Monday, June 11, 2007

Slow Progress on Parliamentary Accountability

The Telegraph today pushes Brown on the European Council meeting, read here, and a picture that has been around the net since last week which for some reason the UK media seemed to have been keeping under wraps (see my post of 8th June below). The statement on what Sarkozy claimed (linked in my post below) - "He added that he had agreed with Blair on how to tackle the thorny issue of fundamental rights that were enshrined in the old constitution, but did not go into details" has still gone unreported in Britain as far as I can see, it certainly has caused no political concern which is odd in view of all that has gone before. Are Britain's media involved in a conspiracy of silence on this? The French reports certainly carried the aside on Thursday evening as I quoted in another post below: "On a parlé du texte sur les droits fondamentaux et on a trouvé une solution" Now that David Cameron the leader of the Conservative Party has finally taken an interest in calling for an eventual referendum, perhaps he will soon grasp the major point of the sidelining of Parliament which will result from a Blair/Beckett lone attendance at the meeting. The Telegraph states that "Tory sources said they would turning up the heat on Mr Brown every day between now and the EU summit." Let us hope so, we will be watching! To see the doughty parliamentarian the Labour MP Frank Field also alongside on this argument is also most encouraging. The BBC report from its Europe Correspondent on the Radio 4 Today programme in its supercilious tone might have been prepared after a brief read of the seriously flawed arguments recently presented on the EU Referendum blog, linked here, which at least reflected a brief return to its supposed raison d'être. (On visiting EU Referendum for the above link, I note they have at least returned to the topic once again, but conclude with the same dangerous do-nothing line peddled by David Heathcoat-Amory in his speech to the Bruges Group - can this wild folly among the opponents of EU Federalism really be maintained over the coming week?)

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home