Anthony Butcher

From the official website:

The commitment by shadow foreign secretary William Hague at the Tory party conference to hold binding referenda on not only the EU Reform (Constitutional) Treaty but also on any future significant transfers of power to Brussels has been dismissed by UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage MEP.

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Anthony Butcher

Full text:

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Millennium3

Needs a lawyer.

If Farage is right then the only protection available seems to be to leave. Mind you the Hague speech does take a considerable amount of wind from NF's sails - so he might not be being entirely honest!

Millennium3

Just watched c4 news - not a mention of Hague's referendum promises - Brown had snatched the headlines with his trip to Iraq and promises of troop withdrawals - Hague was asked to comment on these, but was not questioned on the EU.

C_steam

looks like nitpicking to me. Far better to have welcomed hagues statement and helped ram it down Browns throat. UKIP have no chance in any up coming election, so best stop playing for party political points and instead get behind anything remotely anti-EU!

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Raymond Finch

NO!!!!

Can you really trust the party that first applied to join?
The ones that brought us in?
The ones that forced us in to the ERM?
The ones thast signed Maastricht?

Never trust the ********.
Fight them at every turn.

Britannist

A UKIP friend of mine told me over the telephone yesterday (after William Hague's speech to the Conservative Conference in which he called for amendments on the European Communities Act 1972 enabling referendums to be triggered on any future power transfers to the EU) "The Conservatives always go eurosceptic when they think a General Election is near - it won't last long."

Britannist

There's more on this at:

Conservatives will amend 1972 European Communities Act Hague tells Tory Conference

Britannist

We have to leave the EU. And then move towards a referendum system in this country which would provide further obstacles to europhiles trying to merge this country into the EU Superstate now under construction in our post-EU future.

Phil Sheldon

Well said Brittanist.

I was not sure what Article 308 says so I've taken the liberty of posting it. Apologies if it's been posted before. I find the scope of this Article quite horrendous and think it should be more widely publicised, and NF is quite correct in his assessment.

The British Government is conspiring with the EU to force through further integration using Article 308 of Britain’s membership of the European Union.

This article reads:
"If action by the Community should prove necessary to attain, in the course of the operation of the common market, one of the objectives of the Community, and this Treaty has not provided the necessary powers, the Council shall, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission and after consulting the European Parliament, take the appropriate measures."

This means that the EU can take extra powers in order to help the common market.

However, the European Court of Justice’s interpretation of this article allows for greater centralisation than what is permitted under our treaty obligations. The ECJ has decided that Article 308 can be used in matters that do not relate in any way to the common market. This shows that the argument that there is a limit to EU power is merely pretence. The Government has recently announced that they support the EU’s loose interpretation of the meaning of Article 308.

The European Union is even using the EU Constitution to back-up its arguments. Here they argue that Article 308 should not be considered as just a measure to help the operation of the common market because the EU Constitution has a similar clause that does not mention the common market. Choosing to interpret the meaning of Article 308 as it is set out in the Constitution, which incidentally has not been ratified, allows them to feel free to take more powers in any area they see fit.

The Bruges Group

Suddenly, William Hague is an arch Euro-sceptic. On 7th June 2006 he said:

But as someone who wants the European Union to succeed I passionately hope it eventually will be.
Open Europe - independent think tank calling for radical reform of the EU

Political opportunism disguised as patriotism. It stinks.