Christopher Fraser, Member of Parliament for South West Norfolk, is backing a Parliamentary motion that calls for a Referendum before the United Kingdom ratifies any new European Treaty that would further centralise the EU’s powers across Europe.
His action comes as a response to a pledge by Germany, which currently holds the EU Presidency, to revive negotiations on a European Constitution and concerns that Portugal, Slovenia and France, the next three countries to hold the Presidency, will carry forward efforts to enact the Constitution.
Mr Fraser said: “I am alarmed by Germany’s move. There is a growing feeling in my constituency and across the UK, shared across many countries in Europe, that the EU has already eroded the power of national governments to determine what is in their nation’s best interests. In referendums held in 2005, the people of France and Holland resoundingly rejected an EU constitution. I believe we should be repatriating powers from Europe, not surrendering decision-making over the areas where Parliament retains jurisdiction.
“An EU Constitution would give the European Union the hallmarks of a sovereign state. Any attempt to move in that direction in whole or in part without a Referendum would be undemocratic and entirely unacceptable. The Prime Minister must make it clear that the UK will not support any changes to the operation of the EU, or the declaration on values and ambitions which has been suggested, without an unequivocal statement that an EU Constitution is not, and will not be, on the agenda.”
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Notes to Editors: EDM 787 reads:
That this House, noting that the German Presidency is promoting negotiations for a new European Treaty based on the substance of the rejected European Constitutional Treaty, repudiates the principle and content of that Constitutional Treaty; insists that none of that Treaty shall be enacted in the United Kingdom; and insists that, before ratification, any new European Treaty and the interconnected existing European Treaties shall be put to a Referendum, authorised by Parliament, of the electorate of the United Kingdom. |