| 摘要 | The British Government tried to deceive and betray the British people. It was prevented from doing so by the courage and resilience of the Polish Government and the Polish people. That might be a severe judgment of the appeasing Chamberlain Government in 1939; it is a fair judgment of the Blair Government in 2003.
But for the Poles, Britain might have been signed up yesterday to a European constitution that destroyed the basis of our law, liberty and democracy, by transferring constitutional powers to unelected bureaucrats, foreign politicians and a foreign court.
Under our present constitution, written and unwritten, Britain has evolved over centuries as a liberal democracy; the draft European constitution was neither liberal nor democratic. It would have given disproportionate powers to the Brussels bureaucracy and the Franco-German alliance. The European Court of Justice would have become a supreme court to interpret the constitution and the charter of rights. It would have destroyed the democracy of Europe.
During the two years of drafting and preparation for the Brussels summit, our Government consistently lied about the character of the constitution and refused to have a referendum on what might emerge. Ministers, including Tony Blair, Jack Straw and Peter Hain, repeatedly gave assurances that the draft constitution would not fundamentally alter the relationship between Britain and Europe. That was wholly untrue.
The reality of the convention process has been well described by Gisela Stuart, the Labour MP for Edgbaston, which was, ironically, Neville Chamberlain’s old constituency. She was born and brought up in Bavaria; she is a Europhile, a loyal party member and a member of the Convention on the Future of Europe.
Yet she wrote in a Fabian pamphlet, which everyone should read with care, that from her experience of the convention “it is clear that the real reason for the constitution–and its main impact–is the political deepening of the Union …the convention brought together a self-selected group of the European political elite, many of whom have their eyes on a career at the European level, which is dependant on more and more integration, and who see national governments and national parliaments as an obstacle … none of the existing policies were questioned.”
That was the nature of the convention. The draft constitution itself was anti-democratic; it would have removed more than 30 national vetoes, even if vetoes on tax, defence and foreign affairs had been preserved; it would have transferred ultimate legal sovereignty and very extensive legal powers from the elected parliaments to bureaucratic European institutions. All European laws, including the European Charter of Rights, would have had primacy over national law.
The constitution would have created two European presidents, a foreign minister and a public prosecutor. It would have created a European state as a legal entity.
It would have replaced independent democracies with the European bureaucracy.
At the summit, some scraps of democratic freedom might have been saved for the time being, but this constitution would have been the big transfer of the power of government from elected parliaments to Brussels. It would no longer be possible to remove the real government of Britain at a general election because, in most important matters, the Westminster Parliament would no longer have governed Britain. Votes in Britain could not change the will of Brussels.
These anxieties have been described as “nonsense” by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary. Yet they can be justified, clause by clause, in the draft text at the Brussels summit. This had many ambiguities, but they would have been resolved by the European Court, which has a strong bias towards federal power. Ambiguity is a weapon of choice for bureaucrats and federalists. It can create pre-programmed loopholes for extending their power.
The issue on which the Poles stood firm goes to the heart of the European system.
Is Europe a single state, in which case votes in the Council of Ministers ought to be distributed in proportion to population, or is it an alliance of sovereign states in which case nations should have equal votes?
At the Nice summit, the latter view was in favour, and gave Poland 27 votes compared with Germany’s 29. In the convention a proposal using the population test was adopted, giving Germany about twice as many votes as Poland. Of the many things wrong with the draft, this proved to be the break point.
Neither way is undemocratic. The Nice system, or a variant of it, is used in the United States Senate and in the General Assembly of the United Nations. It is designed to protect the independence of smaller states against bullying by the big powers. Poland has protected her independence, helping thereby to protect ours.
There is a lot of history in this, Polish and German. Poland was divided by Prussia, Austria and Russia from the 18th century to the end of the First World War. Poland was again divided between Hitler and Stalin in 1939, with the agreement of the United States and United Kingdom at Yalta. The Poles eventually freed themselves, but they do not trust anyone else to protect their independence, least of all the Germans.
For the moment the threat has passed. The rejection of this grotesque constitution has ruined the schemes of the Eurocrats. It will not be easy to revive the corpse of the convention. One can put the episode down in European history as a disgraceful failure.
However, bureaucrats never give up; we need a reliable stake to put through Dracula’s heart. The only sure stake is commitment to a UK referendum on any future European constitution.
Next time, we cannot leave it to the Poles; we must decide for ourselves. |
