The European Constitution

The bulk of this article is taken from Archbishop Cranmer which I found when I was searching the web for articles about European Constitution related articles.

"The facts are clear:

In 2005, the Government promised a referendum on the 'Constitution for Europe'.

While this has morphed into a 'treaty', M. Giscard d'Estaing says that more than 90 per cent of the Constitution remains, and Jean-Luc Dehaene says that 95 per cent remains.

The President of the Commission refers to the EU as 'the world's first non-imperial empire'.

Labour's Trade Minister, Lord (Digby) Jones says: 'This is a con to call this a treaty; it's not. It's exactly the same: it's a constitution.'

Both friends and foes of the new 'treaty' deem it to be identical to the previous 'constitution'. Danish MEP Jens-Peter Bonde says that there is not 'one single difference in legal obligations'.

But the Prime Minister insists that 'The constitutional concept, which consisted in repealing all existing Treaties and replacing them by a single text called "Constitution", is abandoned.'

It is as though the constant recital of the mantra brings it into being; the words make truth. Democracy has been supplanted by glossocracy: government of the people, by the people and for the people, has been replaced by government of the word, by the word and for the word. And the more meaningless the word, the more useful it is for glossocrats. This is the impulse behind political correctness, which twists and obscures everyday language and terms, and enforces new words by changing the meaning of old ones. This totalitarian pursuit has been most effective in tearing down the
religious fabric of society and eliminating the Church and Judeo-Christian thinking as ideological competitors. Thus words become weapons of crowd control, and those who fail to use the acceptable terms or to comply with the new definitions are heretics.

'Europe' is one such word. It is now synonymous with enlightenment, progress, optimism, truth, future, and salvation. To be 'Euro-sceptic' is to incarnate the antitheses of backward-looking medievalism, lies, and damnation. Yet the ordinary voting public somehow senses that this is not the case. There is something in the psyche of the British people which knows, deep down, that 'Europe' is antithetical to 'British'.

If Mr Cameron were to make a manifesto pledge to a retrospective referendum on this 'treaty', there would, for the first time in a generation, be 'clear blue water' between the parties on Europe. The ordinary voting public would comprehend this, and be eternally grateful for the choice. Such a pledge would not only rally his own troops, it would bring back the errant UKIP vote by the thousand.

Trust the voting public, Mr Cameron: let the people decide."