press release from the office of Richard Corbett MEP

14 July 2004

Letwin branded "worryingly confused" by Labour MEP

RICHARD CORBETT MEP, Labour spokesman on constitutional affairs in the European Parliament, has rejected Oliver Letwin's "worryingly confused" account of the proposed new European Union constitution.

Richard said:

"In an astonishing sequence of non sequiturs, Mr Letwin claims that we should reject the constitution because he thinks it gives Brussels power over taxes - which is not only completely false, but also utterly unrelated to yesterday's Court ruling."

Clarifying the role of the Court, he said:

"Just as in Britain, the Court does not make policy, as Mr Letwin knows full well. It is simply made up of judges from all the EU countries. Their only job is to make sure that ministers and the EU institutions stick to what they have agreed.

"The claim that the Court will try to give 'vast increases of power to Brussels' is just ridiculous. The EU's responsibilities are conferred on it by unanimous agreement of all the member states - judges have no responsibilities in this area at all."

Richard pointed out that the draft constitutional treaty preserves the national veto for all issues of direct taxation - one of Tony Blair's famous 'red lines' - so there is no risk of tax measures being imposed by Brussels, let alone by the Court.

"As numerous independent studies have pointed out, the constitution does not hand more powers to Brussels - in fact, it does quite the opposite, increasing the role of national parliaments and the directly elected European Parliament in those decisions which we agree to make collectively at European level.

"It is a modest and worthwhile set of improvements to democratic decision-making, one which we should endorse. We must expose the Tories' self-contradictory euro-mythology for what it is."

More information

Contact Toby Wardman, Press & Communications Officer for Richard Corbett MEP

phone 0113 245 8987

e-mail toby@richardcorbett.org.uk