Peter Hoskin

From the archives: Cut off in Brussels

Let’s end the working week how it began: with talk of a European referendum. The talk, in this case, is provided by Daniel Hannan, who wrote an article for us in 2008 about his efforts to promote a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty from within the European Parliament. Here it is, our latest excavation from the Spectator archives:

For MEPs, public opinion is merely an inconvenience, Daniel Hannan, The Spectator, 22 November 2008


I’ve just done the most pointless thing an MEP can do: I’ve delivered a speech to the European Parliament. Actually, ‘speech’ is rather a grand word for my little soliloquy which, under the rules, had to be squeezed into 60 seconds. In general, only party leaders get more than two minutes, which means that no one has time to develop an argument or respond to other speakers. What Euro MPs call ‘debates’ are really exercises in speed-reading press releases.

So why did I bother? Partly because I wanted to remind my Euro-integrationist colleagues that theirs was not the only point of view. The subject under discussion was the restitution of the EU’s national symbols: its public holiday, anthem, flag and motto. The removal of these emblems had been the sole change made when the European constitution was resurrected as the Lisbon Treaty. Now, MEPs were voting to put them back in and, indeed, to give them greater exposure than ever. The EU’s ‘national anthem’, Beethoven’s ninth symphony, will henceforth be played whenever the European Parliament meets in solemn session, with MEPs being expected to stand to attention. (Not me: I’ll be writhing around like Alex in A Clockwork Orange screaming: ‘It’s a sin! It’s a sin using Ludwig Van like that!’) Someone, I felt, ought to remind the federalist majority that these trappings of statehood had been rejected in referendums.

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