Memorandum by The Freedom Association
(TFA)
We are a long-established membership organisation
which campaigns on issues of personal freedom. Our submission
is in two sections: General objections to the Lisbon Treaty; and
specific problems in the area of Law and Institutions.
GENERAL OBJECTIONS
TO THE
TREATY
The TFA is strongly in favour of trade and voluntary
intergovernmental cooperation in Europe (and beyond Europe), but
is opposed to political union in Europe. We believe that the EU
as currently constituted is inimical to Britain's interests: it
is making us poorer, and less democratic, and less free.
Making us poorer: Figures from the EU
Commission itself show that the costs of regulation in the Single
Market exceed trade benefits by nearly four times (€600 billion
per annum vs €160 billion). That is without accounting for
the very high costs of the CAP, and our direct EU budget contributions.
The EU is a Customs Union. We believe that this is an old-fashioned
and sub-optimal structure unfit for the 21st century. We believe
that a European Free Trade Area would better serve our interests.
We note that the pattern of the EU's external trade agreements
with third countries is biased against the Anglosphere (former
British colonies) in a way that militates against our trade interests,
and against the Commonwealth.
Making us less democratic: The outstanding
example is the Lisbon Treaty itself. The EU institutions have
shown contempt for public opinion, by bringing back essentially
the failed EU Constitution, despite its rejection by referendum
in France and Holland in 2005. More generally, we recall John
Stuart Mill's remark that "Where people lack fellow feeling,
and especially where they read and speak different languages,
the common public opinion necessary for representative government
cannot exist". Democracy requires more than counting votes.
That is merely arithmetic. It requires a people (as Enoch Powell
said) "who share enough in common in terms of history, culture,
language and economic interests that they are prepared to accept
governance at each others' hands". That situation obtains
in the nation state. It clearly does not obtain across the EU.
Making us less free: Our people are bound
by laws to which they did not agree and to which our government
may not have given assent. They are under a system of governance
in which they can no longer dismiss the people who make most of
their laws. Moreover the defence of the realm, secured within
NATO for many decades, is now under threat from the EU's defence
pretensions, which while adding no new resources to our military
nevertheless divide NATO and create confusion in our defence forces
and military planning.
The government's arguments against a referendum
do not bear a moment's examination.
"This is a quite different document".
Frankly, this claim is an insult to our intelligence. Only this
month (October), Valery Giscard d'Estaing, Chairman of the Convention
that drafted the Constitution,again insisted that the Treaty was
essentially the Constitution with cosmetic changes. European leaders
have queued up to claim that the Treaty is 90%, or 96%, or 98%
of the Treaty. We especially note the Open Europe study which
shows that 400 clauses of the Constitution appear relatively unchanged
in the Treaty. But the smoking gun is surely Angela Merkel's letter
(she was then President-in-Office) to Member States in the spring
of 2007 when she proposed "Presentational changes and different
terminology but with the same legal effect"
(my emphasis). This is cynicism and deceit of a high order.
"We have our red lines". But
we had them with the Constitution in 2005. If they did not render
a referendum unnecessary then, neither do they render it unnecessary
now. In any case, as the European Scrutiny Committee has observed,
"The Red Lines leak like sieves". No one in Brussels
expects them to survive challenge in the ECJ, and such challenges
are currently being planned.
"We never had referenda on previous
Treaties". Just because we made mistakes in the past,
that is no reason to repeat them. There is a much greater awareness
now of the extent of EU integration, and much greater public concern.
"We are a parliamentary democracy—we
don't do referenda". This from a government that has
held dozens of referenda, on Scottish and Welsh devolution, on
a Regional Assembly for the North East, on a mayor for Hartlepool.
The government has de facto conceded that significant constitutional
changes require the assent of the people, and this is the most
important change of all. Even if the government had a manifesto
commitment for the treaty, it would be arguable that so great
a constitutional change required separate public assent. But it
has no such commitment. On the contrary, it has an explicit commitment
hold a referendum, and it is a constitutional outrage that it
should now try to talk its way out of that commitment.
"People won't understand it—it's
too complicated". The average voter might be unable to
write an essay on all the policy areas dealt with in a General
Election, but we still accept the people's verdict. That's democracy.
The idea that political decisions are too difficult for the public
to assess is the road to totalitarianism. It also shows a vast
contempt for the voters.
TFA demands a referendum on the renamed Constitution.
OBSERVATIONS SPECIFIC
TO LAW
AND INSTITUTIONS
We oppose qualified majority voting on criminal
Law and policing. These are fundamental national issues, and
it is the first duty of our government to protect the citizen
from arbitrary arrest at the behest of a foreign power. This is
an especially important point since our legal system is so different
from continental systems. We shall end up with a dog's breakfast
of conflicting provisions. Indeed we do not see any advantage
in deciding these matters "at the European level". We
also oppose the European Arrest Warrant, which allows British
people to be taken abroad, without due process, to inferior legal
régimes where traditional British liberties are not respected,
and even in certain cases to be tried for behaviour which would
not be a crime in our country.
"The emergency brake" is merely
a rhetorical device to enable our government to suggest we have
control over these matters, while making it easy for them to acquiesce
privately to EU proposals.
TFA absolutely opposes the development of Eurojust
and a European Public prosecutor. It is a transparent attempt
to diminish national police and justice systems and to create
a Europe-wide system based on the Napoleonic model. It must be
stopped.
We do not see any need for family law measures
at the EU level, and we absolutely condemn the passerelle
clause in any EU context. We cannot trust our government to
defend Britain's interests even when faced with a Treaty and a
ratification procedure. How can we trust them with decisions made
in private behind closed doors?
We are opposed to any British engagement with
Schengen, which would undermine our ability to run an effective
immigration policy.
We oppose any enhanced role for the ECJ in
FSJ issues: indeed we need to reduce its role.
We oppose any application of the Charter
of Fundamental Rights in the UK. It would promote judicial
activism. It would transfer law-making powers from politicians
(whom at least we can sack) to judges whom we cannot sack.
On the general passerelle provisions,
see above comments on the passerelle in family law.
31 October 2007
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