Daniel Kawczynski MP: The EU, That Treaty, and A Democratic Way Forward

Daniel Kawczynski, MP for Shrewsbury & Atcham, sets out his vision for what the EU should be.

There has been much said over the past couple of weeks over the future of the European Union. Within our own party, of course, the EU rakes up decades of splits and disagreements, which I believe has led us to an ‘all in or all out’ attitude - an attitude that I believe is wrong.

I, as my Chairmanship of the National Committee for a Referendum demonstrates, am not a Europhile, nor particularly pro EU. However I do not subscribe to the ‘better off out’ theory either. Rather I – and, I believe, the Conservative Party as a whole - now agree that the EU has the potential to be great and wish to ensure Europe can continue as a strong economic powerhouse in our globalised world, while promoting European values of democracy, justice and freedom of speech around the world.

However last week at the EU summit this ideal met a great stumbling block. The whole debacle was neither democratic, nor just, nor consistent with the principle of free speech. Although our now former Prime Minister claimed great success for his defining EU summit, the media, the Conservative Party and the public are all calling for a referendum on what is, in all but name a constitution - a constitution that fails to promise a strong and democratic union. It panders to the anti-capitalist, unionist politics of the Franco-German alliance and undermines the sovereignty of all, but especially smaller nations.

In Britain we now find that we have entered into a Union that is diametrically opposed to our judicial and political systems. The EU is fundamentally a legal prescribing body: it has been created, then via treaties it gains control over many areas of life, then it prescribes what it believes is in the best interest of the European people. This is causing problems in the UK.

Under our UK Common Law system, something is legal until prohibited as being otherwise. On the continent, with constitutions and Roman Law, everything is illegal until granted to you by the state.  Therefore, declarations of human rights, taken in the UK as given, have to be granted by the state on the continent and in the EU. This, as we are now seeing, causes problems and controversy when applied to our Common Law system.

For example, under EU human rights legislation, religion is not a prohibition to education. On the continent this has caused religious schools to thrive. In the UK it threatens religious schools, as Common Law interprets this rule as meaning religion cannot be a barrier to education, thus religion cannot be used to exclude certain children from certain schools. The writers of the Law did not intend this to be the case, but Law in the EU is designed from a Roman Law perspective, which is why it tends to cause more controversy, and has a greater impact on our way of life, our political system and our laws in the UK than it does elsewhere.

This is an extreme example, but it goes to demonstrate the difficulties of aiming for total political union and shows a union of greater political harmonisation to be futile. Each individual state has its own culture, both social - which of course is infringed relatively little by the EU - but also political and legal, which - as with the difference between Scotland and England - it is often better to leave alone.  Furthermore we have a much more liberal attitude towards economic policy, a more balanced arrangement between business and trade unions, and less regulation upon business and enterprise, than many of our European neighbours.

What options are there, therefore, to help ensure that we and our fellow Europeans are allowed to live together, work together and propagate our shared values, while maintaining our independence and differences? Ironically – and I expect to be shouted down for this – what I would argue is that the last treaty should have been more of a constitutional change than what has subsequently actually taken place.

My answer? Put the EU Parliament at the very centre, at the heart of the EU machine, coupled with the return of many aspects of law and political control, back to the states from which they were taken.

The EU Parliament is the only body that represents all the people of Europe in a democratic manner. However, it has neither been granted strong enough powers to hold the Council and Commission to account, nor to direct policy. I would go further and argue that in order to protect the sovereignty of each and every state, it needs to become a bicameral institution, with an Assembly with Members appointed in proportion to population size, plus a Senate, with each state granted an equal number of Senators.

This is, of course, as any educated reader will notice the American system of government. It may seem that I am advocating a United States of Europe, but this is not the case. The EU is here, that is a fact we cannot avoid. At times it is beneficial, and it has the potential to be more so, but only by focusing on a few key areas in which it can have major global impact and not interfere in each state’s ‘every day’ sovereignty.

