Give us a referendum please!

EU Treaty exposed as cynical fraud

The new European Union Treaty has been designed to “keep the advances” of the old constitution “that we would not have dared present directly”, a senior Brussels figure has admitted.

Hans-Gert Poettering, president of the European Parliament and a close ally of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, made the admission in a letter to Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the architect of the discarded EU Constitution.

Mr Poettering stressed that the new treaty, while complicated, would preserve the constitution by a different, more indirect method.

Gordon Brown was a signatory to that Labour manifesto commitment that promised a referendum on the EU treaty, when exactly does he intend to keep his promise?

“If we are so confident that it is good, we should have the confidence to ask the people.”

Gisela Stuart, Labour MP for Birmingham Edgbaston