letter to the editor from Richard Corbett MEP |
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09 July 2007 |
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The Huddersfield Examiner |
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Dear Editor, Muriel Parsons (letters, 2nd July) claims that I say one thing in the European Parliament and another in my Yorkshire constituency. She is wrong. What I said in the parliamentary debate can be checked on the record. I said that the 27 governments of EU countries "salvaged many of the practical institutional reforms that were contained in the Constitutional Treaty. However, it also dropped many of the key features" which I then went on to list: the loss of the notion of a constitution, the dumping of the idea of an EU Foreign Minister, the fact that the Charter of Fundamental Rights will not be enforceable in British courts, the various opt-outs and derogations given to Britain and so on. It is typical of anti-European campaigners to deliberately misquote or to quote selectively. In this context, they want people to believe that the controversial aspects of the now abandoned Constitutional Treaty have in fact been retained, whereas in fact it is precisely those elements that gave rise to demands for a referendum that have been dumped. Yours, Labour MEP for Yorkshire & Humber |
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