By proposing a Senate with equal representation, we ensure that every country, Germany and Malta alike, are seen as equal sovereign states. By having the Assembly, we transcend the borders and acknowledge we are all European members of a liberal-Christian heritage.

The EU should focus on fulfilling its original aims, before it contemplates moving to other matters, if indeed it ever should. We do not as yet have free trade and the Franco-German axis espouses protectionist ideals: they even tried to write out the idea of free trade from this last treaty. We do not have free movement of people, as only three of the original fifteen EU states allowed the ten new members to have access to their workforce, and all have clamped down on Romania and Bulgaria. If the EU wants to expand and benefit the people of Europe, it needs to stop playing political games and striving for political union, and focus on becoming a trading block to rival the huge markets of the USA, China, Brazil and India.

The EU should also focus in on democracy and on global trade. Internationally it should lead a greater movement for free -trade, in a positive way that protects the poorest nations and peoples around the world. The Euro-Med Partnership could be expanded to encourage a free trade zone in place of the present EU-dominated bilateral agreements, a move that would I believe also foster greater harmony between the EU and her neighbouring Muslim states. It should expand in areas such as collaborated aid to ensure that the G8 pledges and UN development aims are spearheaded by EU action. It should also work to help harmonise trading within states, to ensure an EU standard which can be respected and designed eventually to become a benchmark for a global standard.

The EU should also focus on areas of common mutual gain: eradicating disease, working on common scientific developments and tackling global warming, thus ensuring that Europe leads the scientific future.

Trade, democracy, justice, sovereignty, global warming, science and development are all areas as Europeans we can cooperate on to great effect and mutual benefit, but the EU seems rather to be intent on focusing on the minutiae of the lives of its citizens: it continues to be prescriptive. By moving the EU Parliament to the heart, the EU can become democratically accountable; by making a second equally-weighted chamber, we can ensure equal sovereignty. This body, this Parliament, elected by us - all of us - should be at the centre of the EU, making the decisions, and should even elect the new longer term President. The current collaboration of leaders looking for headlines means that smaller countries get browbeaten to accept a less fair deal: even a state the size of the UK has to accept compromises.

Comments

[realcon]

You are either pregnant or not pregnant - you can't be both.

[Bosworth]

Thoughtful piece from one of the rising stars of the 2005 in-take. The kamikaze tactics of Better Off Out will take us nowhere.

[Daniel Hannan]

I'm a big fan of Daniel K's, and it's good to see him addressing an issue that many voters feel is being ignored by their MPs.

Is it really right, though, Daniel, to say that the European Parliament (not the "EU Parliament", by the way) "represents all the people of Europe in a democratic manner"?

I was elected on a turnout of 24 per cent in 1999. More people voted the following day in the eviction round of the then series of Big Brother. And, although the EP keeps getting more power, participation at Euro-elections has fallen without a break since the first poll in 1979, reaching its lowest ever total in 2004.

The trouble with having a democratic Europe is that there is no European "demos": no community with which we identify when we use the word "we". Take away the demos and you're left only with the kratos: the power of a system that must compel obedience through force of law rather than civic loyalty.

[Paul Oakley]

Sorry, but this reformist approach has been tried before but to no effect. And "moving the EU Parliament to the heart"? To state the obvious, Britain's MEPs would be in a tiny minority. If there were a single electorate, decisions taken by the majority would have to be accepted; division would have to be on the basis of party rather than nationality and Britain would have to take for granted that the majority could and would overrule its interests.

It's time for an amicable divorce.

[John Coles]

"""In Britain we now find that we have entered into a Union that is diametrically opposed to our judicial and political systems. """

Quite. And so you propose a course of reform, as likely to yield success as an alcoholism treatment centre located in the middle of a brewery.
You are evidently a young man, Mr. Kawczynski, but this level of naivety cannot solely be explained by your tender years.

