Gisela’s Birmingham Post article // June 18th, 2008 // Speeches, Articles and Interviews
Gisela Stuart MP
Labour MP – Birmingham Edgbaston
The Mad Hatter told Alice that, “words mean what you want them to mean”. He would have felt at home in the EU. The Irish have said “No” to the Lisbon Treaty which all governments agreed could only be ratified by unanimity. That should be the end of it, yet already Europe’s politicians and bureaucrats are looking for a way to plough on.
When the heads of governments meet next week at the European Council, the Irish government is being asked to explain why the people voted the way they did! I doubt a similar explanation would have been required for a “yes”- it would simply have been accepted. Some straight talking is needed: the Treaty is dead and it’s no good trying to bully a country like Ireland.
The referendum result is not a problem for the Irish: it’s a problem for the whole of Europe, because it reflects a deeper malaise. The project of Europe’s political elite - deeper political integration – can no longer rely on implicit consent, let alone a popular mandate. This elite is incapable of comprehending the meaning of the word “no”, simply arguing in a high handed and arrogant way that the people didn’t understand, shouldn’t have been asked in the first place or were voting on something else other than the Treaty.
How did we get into this mess?
It all began quite promisingly: in the 2001 Laeken Declaration leaders of European governments appeared to recognise that the problem for the EU and its institutions was that they were out of touch with the peoples of Europe. So they set up the Convention on the Future of Europe where representatives form all national parliaments, the European Parliament, governments and the Commission came to together in public session to find a solution. I represented the UK Parliament and served on the drafting committee.
The Convention was supposed to examine the allocation of power between the Union and Member States, but instead, the former French president Valerie Giscard D’Estaing, who chaired the proceedings, determined that a constitution was needed.
By the end I for one was completely disillusioned with a project so driven by a small political elite. At the time my views were seen as eccentric, but I recall resisting fiercely the inclusion of a clause which required a country which failed to ratify the constitution within two years to leave the European Union. The assumption was that Britain, rather than as it turned out France, Holland and Ireland, would be problem.
The early confidence that if asked the people would support the project was quickly shattered. Two founder member states said no. The French apparently agreed with my spell check – during the Convention, whenever I typed in the word Giscard, it suggested “discard”!
Rather than accept the people’s verdict, the EU opted for a “period of reflection” but in due course the constitution was served up as a new dish: the Treaty of Lisbon. Giscard D’Estaing summed it up by saying “it’s the same letter, just in a different envelope”. Some changes were made – sufficient for the Government in Britain to renege on the promised referendum – but the Treaty was completely and utterly unreadable.
Misinformation and dissembling followed. First, we were told that there would be no enlargement without the Treaty or the EU would grind to a halt, but new countries have joined and the EU continued working; later it was said that the Lisbon Treaty wasn’t such a big deal after all, much less significant than Maastricht or Nice. So if it’s so “modest” – why the fuss about its rejected? In fact the Lisbon Treaty was an ill disguised attempt to get through the back door what couldn’t be got through the front.
Now the Irish have said “no” and not on low turnout or by a narrow margin. Their reasons may have been varied, but so are the reasons for voting in general elections and opinion polls suggest the underlying theme was clear: what they - and what many more if they had been given chance - rejected was the incomprehensible bureaucratic structure of the EU which makes it impossible to pin down responsibility and accountability for decisions.
The Treaty is dead, so the Labour government should not push ahead with the third reading of the Lisbon Treaty in the House of Lords next week. If it was right for a “period of reflection” after the Dutch and French voted “no”, it is appropriate for the UK to pause after the Irish vote.
The Queen’s Speech is not until 4th of December and Gordon Brown needs to respond strategically rather tactically to the new reality and put his own proposal on the table rather than reacting to others: that’s a game that Whitehall likes playing, but does so badly- the notion that “Britain is winning the argument” is nonsense.
Gordon Brown should appoint a Minister for Europe within the Cabinet, who would be answerable to Parliament on all EU issues. The first priority for the new minister would be to draw up proposals for returning powers to Member States. The basis would be the presumption that the EU would only do those things for which there is an overwhelming argument that it can not be done by the nation states.
My guess is that there is appetite for real change in the way the EU is run among the peoples of Europe; but if governments continue to sideline their voters and choose to consolidate an unelected and unaccountable nomenklatura, national self interests will argue for a different relationship with the EU than the present one.
A new initiative from Britain might well come as a shock, but Europe needs to be shocked into action. It’s not the Irish “no-vote” that’s the problem. The EU is heading for a major economic and financial crisis and discredited political elites and an outdated European model is ill-quipped to deal with it: as Barak Obama might say, “It’s time for a change”.
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