Friday 7 September 2007

Gordon Brown ate my referendum!


Trying to give our sham of a Parliament the benefit of the doubt, for the first time I have been contacting my local (Labour) MP, to discover what line she'll be taking over the issue of a referendum on the new EU treaty. As I have reminded her, the referendum was promised in the 2005 manifesto. So far and three emails later, I have had a reply from her office boy, but nothing from her good self.

Still, it won't be going away any time soon. A cross-party group has formed to push for the referendum that all three majors endorsed at the time of the last election. However, I don't see either of the opposition party leadership making much of the issue, beyond a little grandstanding.

There are those that pretend that all similarities between this treaty and the supposedly defunct “constitution” are neither here nor there, – to which I reply HOW STUPID DO YOU THINK WE ARE? Elsewhere in Europe, where they are not so terrified of admitting the obvious, the politicians and imperial commissioners affirm that the treaty is to all intents and purposes the same document.

One of the favourite justifications for not holding the referendum is the one about our system being a representational democracy. In fact the only reason they have against this referendum is that the people are likely to reject what our parasitical rulers want to foist upon us. Thus the system is one of unrepresentational democracy.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Id be up for a referendum because I think both sides should be properly put forward and it is important to understand where we are at. Too many lies are circulated, mostly by the anti's. I hope it would mean a halt rather than a reversal. I am not and have never been in favour of losing our right to self determination - but i think most treaties and orgs we sign up to share a part in that. And frankly the world is sinking into a homogenous mass of capitalism anyway. Of course in saying that i would be shouted down as some kind of marxist! But i think there has to be a limit to all forms of political movement. Selling off all we own in the name of free trade is no less dangerous than throwing our cap in with the euros.

I like my freedom to go and work where i want and i was always happy my parents could finally do what they wanted after slogging away all those years. I worry people will stop that if we pull out of the EU and i think Europe would be justified in doing this. Plus i like the fact that we share people resources with Europe. I do not believe the nonsense that dumbing down is being done on purpose. Most Europeans i know here are hard right wing not left so that makes no sense. And im cynical about the anti EU mob anyway (yourself excluded as you are the only man i know who recognises the high street sell out etc) because i think they are ambitious power seekers themselves. I dont really trust anyone, oh well.

Trooper Thompson said...

"I dont really trust anyone"

wise words.

"i think most treaties and orgs we sign up to share a part in [losing our right to self determination]"

very true, and no such agreements should be above the scrutiny of the people, or considered inevitable. The EU is only part of a drawing-together of political and economic power across the world. The "homogenous mass of capitalism," or rather global corporatism I would say, serves those at the top of the pyramid. In the rarefied atmosphere thereupon, our masters frolic, their garments - be they of Chinese communism or American big business - are shed. Underneath - naked power!

"I like my freedom to go and work where i want"

I understand and share this, but remember, such a freedom is not a product of the modern era, but the norm throughout history. Large-scale population flight to and from specific places may have been treated differently, but individual comings and goings were not really controlled. Examining the life of someone like Isambard Kingdom Brunel illustrates this.