[TFA Tory]

Wishful thinking! The European Parliament (with the honourable exception of Dan Hannan, Roger Helmer and their allies) is too often a home for failed politicians and Eurofanatics. It cannot be trusted with more powers.

The real question is what is the Conservative EU policy if the constitutional treaty is ratified without a referendum?

It is likely that Brown will sign the Treaty without a referendum. At that point, more than 60 new powers, including vital ones on tax, will have passed to the EU.

The Eurosceptic advocates of "reform from within" have failed to change the EU's centralist direction. The "Movement for European Reform" has achieved nothing since its formation.

Sarkozy, supposedly our ally, is planning to end the EU's commitment to open markets and free competition. The cat is out of the proverbial bag. The Single Market will never be complete and we can expect more EUro-nationalism and protectionism.

RealCon's point is right. We have a simple choice - to be part of the EU Super-state or to leave. Daniel (like Hague, Davis, Redwood et al) simply will not face up to that reality. It's time to leave - Better Off Out!

[tapestry]

Is Dan having his cake and eating It? This sounds like he's agreeing with Better Off Out - of what currently exists, followed a proposal of a new amalgamation based on entirely different principlies.

It is a construct that comes from an awareness that any political career inside the Conservative Party will be blighted by support of Better Off Out, and so this is an example of how the poor sods like Dan who are stuck with an impossible situation, try to resolve it.

As it is said, politcs is the art of the possible. Possibility is usually three steps removed from popularity. Usually life finds a compromise as Dan is seeking here.

The EU is unlikely to be amenable to compromise. It is more likely to behave like an empire. It has risen and is now falling. Maybe Dan's career will take off even more so if he calls correctly the crashing out of the Euro, which will precede the collapse of the EU project.

The Euro is now in decline as a reserve currency almost before it became one (less euros are being held by international banks and governments who at one time saw the euro as a replacement for domination by the dollar). It has ludicrously high inflation with money halving in value across the eurozone since its launch. How the ECB claims 2% average inflation rates defeats me.

Spain is selling off its gold reservers to buy its own bonds - so the market for Spanish government debt does not collapse. Italy and Greece are struggling to stay on board too.

If I were Dan, I would start with an assessment of Europe as a monetary entity, and then begin to wonder about its political viability. He might be a bit braver then about calling the end of the EU empire - which is happening almost before it began.

The leaders at their summits voting through more and more centralisation are ignoring the facts. King Knut sat in front of the waves. So are Merkel, Sarkozy and Blair now repeating the arrogance of ignoring the most powerful forces that matter and will define the future. Only Dan's namesakes and fellow compatriots the Kawczynski twins seem to twig that the whole process is more charade than real.

Other than that Dan as usual is showing courage and attempting to provide a bit of leadership through a rotten quagmire not of his making.

[Sally Roberts]

Good article, Danny - well done! Some good and thoughtful points - far more thoughtful than one or two of the knee-jerk comments in response which sadly are all too predictable!

[tapestry]

Has Sally mat Danny?

[Denis Cooper]

"The EU should focus on fulfilling its original aims" - unfortunately the pre-eminent original aim is in the very first line of the Preamble to the 1957 Treaty of Rome:

"DETERMINED to lay the foundations of an ever-closer union among the peoples of Europe"

and everything since then has flowed from that, and everything in the future will flow from that, until that pre-eminent original aim is removed from the treaties.

If you want to know why everything that the EU attempts is at best sub-optimal, and at worst it is counter-productive and increasingly threatening to our liberty, the fundamental reason is that every proposal has to be at least conditioned by, and more often is subordinated to, the aim of promoting "ever closer union".

Normally a government sees its task as running an existing country as well as possible, but the over-riding aim of the EU is to create an entirely new country.

Provided that objective is being advanced over the longer term, bad government over the shorter term is seen as unimportant. Eggs and omelettes, you know.

[Denis Cooper]

Bill Cash has a good letter in the Telegraph today:

"Britain not bound by Tony Blair's EU deal"

But in terms of practical politics, what will the Tories do if the Labour MPs break their word and vote through the revived EU Constitution without a referendum?

