Jan 22 2008
John Redwood Speaks in EU Constitution Debate
Having a referendum on the EU treaty is central to restoring trust in politics, insisted John Redwood last night in the Commons. Being the first to intervene in the debate on the Lisbon Treaty, Mr Redwood demanded of the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, that he give the country a say on such a reckless surrendering of powers, just as his party had promised to do in the last election.
John Redwoods four interventions and speech, taken from Hansard, follow.
Mr. Redwood: Why will the Secretary of State not give us a referendum, given that his party promised one and that all the powers that we worried would be transferred under the constitution are now being needlessly and recklessly given away in this document?
David Miliband: For the same reason that the right hon. Gentleman voted against a referendum on the Maastricht treaty in 1992
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John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
[...] John Redwood Speaks in EU Constitution Debate [...]
Please be assured that your work in this debate was much appreciated by an awful lot of voiceless electors throughout the country.
Very well said.
Don’t despair - please. You are totally right in everything you said above.
I watched a bit of the debate on TV. I thought William Hague was magnificent! I loved the way the Foreign Secretary looked so ashamed of his patent fibbing.
I know (from the internet) that I speak for a lot of other people too.
The Truth and Justice will Ultimately Prevail and You John will have played your Part, On behalf of my children who’m I wish to remain free, not citizens of some Corrupt Totalitarian & Socialist Gulag I thank you.
http://www.planetquo.com
The constitution and treaty are largely the same. The red lines are meaningless and will be overturned by the European court in just the same way as the opt out from the Social Chapter was (Maastricht). The European scrutiny committee (which has a labour majority) has admitted this.
So lets get this straight. The government know that they are lying, we know the government are lying, and the government know that we know that they are lying.
Thank you for doing everything you can to prevent this “treaty” being ratified.
So… why did you vote against a referendum on the Maastricht Treaty and desert your colleagues who were brave enough to vote against the Treaty?
Reply: 3 reasons. 1. We had not promised a referendum. 2. We were exempting the UK from the main point of the Maastricht Treaty, the single currency. We do not have the same exemptions from the worst features of Lisbon 3. I was a member of the government and decided to fight the issue from within government for longer - voting against the government lline would have required earlier resignation.My colleagues against the Treaty wanted someone within government putting their case. I did subsequently resign from the government over higher taxes and refusal to rule out the Euro in principle.
Thank you for your prompt and courteous reply, John.
1. However, is ‘not promising a referendum’ sufficient reason for not insisting on a referendum? Are you saying that if Blair hadn’t promised a referendum on the EU constitution, or Lisbon Treaty as we are now expected to call it, that you would have just accepted that?
2. A slight misrepresentation here. Monetary Union was a protocol attached to Maastricht, as I recall, not actually in the treaty itself. Also, the European Federalism inherent in everything Delors and co. insisted in going into Maastricht made every development thereafter almost inevitable, as some of your colleagues on the back benches bravely argued.
3. A bit of a cop out, and the same one used equally unconvincingly by Tony Benn for remaining in Wilson’s Government at the time of the IMF crisis. The really honest position would have been to resign and lead a back bench revolt against Major’s craven weakness. It may have even mobilised sufficient support, in the way that Howe’s resignation did against Thatcher, to have derailed the entire project.
Anyway, thank you again for your reply.
I did resign later and led a revolt to keep our currency, which helped persuade both Major and Blair to offer a referendum before destroying the pound - mission accomplished I would say.