The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

Link: EU Referendum: The death of parliament.

Dr. Richard North expresses how many of us feel today. One doesn’t need to be a Eurosceptic to feel betrayed. One doesn’t even need to oppose the Lisbon Treaty per se. This treaty is the EU Constitutional Treaty by another name. We were promised a referendum before that treaty was adopted. Here is the text from Labour’s 2005 manifesto (not to be found on the Party’s own website, interestingly);

The new Constitutional Treaty ensures the new Europe can work effectively, and that Britain keeps control of key national interests like foreign policy,taxation,social security and defence.The Treaty sets out what the EU can do and what it cannot. It strengthens the voice of national parliaments and governments in EU affairs. It is a good treaty for Britain and for the new Europe.We will put it to the British people in a referendum and campaign whole-heartedly for a ‘Yes’vote to keep Britain a leading nation in Europe.

That promise has been shamelessly broken. Most sadly of all, look at the list of Labour MPs who voted against the party line;

Colin Burgon (Elmet)

Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley)

Frank Cook
    (Stockton North)

Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North)

John Cummings (Easington)

Ian Davidson (Glasgow South West)

David Drew (Stroud)

Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe & Nantwich)

Frank Field (Birkenhead)

Mark Fisher (Stoke-on-Trent Central)

Roger Godsiff (Birmingham Sparkbrook & Small Heath)

Kate Hoey (Vauxhall)

Kelvin Hopkins
    (Luton North)

Lindsay Hoyle (Chorley)

Lynne Jones (Birmingham Selly Oak)

John McDonnell (Hayes & Harlington)

David Marshall
    (Glasgow East)

Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby)

Anne Moffat (East Lothian)

George Mudie (Leeds East)

Denis Murphy (Wansbeck)

Alan Simpson (Nottingham South)

Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)

Graham Stringer (Manchester Blackley)

Gisela Stuart (Birmingham Edgbaston)

David Taylor (Leicestershire North West)

Paul Truswell
    (Pudsey)

Robert Wareing (Liverpool West Derby)

Mike Wood (Batley & Spen)

One would like to applaud them as principled men and women who voted to honour their manifesto pledge. The fact is that they are losers, has-beens or never-weres. In no danger of promotion (and many in danger of losing their seats at the next election) they have risked precisely nothing to do the right thing. Every MP with aspirations has succumbed to the Whips and toed the line.

The same may be said of the Tory and LibDem rebels, with the possibly slightly honourable exception of those three LibDems who gave up the dubious benefit of a frontbench position. Most of all, doubts remain as to whether the Conservative line is a fraud. Absent a firm commitment to call a referendum when elected, we cannot be sure that David Cameron was not just playing a seedy game.

Nothing could better illustrate the horrors of professionalised politics. Members of Parliament should be leading citizens serving the nation – preferably after honourable careers in other fields – and voting their consciences. They should be an independent legislature, setting a framework of law and policy within which the Executive should operate. They should not be whipped curs obeying the leaders of their parties for fear of punishment or the refusal of preferment. Sadly, it is clear that most of them are precisely that. They have shamed themselves and shamed the nation.