Will David Cameron guarantee NOW that in those circumstances he would hold the promised referendum after he had won the next general election, and should the public reject the treaty he would then reverse its ratification?

[TFA Tory]

My comment was not knee-jerk. That is a typical smear of Eurofanatics.

I used to have the same view as Daniel K - reform the EU and strengthen the powers of the European Parlliament.

Over the last few years, I have subscribed to information sites such as EU Observer. Every day, I receive news of more EU initiatives to tax, regulate and centralise more power in Brussels.

That is why I believe that EU cannot be reformed. Hard facts have transformed me from Euroscepticism to EUrealism. We are Better Off Out - the sooner, the better.

[Stewart Geddes]

Daniel very eloquently explains why the EU cannot work. There is a fundamental difference of opinion that will not be resolved as long as the French and Germans are part of the equation. (Doubtless, they will be saying exactly the same). I cannot see how we will ever achieve the fundamental change in attitude that will allow this proposed nirvana to occur. If we withdraw from the EU, we remain members of the EFTA that allows us the access to free markets while not having the shackles of unaccountable diktat from Brussels. Sorry Daniel, it's time to leave the EU.

[Steve]

If the recent pantomime over the EU treaty has not demonstrated that it cannot be 'reformed' I shudder to think what will convince you. I have no problem of 'working with' the EU but this must be done from outside. The only policy that will convince the British public is one that restore parliamentary supremecy in effective terms and allows us to negotiate and compromise from a position of strength. That strength being our freedom to ignore the EU directives we do not think approriate for modern Britain.

[David Belchamber]

Daniel's analysis is very helpful when he points out something absolutely crucial to our understanding of the problem that is our membership of the EU:

"Under our UK Common Law system, something is legal until prohibited as being otherwise. On the continent, with constitutions and Roman Law, everything is illegal until granted to you by the state".

I take it that the vast majority of Britons prefer to retain the principles enshrined in our Common Law system and not give way any further to the "Continental" system.

If so, it would seem that our choices are stark: either stay in the EU and accept the final push towards total integration or to decide to leave and retain close ties as does Switzerland.

That would make the wording of a question for the referendum that we must now be given quite easy to formulate.

I sympathise with Daniel's desire to put the EU Parliament at the very centre: that is where it should have been from the beginning to give the EU some semblance of democracy but things have gathered such momentum that I think it is only wishful thinking to believe that such a radical change could now be possible.

[Tapestry]

He is pronounced Corsinssky.

[David Cooper]

As other contributors have mentioned, putting the European Parliament at the centre of the EU would not be likely to enable the goal of maintaining independence and differences, or of returning powers. The inherent problem is the lack of any realistic chance for electors to call the executive to account by voting out Party A via European Parliament elections and replacing it with Party B.

Yes, we cannot avoid the fact that the EU is here, just as the republics comprising the USSR could not wish "Moscow" away, but that should not rule out a member nation deciding - by whatever means, pronouncing UDI if necessary - to "do a Lithuania" and set steps in motion that might just bring the whole rotten edifice tumbling down.

Some time ago I wondered if there was a better label than Eurosceptic to describe those who were well disposed towards European nations and peoples, but ill disposed towards the EU ("Love Europe, hate the EU" being one formula that arguably carries more of a positive note than "Better Off Out", fair sentiment as the latter may be). Whatever the answer may be to that one, two false premises behind the central article here - well argued as it may have been - are that membership as such should never be up for debate and that reform from within is feasible.

