Climate-denying Conservative MP Douglas Carswell has tabled a bill demanding a referendum on the 1957 Treaty or Rome - the founding treaty of the European Union
Eurosceptic hardliner Douglas Carswell has tabled a Private Member’s Bill calling for a vote on the 1957 Treaty of Rome.
The climate-denying Conservative has blogged that “it is too late to have a vote on the Lisbon Treaty” – yet apparently not too late to vote on a treaty 52 years older, and taking no account of the 1975 referendum in which the British public voted emphatically, by a two-to-one majority, to remain in the European Community.
The mere mention of his bill threatens to re-open Tory splits over Europe, which David Cameron had hoped to bury with his courageous decision to sideline the sceptics and promise not to hold a referendum on the already ratified Lisbon Treaty.
In full conspiracy theory mode, the Harwich and Clacton MP wrote:
“Naturally, given how government controls Parliament (as opposed to the other way around), my Private Members Bill faces an uphill struggle to become law. But it puts down a marker. It breaks the Westminster taboo. What has been unsaid for too long is now in print on the Order Paper.
“If it is too late to have a vote on the Lisbon Treaty – and I think it is – then we need to have a vote on Rome.”
Following the ongoing internal divisions over climate change, this outbreak of extreme Europhobia is probably the last thing the Tory leader needs.
7 Responses to “Tory backbencher wants vote on 1957 Euro Treaty”
Rory
What’s a climate-denier?
And how is being concerned about the way parliament has been cowed under New Labour a conspiracy theory? Many sensible people hold this view.
Bill Kristol-Balls
Whilst I’m hugely enthusiastic about the raison d’être of this very fine website, I would suggest that you don’t refer to people as ‘climate deniers’.
I’m sure Professor Frink, sorry I meant the Right Honourable Douglas Carswell MP, does not deny the reality of there being a climate, even though reality is well known to have an innate liberal bias (hat-tip S.Colbert).
Shamik Das
Beleive it or not, there are some people out there who do deny the existence of man made climate change.
Anon E Mouse
Shamik – You are absolutely right, more people believe it is NOT man made than think it is in all polls, both here and in the US…
Liz McShane
Typical Tory looking back to some golden bygone era – a bit like Major’s cricket nostalgia. Thank God for what was the EEC, then EC and now EU it was the thing that got the country through the dark days of Thatcherism.