talking about a referendum
WORKERS, DECEMBER 2003 ISSUE
On 7 November, a Rally for a Referendum on the European Union's proposed new constitution was held in Westminster. It was very well attended, with representatives from across the country.
This proposed constitution gives the EU the sole legal authority in all the member countries. This is quite new - all the EU's earlier treaties left sovereignty in the hands of the member nations.
Its Article 9(1) says, "the Constitution, and law adopted by the Union institutions...shall have primacy over the laws of the member states."
The European Court of Justice would become our Supreme Court, and the repository of sovereignty. No longer would we the British people have sovereignty over our own affairs.
Article 16 allows the EU to take 'appropriate measures' to enforce the constitution's aims even where the constitution 'has not provided the necessary powers' - a very dangerous, and quite new, catch-all clause.
Article III-157 of the constitution would give the EU new powers over energy policy, the 'security of energy supply' and the management of the energy market. Voting would be by qualified majority voting, with no vetoes. This would allow Brussels to control our oil and gas reserves, which comprise 90% of the total in the EU. Thirty years after Heath gave away our fisheries, and having virtually finished off our coal industry, Blair is scheming to give away our energy reserves!
Speakers at the rally urged that we use "the power of the collective will of our nation' to save our nation, and that we 'don't leave it to others". Edmund Burke was cited as saying that the people were the "perfect sovereign judges".
There was a warning that Blair, being frightened that he would lose any referendums, might insert in his general election manifesto some phrase such as "we must support the work of our European partners". He would then take an election victory as assent to endorsing the constitution, and consequently to joining the euro, giving away our energy reserves, submerging our army into a European army, and so on.
The new constitution clearly gives the EU major new powers over its members, so we must demand a referendum on whether to accept it or not.