[Nick Paget-Brown]

Surely the problem is that the founders of the EU did not "trust the people" after the trauma of the first 50 years of the twentieth century. They therefore went out of their way to create a structure in which executive power was granted to a bureaucracy - the Commission. It is this which is now initating vast amounts of legislation which the Parliament and Council merely amend at the margins before approving.
The UK has been forced to go along with this structure which is alien to our own political tradition of politicians initiating laws and civil servants implementing them. It has then had to retrofit a totally different legal system as explained above. In addition to all of this, there is a strong protectionist agenda (reinforced by France last week) which is counter to our own free trade tradition.
All this has been done by sleight of hand and has resulted in enormous cynicism. A single market may well be in Britain's interest - but movement by stealth to a benevolent, prescriptive bureaucracy is not. The very notion that the people might wish to dismiss a Government, or reject its proposals for constitutional reform, is not a concept which Brussels can accept. That is why there will always be political strain between the UK and "mainstream" Europe. We should make common cause with new Member States to limit any new proposals to those which have first been approved by democratically elected politicans.
Those who see this as inimical to the federal project of "ever closer union" should proceed towards a federal structure which only need bind those who wish to be bound. The rest sit outside, developing common policies where possible but not at the expense of giving up their own Parliamentary freedoms. A "two-speed" Europe along these lines will be the only sustainable long-term solution if the Franco-German alliance persists in pushing a federal agenda.

[Derek]

To argue for reform is a bit naive after over 30 years trying and failing. We must stop being delusional and face the facts - IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!! We either continue along the federalist path, complaining as we go, or we reach a compromise arrangement like Norway, Switzerland and Iceland. There is everything to gain by such a policy and nothing to lose.

[Mark Wadsworth]

What Paul Oakley and Derek say. Trying to reforming that monolith is not worth it. Or should we do like the French and just ignore the bits we don't like (i.e. most of it)?

[Pro-EU]

It's a relief to see one Tory at last engaging with the real world and recognising that the EU is here to stay and that positive engagement is preferable to sulking from the sidelines.

However there are a number of glaring ommissions and errors from the piece that bear scrutiny.

Firstly, I would like to know how anyone can believe that Germany and France anti-Capitalist and unionist? Both are functioning market economies who, in the fundamentals at least, are in a more advantageous position than the UK thanks to their retention of heavy manufacturing industries. It is worth remembering that the EU as a whole outgrew the US last year, whilst maintaining a thumping trade surplus and without building up huge budget deficits - the twin issues suffered by both the UK and the USA.

Secondly, the EU doesn’t have Human Rights legislation. Surely the author knows that the Human Rights Act derives from the European Convention on Human Rights, a Council of Europe document? The Council of Europe has a wider membership than the EU. The Convention itself was drafted by British lawyers.

As for the Treaty itself, it is ahead of Mr Kawczynski in much of what he proposes. The European Parliament is being strengthened. EU legislation will be scrutised by national governments as well as EU institutions. This means no superstate of eurosceptic myth is ever likely.

I will agree with the author that barriers erected to the free movement of people from the accession countries goes against the spirit of the EU and has not been its finest hour. It's also self-defeating. The one abiding lesson other EU countries can all learn from the experience of the UK is that migrant labour helps to stimulate the economy.

People will be able to vote on the Treaty. Like they did in the General Elections following the singning of the Single European Act and Maastricht - both of which contained far more fundamental reforms than the current Treaty. If they don't like it vote Labour out. As for referenda, we are not Switzerland.

[Sally Roberts]

Tapestry @ 10:41 - yes "Sally has met Danny"! We interviewed him in Hammersmith & Fulham and liked him very much although of course as you know we eventually selected our excellent MP Greg Hands.

[The Huntsman]

This idea of an EU as we would like it is all very well.

There is a slight problem: the EuroNabobery show absolutely no signs of wanting any such thing. Rather they have just gone through an exercise in preparing a retread of the Constitution, sorry, amending treaty which will arguably, as a matter of international law, bring to an end the existence of member nation states as such in 2009.

The chances of Sarkozy or Merkl or Prodi agreeing to unravel 30 years worth of le Grand Projet so that a more Anglo-American style organisation with a democratic Parliament that will suddenly also agree to adopt this model is just wishful thinking, illusory.

