

The Democracy Movement is Britain's largest non-party pressure group campaigning against today's EU. We are increasingly being appoached by our supporters and members of the public, some of whom are supporters of your party, trying to ascertain what is now the party's true position on the Lisbon Treaty and referendum, due to its pivotal bearing on how they will vote at the next general election.

As things stand, we can only tell them that it looks as if, like Labour and the Liberal Democrats, you too will abandon your manifesto promise of a referendum. Beyond that, it is impossible for us to give a meaningful response to these enquiries, as the Conservative party is refusing to state a clear position.

Why not now end the damaging speculation that you are planning to drop the referendum commitment and state unequivocally that - regardless of whether or not the Lisbon treaty has come into legal force by the time you become prime minister, and in accordance with the "cast iron guarantee" to hold a referendum you wrote of in The Sun (26 Sept 07) - you will call a referendum within a specified period of coming into office?

Unless you are able to do this, the Democracy Movement and others will be forced to assume that Ken Clarke's above-mentioned endorsement of the status quo should Lisbon be ratified is the settled position of the Conservative party.

I look forward to your response.

Yours sincerely,

Marc Glendening
Campaign director

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Please join in this quest for clarity from the party that looks likely to be our next government, by sending a version of this letter to your own Conservative MP or, especially, candidate hopeful of being elected. We would be very interested to see a copy of any reply you receive.

Stage set for repeat Irish referendum

Despite having widely dismissed the idea of a second referendum, Ireland's politicians have gone back on their word.

Perhaps the grim predictability of this situation is the reason that there's barely a whisper from the media about such extraordinary U-turns, threadbare justifications and little interest in confronting politicians with their previous statements.

Such as that of Irish EU Affairs Minister, Dick Roche, when shortly before the last referendum he wrote on his website; "The idea that we can reject this Treaty and have another Referendum as happened with the Nice Treaty is a dilusion. That cannot and will not happen."

As a demonstration of complete lack of respect for public opinion on the part of the political elite, coupled to the media's increasing failure to expose and confront such collapses of integrity, this situation is surely a perfect example of the vicious circle lying at the heart of the steady degradation of public faith in the political system.

Long saga

Last week's EU summit - together with Wednesday's announcement of the 2nd October as the date on which Ireland will hold a repeat referendum - has set the stage for the next big showdown in the saga of the EU Constitution / Lisbon Treaty.

It's worth remembering that this is a saga that goes all the way back to the Laeken Declaration of 2001 which, despite some commendable decentralising recommendations, gave rise to the highly centralising EU Constitution.

That Laeken proved not to be worth the paper it was written on when it came, subsequently, to the legal expression of how the EU would proceed is perhaps a useful example of how influential such 'declarations' by Europe's heads of state or government truly are over the EU's eventual direction.

Having been born, ultimately, of one worthless declaration by European leaders, it would be extraordinary if the Lisbon Treaty were approved by the Irish people on the basis of another.

Since Laeken, in a period when European countries have had many rather more pressing economic and social concerns deserving of their attention, huge amounts of political capital has instead been wasted by European leaders trying to manoeuvre greater power for the EU's institutions past a succession of reluctant peoples.

Before even looking at the tactics used, the potential progress in other economic and social areas that this elite obsession with the EU has cost should be considered a scandal in itself.

This is a saga of a treaty that, if today's political leaders had any respect for democracy, should have died many years ago.

Instead, their bizarre, antiquated obsession with a 1950s European State ideology apparently trumps all. When that seems even to include democracy, we enter very dangerous territory indeed.

Weak declarations

So back it comes again. Having been rejected overwhelmingly by the French and the Dutch, repackaged, rejected again by the only country given a say on the re-named version, now back it comes to Ireland accompanied by some 'declarations'.

Set out in the official conclusions of last week's EU summit, these declarations are aimed at addressing the concerns of just enough 'No' voters on such matters as Ireland's Commissioner, military neutrality, tax and policy on abortion.

Yet, as discussed in a previous posting, the Lisbon Treaty is not needed to ensure that Ireland retain a Commissioner. Not that Commissioners represent their country in any case, the terms of their office requiring that they commit to "acting in the interests of the Union as a whole and not taking instructions from national governments".

The declaration on neutrality is extremely weak, in that it only assures Ireland's right to choose the "nature" of its assistance to another country rather than whether the country wishes to take sides in a military incident at all.

Moves to harmonise business tax rates have long been on the EU agenda even without Lisbon. So the assurance that the Lisbon Treaty makes no change to the "extent or operation of the competence of the European Union in relation to taxation" rings more than a little hollow.

And according to the EU's own Eurobarometer poll, the number of people who voted out of concern over EU intereference in Irish family policy such as on abortion was very small indeed (2%).

That same poll showed that a far larger proportion of 'No' voters did so to "protect Irish identity" (12%), because they're against a unified Europe (5%), are concerned about the influence of big EU member countries versus the small (7%) or because they don't trust their politicians (6%).

But there's little that can be done to ameliorate the Lisbon Treaty's effects and buy off 'No' voters on these fronts, as all EU treaties are in fact specifically designed to steadily reduce the political identity and influence of Europe's nation states and advance in their place a single political structure in Europe for all major decision-making.

Critical or meaningless?

Depending on which country's politicians you listen to, these declarations are either of critical importance, change everything and justify a whole new referendum (Ireland).

Or are effectively meaningless, change nothing and there's no need for the treaty to be re-opened (Britain and other countries who have denied their peoples a say).

While current polls in Ireland show a majority now ready to vote 'Yes', that was also the case in the run up to the vote last time around.

