Not The European Union Referendum
WHAT the European Union means in a debate:
The entire way in which we discuss this issue in Britain means playing an elaborate game. For the Government the task has been to ensure that whatever was going to be agreed could be characterised as being insignificant enough in constitutional terms to make a referendum (which it would probably lose) seem pointless. But first it had to create the impression that there was some threat in the first place for it successfully to defeat. For the Phobes the job – as ever – is to suggest that there are changes so fundamental in nature that nothing but a referendum (which they will win) can possibly do justice to their gravity. As a fall-back the anti-Europeans can deploy the Labour promise to hold a plebiscite on the defeated constitution, providing they can only convince us that the new agreement is the same as the old one.
Posted: 26th, June 2007 | In: Reviews Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