Why do you think that they have been so determined to reinstate the constitution? Not to create the kind of EU you envisage, that's for sure. Their Europe is one in which the EU becomes, salami slice after salami slice, a Nation State with power concentrated at the centre (and in this world, the Parliament is definitely not going to be the centre) and in which everything is set in the perma-slime of Euro Socialism. And once they have accreted to themselves supreme power over all of us, they are not likely to let any of it slip away to the Parliament whether it's unicameral or bicameral.

Suppose you do get into power and are able to propose this to your fellow Europeans: what is Plan 'B' for when they say "No"?

The Conservative party has to deal with the EU as it is and as the EU wants to be. Thinking we can deflect this juggernaut onto a quite different road altogether is just so much pie in the sky.

We already know that Sarkozy wants a more protectionist Europe. Merkl, Prodi, Zapatero, Socrates, and the rest will follow his lead. How is it proposed to stop them?

The EU neither wants nor is it susceptible to reform of this sort. Soon we may have a chance to decide whether it is an institution to which the British people wish to give their whole-hearted consent or not (if GB yields at last on the 'amending treaty') and surely we must turn it into a vote on the matter of Europe as a whole. Then we shall see what the people want.

[Tapestry]

Article in FT today stating that Sarkozy is refusing to abide by the Maastricht agreed 3% fiscal deficit, which is putting pressure on the French German relationship, and the credibility of the Euro. In essence the Euro will only survivie if there is the political will to run one economy. There isn't.

Once the Euro starts to unravel, you have to ask yourself how much of the rest of the EU programme will survive. Expansion in a territorial sense has stopped. The currency is declining as a reserve currency already after only 8 years. Most international investment banks are advising their clients that the Euro cannot survive.

So hold up Danny Boy, and look to a collapsing EU programme, and to seeing how much damage it will do us to be caught up in it by signing the Con Treaty.

Daniel Kawczinski is an excellent MP for Shrewsbury & Atcham and his pressure on supermarkets to pay more to farmers in his All Party Dairy Industry Group has lead to a flurry of advertising from supermarkets claiming they are now farmer-friendly. He gets my vote...but unfortunately his scheme to save the EU is already too late.

[Genuine Conservative]

Just like Norway and Switzerland we most certainly would be Better Off Out. There is nothing "Kamikaze" about that at all, it makes total and complete sense unless what you really want is the UK to become a subservient region of a big brother Euro superstate dominated by France, Germany and eventually Poland.

There is no inbetween on this and there is also absolutely no consensus whatsoever in the Conservative Party that we would be better off in, in fact all the hard evidence is that exactly the opposite is true. It's time to stop allowing the blatant lies of the Europhile fantacists to go unchallenged. Of course the biggest of those lies is that there is any real support within the party for the EU State or that properly addressing that greatest of all issues will split the party. It cannot split the party because the Europhiles are so very small in number that their absence would be about as meaningful as Quentin Davies'.

The Eurofanatics have achieved their anti democratic and anti British aims by a process of stealth and creep and any attempt to follow the suggestions made by Daniel Kawczinski, or any similar idea, is simply tinkering at the margins whilst our power to govern ourselves as we see fit is slowly given away with abolutely nothing gained in exchange.

BETTER OFF OUT!!!!

[Denis Cooper]

Pro-EU @ 15:42 -

"People will be able to vote on the Treaty. Like they did in the General Elections following the signing of the Single European Act and Maastricht"

Did any party go into a general election promising a referendum on the Single European Act or Maastricht? I think not. But all the main party candidates went into the 2005 general election with clear manifesto promises that, if they were elected to Parliament, they wouldn't vote for a Bill to ratify the EU Constitution without prior approval from the people in a national referendum.

Now according to the architect of the EU Constitution, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, and others, the new Treaty is virtually the same as the rejected EU Constitution, and there's no way that any MP can be absolved from his manifesto pledge.

