Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Hague's latest referendum demand

A well argued and straightforward demand for a referendum in this morning's Times by the effectively Deputy Conservative Party Leader, William Hague, linked here, who has finally challenged the Government on the 'concept of the constitution is abandoned' sentence with the immediately following one that says the terms of the constitution will still be applied, I quote: Mr Brown’s second argument against a referendum is to quote a line in the treaty agreement that says the “constitutional concept . . . is abandoned”. But the next line says that everything in the original constitution would be kept, unless stated otherwise – and according to a study by the think-tank Open Europe, only 10 out of 250 proposals in the constitution have been changed. This blog has been emphasising that fact since mid-July, read here meanwhile minister after minister, even the Prime Minister in Parliament has been allowed to get away with quoting just that first sentence....Why? What the MANDATE actually says is the following: Quote I. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS 1. The IGC is asked to draw up a Treaty (hereinafter called "Reform Treaty") amending the existing Treaties with a view to enhancing the efficiency and democratic legitimacy of the enlarged Union, as well as the coherence of its external action. The constitutional concept, which consisted in repealing all existing Treaties and replacing them by a single text called "Constitution", is abandoned. The Reform Treaty will introduce into the existing Treaties, which remain in force, the innovations resulting from the 2004 IGC, as set out below in a detailed fashion. Unquote As we pointed out and linked in July, the paper on the outcome of the 2004 IGC was titled "Provisional consolidated version of the draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe" linked here So what kind of amateur opposition are the Conservatives running and where is the outrage that should be being expressed by their leader over the potential loss of our democracy by skulduggery? Promising 'bare-knuckled fights' with Brown over the NHS (where no effective policy differences can be discerned) and now this morning we are informed by a column in the Telegraph, here: "he has also been pointing the finger far more aggressively at Mr Brown than he ever did at Mr Blair. "Farmers would "have every right to be angry" if it turned out that the body responsible for stopping foot and mouth had ended up causing an outbreak, he (call me 'Dave') said." Pathetic, truly pathetic especially when those same farmers can perfectly well read of the failures at Pirbright as detailed elsewhere in the same paper, read here, of which facts even his own MPs have known for months . Why is 'Dave' silent still on this and all the other failures at Defra following the huge EU fine as pointed out again on this blog months ago, but on which topic 'Dave' has been silent. Cameron should step down immediately then at least William Hague's attacks will carry more weight as temporary party leader pending another party election.

1 Comments:

Blogger John Trenchard said...

yeah , its getting pathetic alright. instead of attacking the treaty itself, we get cheap political point scoring against Brown. the issues are far too big to be involving oneself in punch-and-judy politics.

and hasnt "call me dave" done a "macavity the cat" on this - note how Hague is doing all the bidding.

pathetic!

10:41 PM  

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