The public want a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty

David C

These numbers seem to have moderated since the previous polls. I suggest that many people (because of 'the silence of the Beeb') believe that the legislation has already been passed.

A ComRes poll?
Hmm.

Perceptive Perry

Peter – this will not happen and the public are wasting their time hoping it will.

The Supreme and Beloved Commissar, together with Mz. Prudence of Noo-Lying-Bores know of only three strategies. They are :

(a) Tax
(b) Control
(c) Squander

Each of these three have been integral to every action so far by the unstinting pair, and there is not the slightest reason to expect any change now.

The consequence and outcome are therefore easy to test and predict. LOOK where the greatest opportunity lies to Tax, Control, and Squander.

In contrast to the imposition of Congestion Charge in Manchester, there is a net loss of opportunity to tax, control, and squander were Lisbon and the EU gravy train to be challenged. End, therefore, of question.

So easy! So simple! So predictable!

Next thread please.

Denis Cooper

http://euobserver.com/9/26299/?rk=1

"French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner has warned Ireland about the consequences of voting "No" in Thursday's referendum, saying the Irish would be the "first victim" if they reject the EU treaty. Speaking on France's RTL radio, Mr Kouchner said that a "No" vote would be met by "gigantic incomprehension" in the rest of Europe ... "

"... the Irish would be the "first victim" if they reject the EU treaty".

That's nice. I thought the EU believed in "democracy", "free and fair elections", etc.

So what do our main opposition leaders - Cameron, Hague, Francois et al - think about these disgraceful attempts to bully the Irish into voting "Yes"?

Fine by them, because behind their show of fierce resistance they really want the Lisbon Treaty to go through?

When Hague says "We will not let it rest there", does he actually mean "We'll be mightily relieved if the Irish vote "Yes", so that the Treaty can be a fait accompli by the time we get into office"?

Because, as Cameron says, it's "almost impossible" to hold a retrospective referendum on any EU treaty once it has come into force - oh, apart from that one we had in 1975, of course, two and half years after the Treaty of Accession had come into force.

Max

Any treaty giving away British sovereignty without the direct approval of the majority of the British people is invalid.

David C

Max:
Absolutely correct.

But nobody has told the British people.

David Boothroyd

I would still be interested in knowing if there has ever been an opinion poll asking the British public 'Do you want a referendum on ...' which failed to produce a majority demanding a referendum - no matter what the subject was.

If there is, then I have not heard of it. The public will always demand a referendum on a subject because to do so is to say that they should decide it rather than Parliament. This consideration renders useless all polls asking whether people want a referendum.

cuffleyburgers

Dear Boothroyd

You are surely correct (in a narrow way) but fail to make the connection to the big picture which is that the public totally mistrust the elected politicians to take any important decision for them.

Since by extension this is the biggest decision possible (as it concerns the most fundamental issue there is, ie who is in charge) the level of mistrust has reached quite epic proportions.

To deny the people their say because it is more convenient not to, because of the pension arrangements of a couple of thousand eurocrats, is scurrilous, squalid, disgraceful, treacherous.

It is not only wrong, it is also a mistake, since the tensions created by this massive act of betrayal will not go away and will eventually lead to the whole house of cards collapsing with the risk of all the unpleasant consequences it was originally conceived to prevent.

Denis Cooper

The Swiss don't have this problem: a referendum on any issue is not in the gift of the corrupt political establishment, but can instead be commanded by the people if enough of them feel strongly about it, and they make the effort to raise a formal requisition for a referendum.

That is the only reason why Switzerland has not yet been bounced into the EU, in the way that we were bounced in by that liar and traitor Edward Heath.

Just to refresh memories, the Conservative manifesto for the 1970 general election unequivocally stated:

http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/man/con70.htm

"Our sole commitment is to negotiate; no more, no less. As the negotiations proceed we will report regularly through Parliament to the country."

Not, we will negotiate, and then we will ram a Bill to ratify an Accession Treaty through Parliament using a majority given to us on the basis that we would only negotiate, "no more, no less".

The Swiss system is called "direct democracy", but I don't suppose that David Boothroyd really understands the second of those words.

David Lindsay

You're still at it, then?

This was only ever Cameron's diversion from the fact that (like every Tory Leader since the War) he would have signed this Treaty without protest if he had been in office at the time.

By campaigning for a referendum that he knew was never going to happen, he was able to present himself as somehow a Eurosceptic. But he has never said that he would camapign for a No vote. Nor, as he knows perfectly well, will he ever have to.

Mike Tranter

What's the betting that Flash Gordon (Brown), having signed up to the Lisbon rehash of the ~EU constitution will find a cushy little bolt hole in Brussels for the rest of his political life? He needs some reward for denying that the treaty is effectively the same as the constitution, despite comments from so many European politicians. Brown is a liar.

Herbert Thornton

Most British people want to stay separate from Europe. Virtually only one Party has that as one of it's main policy planks. Yet the British don't vote for them.

Are the British just going to wait until things have got to a state paralleling that when the British living in North America took matters into their own hands, beginning with the Boston Tea Party?

messenger

Hi all,

The EU is a stepping stone to a one world govt.

www.trueworldhistory.info

www.infowars.com

www.prisonplanet.com