Many of the Labour MPs wouldn't even have been elected without that manifesto pledge, and if they renege they will have been elected on false pretences. Quite possibly Brown will have become Prime Minister by false pretences.

The petition demanding the referendum we were promised is here:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/EU-treaty-NON/

which address should be circulated as widely as possible.

[David Belchamber]

Nick Paget-Brown at 13.49:

"A single market may well be in Britain's interest - but movement by stealth to a benevolent, prescriptive bureaucracy is not".

This is the real issue, although I think that we should still challenge the government to publish the key points at issue in the latest treaty comparing the wording (i) before the treaty, (ii) the amended wording and, for good luck (iii) the wording of the proposed constitution.

We should try to confuse the issue with a few facts but, if we get them, I suspect they will only reinforce the views of those of us who "Love Europe but hate the EU".

IMO we cannot now reshape the EU, so we have to find a formula that retains our position as a sovereign nation co-operating fully with Europe.

Please will the tories now give a firm commitment to having a referendum in their first year in office?

[R.Baker.]

"First year of office?"

I'm afraid you will have to do much better than that Citizen Bellchamber.

Which year?

[The Huntsman]

This idea of an EU as we would like it is all very well.

There is a slight problem: the EuroNabobery show absolutely no signs of wanting any such thing. Rather they have just gone through an exercise in preparing a retread of the Constitution, sorry, amending treaty which will arguably, as a matter of international law, bring to an end the existence of member nation states as such in 2009.

The chances of Sarkozy or Merkl or Prodi agreeing to unravel 30 years worth of le Grand Projet so that a more Anglo-American style organisation with a democratic Parliament that will suddenly also agree to adopt this model is just wishful thinking, illusory.

Why do you think that they have been so determined to reinstate the constitution? Not to create the kind of EU you envisage, that's for sure. Their Europe is one in which the EU becomes, salami slice after salami slice, a Nation State with power concentrated at the centre (and in this world, the Parliament is definitely not going to be the centre) and in which everything is set in the perma-slime of Euro Socialism. And once they have accreted to themselves supreme power over all of us, they are not likely to let any of it slip away to the Parliament whether it's unicameral or bicameral.

Suppose you do get into power and are able to propose this to your fellow Europeans: what is Plan 'B' for when they say "No"?

The Conservative party has to deal with the EU as it is and as the EU wants to be. Thinking we can deflect this juggernaut onto a quite different road altogether is just so much pie in the sky.

We already know that Sarkozy wants a more protectionist Europe. Merkl, Prodi, Zapatero, Socrates, and the rest will follow his lead. How is it proposed to stop them?

The EU neither wants nor is it susceptible to reform of this sort. Soon we may have a chance to decide whether it is an institution to which the British people wish to give their whole-hearted consent or not (if GB yields at last on the 'amending treaty') and surely we must turn it into a vote on the matter of Europe as a whole. Then we shall see what the people want.

[Denis Cooper]

If the referendum is just about the Treaty, aka the EU Constitution Mark Ia,
it'll probably be better to stick to the question on the ballot paper.

[C List and Proud]

The EU is an example of the political reality that the bigger something gets, the more those at the top/centre run around trying to get everybody to agree or do the same, while the whole edifice crumbles around them. It's called socialism.

The US, by comparison with the old USSR, rather than the EU at this point, typifies why a liberal economic and democratic structure with real devolution is not just an option for a large collection of states, but a pre-requisite for making that collection of states work without tyranny.

Danny may well be advocating a similar structure for the EU to that of the US, but I can't see it working because of the lack of an over-riding, liberal and empowering constitution.

Now that is of course precisely the crafty logic of the Eurocrat. They say, we need a constitution in order to make this larger and larger grouping work. Sadly, they put VGD in charge and rather than the exquisite construction of 1776-9 - (which I carry around in an inside pocket because it remains the smallest constitution in the world, complete with its amendments and I occassionally like to wave it at Euro-fanatics to show what a real constitution looks like) - which establishes the limits of the state, we have the tome, delivered by articulated pantechnicon which sets out to define precisely what we the citizen may do and how the state should decide whether we should be allowed to do anything else.