It's also clear that many of the recent poll questions have been framed as to make anything other than a 'Yes' answer utterly unreasonable, designed as a political initiative to build momentum behind that view rather than to accurately measure it.

Legal questions

Currently the declarations have the legal force of an agreement between national leaders under international law. Yet what has been agreed by leaders can, in principle, be unpicked by leaders alone at a later stage. Long after people have voted, and beyond public control.

Declarations on this legal basis alone can offer little reassurance that they will be respected.

So the stated intention is - after the referendum - to give the declarations greater legal weight by attaching them as a protocol to the next accession treaty admitting a new country to the EU.

Croatia is often mentioned as the most likely candidate, but its membership talks are mired in difficulty over a border dispute with Slovenia and deadlines for joining seem to be disappearing ever further into the future.

There's also the matter that such an accession treaty will not appear until after June 2010, from which point the Conservatives may be in government and responsible for its ratification - Lisbon protocol and all. Whether such a treaty will gain majority support in Parliament at that time must remain a doubt.

So in addition to their limited relevance, whether these declarations will ever gain sufficient legal validity to justify the Lisbon Treaty being given advance approval must remain a significant concern when Irish voters once again go to the polls.

Shadow-boxing over constitutional reform

Westminster has today been discussing the subject of 'constitutional renewal', prompted by a statement by Gordon Brown.

Yet when a significant proportion of Britain's laws now derive from remote EU institutions - against which a large majority so recently voted during an EU-specific election - Gordon Brown doesn't seem to think the EU even worth mentioning as part of the problem of how to reconnect politics with the public.

Throughout a statement that threw in every possible distraction - from holding a consultation on changing the voting system to the establishment of some new quango to supervise MPs - the EU didn't get one mention.

On the one hand, Brown claims, he wants the "devolution of power". This, he concludes, will lead to the "engagement of people themselves in their local communities."

But on the other, via the Lisbon Treaty, he's clearly happy to see ever more decision-making centralised in remote EU institutions in Brussels - in the process denying us a promised say - and can't see why that's causing people to disengage from Westminster politics.

"Let us stand together for integrity and democracy", he concluded - after setting out how he plans to ignore the key message of the recent European parliament election.

Instead of a proper acknowledgment of the EU's role in draining away the standing of parliament and sterilising Westminster debate, today we had the government's attempt to change the subject.

Expenses myth

The idea that last week's election wasn't really about the EU at all, but a protest vote about MPs' expenses or other aspects of how parliament works, doesn't stack up.

First, despite their MPs being arguably as badly affected by the revelations as Labour - think duck ponds and moats - the Conservative vote actually went up.

Second, the Lib Dems - a party that was deemed to have come out better from the expenses scandal, but which connived with Labour to deny us the promised referendum on the EU Constitution/Lisbon Treaty - saw their vote drop.

Where is the quest here to punish all the Westminster parties? But the message on the EU - on the Lisbon Treaty - is crystal clear.

Those opposed to today's EU were up. Those who support the status quo - who actively blocked us being given a say on passing more power to the EU - took a hit.

Not listening

That's why today's statement couldn't be a worse response for Labour's prospects at the next election.

It couldn't be worse because it's increasingly hard to imagine that no-one in government recognises how much of a problem in our democratic system the scale of the EU's powers is now causing - and how much people want to see that change.

Rather, it shows, no-one wants to put that key problem right.

That isn't reducing the 'disconnect' between public and politics. It's making it so much worse.

People have spoken - now it's 'do or die' for Brown

Gordon Brown may have survived trial by Labour MPs, as seems to be the news emerging from this evening's meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

But he has not yet saved himself from public opinion.

The media have spent today wallowing in the twin themes of the election of two BNP candidates as MEPs and further debate about Gordon Brown's leadership of the Labour party.

These may well be the most controversial outcomes for commentators, but ultimately they are side-shows.

The danger the media must avoid is that the overall message delivered by voters is overlooked.

The glaring message from yesterday is that people want less EU integration, not more. Overwhelming support was given to a wide range of parties representing all sides of the political spectrum that oppose the Lisbon Treaty.

The spotlight must now shift on to how Gordon Brown intends to deliver what people have clearly said they want.

Not only are Labour MPs, according to those coming out of tonight's meeting, asking how their party can reconnect with the public, and what policy changes are needed to achieve this.

But also millions of people will be watching closely in the coming days to detect whether, after the uproar against our political leaders that has built over recent weeks, Westminster is finally listening.

It's all about Lisbon

As we've said already, the only response that addresses all prevailing political problems is for Gordon Brown to immediately rescind Britain's ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.

The treaty is not only an issue that, more than any other - due to the conspicuously broken manifesto promises of a referendum - speaks to problems of trust between governors and the governed.

As we will show tomorrow, the treaty's emergence in October 2007 actually kick-started the disconnect between Gordon Brown and the public that has today grown to a critical condition.

But it also speaks directly to questions of the degradation of Parliament and consequent falling public faith in our democratic system - a trend that was exacerbated by the recent MPs' expenses scandal.

So tomorrow the story must shift on to what Brown is going to do at the looming EU summit on 18-19 June to deliver on the message of this election - and deliver convincingly enough to stand a chance of saving himself at the next general election.

To go to that summit and do anything other than rescind the Lisbon Treaty is unthinkable in terms of his own fate, the fate of the Labour party and the fate of public faith in our political system.

Having seemingly survived trial by Labour MPs, Brown has 10 days to rescue his future in the court of public opinion.