Difficult to debate without the text in context

I blogged in July about how:

"David Miliband has said: 'The constitutional concept, which consisted in repealing all existing treaties and replacing them by a single text called "Constitution", is abandoned'. There is, therefore, no need for a referendum."

"Valéry Giscard d'Estaing here, the god-father, architect, and creator of the Constitution for Europe, has declared: 'This text is, in fact, a rerun of a great part of the substance of the constitutional treaty... the public is being led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly'. He said that differences between the new treaty and the constitution 'are few and far between and more cosmetic than real'. In comparing his role here in drawing up the blueprint to that of America's founding fathers, he said the term 'constitution' had been dropped simply to 'make a few people happy'."

"Jean-Luc Dehaene MEP, the former prime minister of Belgium, noted that '95 per cent of the constitution was back'. He said it was no surprise that voters were confused: 'We drafted a treaty with a constitutional content and form. Now we have a treaty with a constitutional content without the form. But both are a treaty and neither is a constitution. The ambiguous use of words has led to misunderstandings'."

"Giuliano Amato here, the former Prime Minister of Italy, has said that the revived EU constitution has deliberately been made 'unreadable' to help fend off demands for a referendum: 'EU leaders had decided that the document to be drawn up by an intergovernmental conference should be unreadable... If this
is the kind of document that the IGC will produce, any prime minister - imagine the UK prime minister - can go to the Commons and say "Look, you see, it's absolutely unreadable, it's the typical Brussels treaty, nothing new, no need for a referendum"... Should you succeed in understanding it there might be some reason for a referendum, because it would mean that there is something new.''"


I read yesterday that "In an almost unprecedented display of contempt for Parliament, the Government will tomorrow ask MPs to approve the EU treaty even before they have a proper chance to examine what it is they are voting on." Christopher Booker continues "Despite Gordon Brown's promise that the Commons would be allowed three months to discuss the treaty in detail - as a sop for breaking his promise that it would be put to a referendum - the only text MPs will be allowed to see is a mass of disjointed amendments to previous EU treaties which, out of context, are virtually meaningless."


Anyone would think that Gordon Brown's Labour government didn't want MPs to know what they were voting for or against. "Only after this week's crucial Second Reading will MPs be able to read the first "consolidated" text of the treaty, putting all those amendments in context, in such a way that their significance can be understood." Of course this text isn't being provided by Gordon's gang, it is being produced by "a small private business organisation, the British Management Data Foundation (BMDF), run from the Cotswolds by Brigadier Anthony Cowgill and his son Andrew, and funded by some of Britain's leading blue-chip companies."


If any MP wants to see the Treaty and the Constitution compared then he can look at Open Europe's document. Apparently it is being recommended by the EU "For those who are interested in getting an English consolidated, comparative version with track changes"...



The way the EU Treaty is being pushed through the House of Commons is a disgrace but it will happen because the BBC (and much of the other MSM) decided some time ago that the EU Constitution/Treaty was too complicated to explain to the general public and anyway the EU must be good after all Tuscany is in the EU and we all like holidaying there in the summer - mmm Chianti, jolly good stuff.