Putting checks and balances in place which caould make the EU Constitution work would be impossible. If it is past into law, we should leave.

[Torygirl]

The Conservative Party still seem to be saying "In Europe not ruled by Europe". They should have learned by now that reform is impossible, and unless David Cameron threatens to leave, no-one is going to take him seriously

[S.Reszczynski]

We can be part of Europe without being ruled by unelected eurocrats. It would do all our ardent europhile MPs well to remember that the British people have only voted for membership of a Common Market we have never voted for European Union nor a constitution.

We were promised a referendum on the constitution and that is what we have the democratic right to expect.

It is about time that all of our so called political masters remembered that they were given their jobs by the people to represent the people, and that they should listen to them. The first step in bringing back any sort of respect for our politicians is for them to honour promises made in their election manifesto.

If the Conservatives want to be in power they must actually listen to the people not just self interested focus groups. Britain and it`s people come first, Europe, Africa, Global warming etc can only get public support once our political leaders can show that they can run Britain properly, which so far they have failed to do.

[Nicholas Keen]

Naive stuff by Mr Kawczynski. Self-deception is a quality at which the British excel. We are a minority of one. We succeed at stopping a few incursions, but the inexorable march continues.

How about more concern with Britain, rather than Europe, as an economic powerhouse, and the avoidance of policies that will hinder the UK as it competes with the Asian powerhouses now generating 8-12% GDP growth?

[Lindsay Jenkins]

'The EU should focus on fulfilling its original aims, before it contemplates moving to other matters, if indeed it ever should' writes Mr Kawczynski.

Since the original aim was political integration where does that leave Mr Kawczynski's argument?

[John Bell]

The question that no one has yet answered is: what advantages does the UK get from our membership of the EU that we couldn't get from free trade and friendly cooperation between independant, soveriegn states?

[Ian Parker]

Noble aims, but simply whistling in the wind.

The EU is as it is not because of chance but exactly because that is what the elected leaders of each member country have cumulatively created. That the beast we now see has extensive powers over aspects of our own sovereignty is a direct result of a series of deliberate actions undertaken in our name but with no reference to ourselves. The EU is, to all intends and purposes, an undemocratic institution, as intended by successive governments. To argue otherwise is, once again, to miss the obvious.

We are, as always, muddled. Our deluded belief that somehow the UK is a great beacon of hope for others, and hence a natural moral leader, would normally be sufficient to get one committed. Yet, it is this irrational basis which leads to the formation of the view that we can change the nature of the EU from within. Simply, we cannot. All we can ever hope to do is limit the immediate damage in the growing number of areas where we can be damaged by slowing down the pace of change. Unfortunately, the truth of the latest Constitution (which dare not speak its name), to which our current administration is so committed, is that we are losing even that capability.

The major EU powers continue to dance to a different drummer. Our elected leaders, while professing otherwise, actually do a fairly good job of following along. The British public have long been conned by our own administrations. In this, we are probably no worse off that the populace of other EU countries who so roundly rejected the original Constitution. How ironic, then, that the democratically elected governments soon realised the error of their ways in allowing true democracy to rear is ugly head and acted accordingly.

We therefore make a grave error if we assume that the EU is malleable to any meaningful degree. Yet, this is the illusion which we must retain or else clear decisions have to be faced head on. Heaven forbid that any party in the UK should develop the backbone to do so. The default middle ground is therefore that we can reform the beast from within; nothing more than bravado.

Others have set the course for the EU. They have no wish or inclination to change. They may tolerate the occasional whines from the UK safe in the knowledge that the recalcitrant child will soon toe the line. It has been thus for some time and will not change. The only thing left for successive UK administrations to do is to hide the real purpose of the EU from the electorate. This discussion, ironically, forms part of the process, for it raises hope but changes nothing.