letter to the editor from Richard Corbett MEP |
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24th February 2008 |
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Northern Echo |
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Dear Editor, Martin Callanan MEP is completely wrong to state that Labour made an "explicit promise to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty" in its 2005 manifesto. Indeed, the Lisbon Treaty did not even exist in 2005! There were, of course, proposals for a referendum on the previous Constitutional Treaty. This was because of its constitutional nature repealing and replacing all the treaties that had gone before it and re-founding the EU on a new legal basis, a "constitution". When this concept was rejected by Dutch and French voters, governments of every single member state in the EU agreed to abandon the Constitution. Instead, they have pursued key reforms, which took into account the newly expanded EU, by keeping, but amending, the existing treaties. This amending treaty is far less sweeping than Maastricht or the Single European Act, both of which were ratified in Britain by Parliament, just as the Lisbon Treaty should be, like every treaty Britain has ever signed. This isn't the first time Mr Callanan has allowed his obsession with the Lisbon Treaty to distort the facts on these pages. On November 12th last year, he wrote that David Cameron had "even committed to a referendum after the treaty has come into force." This, no doubt, was news to his party leader who has done no such thing. Yours, Richard Corbett Labour MEP for Yorkshire & Humber
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