UK government publishes case for EU treaty

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Matthew Tempest and agencies
Thursday September 9, 2004

The lengthy referendum campaign for the EU constitution began in earnest today, as the government published a white paper setting out the case for approving the new treaty.
With a referendum likely to be at least a year away, the prime minister has written the foreword to the document insisting that this is "clearly not a treaty which reduces our powers as a nation".

The no campaign has already got under way, backed by both the Conservatives and the UK Independence party (Ukip), with polls suggesting that the government has a mountain to climb before a yes vote can be guaranteed.

Mr Blair hailed the controversial treaty as good for both Britain and Europe, and said he had "no hesitation" in recommending acceptance in the poll, expected after the next general election.

"I have no hesitation in commending it to the country as a success and as a major step forward in creating the kind of Europe that the British people want: a flexible Europe in which Britain remains a strong and influential power; a wider, peaceful and free Europe to which we can be proud to belong; and an effective Europe which benefits all our lives," he wrote.

Publication of the white paper came ahead of a set-piece debate in the House of Commons later today in which the Conservatives will restate their opposition to the constitution.

Mr Blair said that the enlargement of Europe to include 10 new members from eastern Europe and the Mediterranean earlier this year made it a "sensible moment" to redraft the complicated set of treaties and agreements governing the union's operations as a single, understandable and up-to-date document.

He added: "The treaty ... makes it plain that the EU is not and will not be a federal superstate. Rather, it establishes clearly where the EU can and cannot act and confirms that the EU is a union of nation states, which has only the powers given to it by these states."

Suggestions that the constitution would mean Britain losing its seat on the UN security council, forfeiting control of its oil or its army or being forced to join the euro were "myths", said the PM.

Britain would retain its veto on "the most important decisions", including issues of tax, social security, foreign and defence policy and the UK's annual rebate, as well as its opt-out on measures affecting asylum and immigration.

In today's white paper, Mr Straw wrote that Britain had achieved "all its key negotiating objectives" in the inter-governmental conference which produced the treaty text. Meanwhile the Conservatives yesterday launched a new offensive against the treaty, saying they were determined to secure a majority No vote in the referendum.

The shadow foreign secretary, Michael Ancram, today said: "I had hoped that with this white paper, we would see the start of an honest and open debate, instead this document is simply an extended piece of New Labour spin, full of claims that do not stack up.

"Tony Blair won't even admit that he used to be against an EU constitution in the first place. The fact is that the constitution will take huge powers away from Britain and give them to Brussels. It forms the basis of a federal European state.

"If we want to keep our own employment laws, our own asylum policy, and our own criminal justice system, we should throw this constitution out."

Echoing the Ukip position, he said the treaty was "a gateway to a country called Europe". Yesterday, at a Westminster press conference, he added that his party might challenge its publication with the Electoral Commission, which has drawn up rules on how the referendum campaign should be fought, if it believed those guidelines had been breached.

A spokesman for the Vote No campaign said: "Straw is losing his grip on reality if he thinks that people will vote yes to this constitution.

"Of the last 32 opinion polls done on the constitution, only one has shown people in favour - and that was carried out by the European commission.

"A majority of voters are against the constitution in every region, every age group, every social group and among the supporters of every political party."

(The Guardian)