Referenda - the elephant at the Constitutional Crisis

At this time of year six years ago the detail of the proposed EU Constitution was becoming clear.

On this very day in 2003 on Ironies I made a posting which contained the crux of the insuperable problem (put in bold here but not in the original) between the UK and the EU, I quote it in full below as it is more than relevant today, surprisingly the original links still work. I will be discussing this old posting later today in the light of our present crisis and the ridiculous and irrelevant interventions of David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Alan Johnson yesterday. The posting on Ironies, linked here, was as follows:

Monday, May 26, 2003

Referenda

After two weeks of travel in France where internet connections are as rare as warm beer, I return to find the Daily Telegraph Leader 'Fight for a Referendum' today throwing its weight behind the call for a referendum on the EU Convention outcome. Steven Den Beste USS Clueless today also gives an outsider's view of Britain's wierd constituitional arrangements and the momentous decisions the country now faces.

The link provided to the John Major cover article in this week's The Spectator adds weight to the unanswerable case for the people to be involved in any decision. Major was interviewed on the same subject on Radio Four and for once sounded absolutely firm on a point of principal involving the EU, even sounding close to convincing when trying to justify his own avoidance of a referendum on the Maastricht Treaty.

While in the small Charante village of Aubeterre last week, I sat beneath a staute and plaque to the French founder of the League of Human Rights and discussed this fallacy with its attendant impossible contradictions that the system of English Common Law Rights so cleverly avoids.

Can the attendant disadvantages highlighted in today's USS Clueless Blog now mean that the British should join the rest of the world in the pretence that some can legislate the impossible and enforce the unachievable? Maybe so, but let it be a British Constitution with the powers vested solely in the Westminster Parliament, while devolved as only that body may deem fit!

posted by Martin at 5/26/2003 09:18:00 AM