eurealist.co.uk

Dr Liam Fox MP Shadow Foreign Secretary writes in the Times the constitution is effectively dead. It is not a setback, but a chance to create a new direction. But warns that we should beware of cherry pickers, and chooses three areas which he says will be on the cherry picking agenda.
Arguing that the seemingly never-ending transfer of power from nation states to

Brussels must stop, and where possible be reversed. Politicians must recognise that the constitution was a step too far on several fronts, most notably the attempts to give the EU the trappings of statehood, the reduction in our ability to use the veto and the proposed charter of fundamental rights. We must be vigilant that these proposals do not reappear by the back door.

What was actually being proposed in the constitution represented the transfer of yet more powers from the people to Brussels. The British people would have been obliged to give up of the veto in no fewer than 63 individual areas, including such key issues as criminal law and justice. This is no tidying-up exercise. It is, rather, a massive extension of qualified majority voting. The British people must be given a say if such a change is mooted.

The dangers posed by the constitution’s aspiration to build on the European Convention on Human Rights are no less threatening. The proposed charter of fundamental rights would be the bedrock of constitutional law in the EU. Judges in Brussels would accrue immense power over the interpretation of legislation and therefore over the people of this country. Since power would thus be transferred away from the British people, again it is vital that the people have their say.

At a more symbolic (but no less significant) level, we cannot simply sit back and allow the EU to acquire the trappings of statehood. The constitution would create a single diplomatic service and a “president”. Further, the EU would be allowed to sign treaties as a single legal entity — an act universally recognised as one of the definitions of a “nation state”. It should be unthinkable for such a change to be countenanced without the explicit approval of the British people. Only a referendum would ensure that.

For all the current talk of crisis in Europe, this is really only a crisis for the European political elite, whose 60-year vision has come to an end. For the people of Europe, it is an opportunity to refashion the EU into an institution whose priority is to generate jobs and prosperity, something which the present European project is hopelessly ill-suited to do.

The debate is no longer about what can be saved from the blueprints of the past, but what the blueprint for the future of Europe should be.
The problem is that the ECJ is already using the charter of fundamental rights to inform its decisions even though it has no legal basis they hope that by so doing they will create such a basis in community law, and who is to stop them doing so certainly not Tony Blair and his EU cohorts they have signed up to the whole package.

Dr Fox argues the constitution would create a single diplomatic service, however already that is being created, the EU foreign Secretary designate called last week for the building of the service to continue because he said despite the French and Dutch votes that at some that service would come into being. Also they have already given up the veto on immigration and there is no mechanism to stop the Prime Minister agreeing to give up the veto in any other areas he decides.

Dr Fox should brush up on his remit, if he thinks the EU Elites including Blair are going to meekly scrap their prized proposals just because a few million people said they did not want the constitution. Does he not realise that these are the same elites who belive that the people like children, do not know what is best for them, and must be gently guided into the Promised Land by our revered leaders.