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Times Online - Comment

Proposed vote on EU constitution
From Mr Bill Cash, MP for Stone (Conservative)

Sir, Denis MacShane`s assertions (letter, February 28) are unsustainable. The European Court frequently uses EU law to expand EU power, interpreting treaties in furtherance of European unity as Mr Jonathan Morgan (letter, March 3) indicates.

Far from the Government having always accepted that the Charter of Fundamental Rights would have legal force, Mr MacShane`s predecessor as Minister for Europe, Keith Vaz, said that it would be no more legally binding than the Beano.

The European constitution would re-engineer the limited primacy of 1972, which has been extended into the field of European government under successive treaties and now the constitution, which would be implemented into our law by the European Union Bill.

This new primacy under the constitution (which revokes the existing treaties and laws) would override our laws and constitution, creating a new conferred competence. The new treaty includes acquiescence in the case law of the European Court under which it asserts constitutional jurisdiction over the member states, including our Parliament. On March 1, France changed her constitution to accommodate this.

I have tabled 230 amendments to the European Union Bill, including a Supremacy of Parliament clause under which, where Parliament legislates inconsistently with European treaties and laws, including the constitution, our judges would continue to give effect to such legislation, and not accept the supremacy of European constitutional law.

No wonder we need a referendum and a  vote.

Yours faithfully,
BILL CASH,
(Shadow Attorney-General, 2001-03),
House of Commons.
March 4.