The Brits Are Right to Challenge Brussels
By Kevin Karp | May 26, 2008
To the Editor:
When a bureaucratic superstate threatens to undermine the democratic foundations of a country, that country's people ought to voice suspicion. Yet the author of "Brits in Fits" has painted this attitude as unjustly arrogant, suitable only for elaboration in "tabloid" publications. Having just returned from a leave-term internship at the House of Commons in London, I know that many people in Britain are concerned about transferring even more of their government's authority to the European Union. What is particularly appalling is that the article mentions the Lisbon Treaty only in passing, while completely ignoring the implications of its ratification. One wonders if the author of the referenced article refrained from using reputable newspapers out of fear that the opinions contained in them would expose the EU as seriously flawed. In a recent article for The Daily Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard comments on the real danger that the Lisbon Treaty poses to Britain:
Euro-judges will decide how and when to enforce the Charter of Fundamental Rights, now made legally-binding. Article 52 allows the "limitation" of all liberties in the "general interest" of the Union. This is the old Reich clause. Such justifications for state coercion have been illegal in Europe for 60 years. Now they return, by the back door.The problems with a clause that provides for the curtailing of freedoms in the name of collective interest ought to be particularly apparent to Europeans. After all, as Evans-Pritchard alludes to in his piece, it was a similar provision in the Weimar Constitution that allowed Hitler to cause a whole slew of problems for Europe in the 1930s and 40s. The article in your publication euphemistically calls the Lisbon Treaty "a treaty which established the EU as an official government entity," instead of calling into question the legality of giving that entity potentially dictatorial power.
But not only is the Lisbon Treaty dangerous for British government, it has also been foisted on the British people and the whole of the EU citizenry without their democratic consent. In 2005, French and Dutch voters overwhelmingly rejected the EU Constitution, but it has since morphed into the Lisbon Treaty. The sole reason that this Constitution redux is moving toward full ratification is plain: after having been embarrassed by the power of democracy in France and Holland, the leaders of the EU member states decided almost unanimously to deny their people the right to referendums on the Treaty (Ireland is alone in requiring a referendum). Among those complicit in this offense is Gordon Brown, whom the author of "Brits in Fits" grossly misrepresents as strongly opposed to the EU. It is Prime Minister Brown, after all, who has refused to allow the people of his country to vote on the Treaty even though he knows most of them oppose it. Meanwhile, Members of Parliament are quickly pushing through a Bill to commit Britain to ratification. Understandably, the British voters feel left out of the picture. As one of the postcards sent to me by an MP's constituent read, "Where's OUR Referendum?" Gordon Brown's supposed "snub" of the EU mentioned in the article is merely a terrible attempt to mask the growing preponderance of the Brussels bureaucracy.
Even those in Britain who support an empowered EU realize that theirs is a tricky situation. The conditions for calling referenda, just as the component parts of the British constitution, have never been formalized. It would seem only sensible that Gordon Brown work out these legal issues beforehand instead of avoiding a referendum at a time when the British are clamoring for one. In a May 17th article for The Guardian, Martin Kettle framed it well: "Perhaps we should have a referendum on whether we should have referendums." But the Prime Minister has rejected that option as well. In such a situation, where European leaders who fashion themselves über-elites have hunkered down against popular discontent with the EU, who is to blame the British, or the French or the Dutch for that matter, for questioning such a conglomeration of power? True, the EU does provide economic incentives to its member states, but at what cost to state sovereignty? It is wrong to label opposition to the EU as "nationalism," for such a classification ignores a real concern that the Lisbon Treaty will undermine democracy in each of the signatory states. Britain's situation is simply a poignant example of the dilemma facing the EU itself, in which various governments have propped up a centralized bureaucracy without consulting the people. Commentators on these European developments would do well to pay more attention to the beleaguered Brits.
--Kevin Karp