Fourth Congress for Democracy
held at Church House, Westminster
on Friday 14 July 2000

SUMMARY OF PROCEEDINGS

Session 1: The Case for an Independent Pound
Chairman: Sir Michael Spicer MP

Sir Michael Spicer MP welcomed participants to the Fourth Congress for Democracy, particularly friends and colleagues from Denmark, Ireland and Sweden. He said that during the course of discussion he expected there would be calls for Congress to widen its brief to include constitutional issues, and he read out the following draft resolution which he hoped Congress would consider in the afternoon session:

"Bearing in mind the five principles agreed to at the First Congress, this Congress notes with concern the continuing transfer of powers from democratic parliaments to unelected agencies in the European Union, calls for democratic rights to be enshrined in a Charter of Democracy, and mandates the Agenda Committee to draw up such a Charter for submission to the Fifth Congress."

He then introduced as first speaker Austin Mitchell MP, Co-Chairman of Congress and Deputy Chairman of the Labour Euro-Safeguards Group (full text of Austin Mitchell's speech)

Austin Mitchell MP
He began by emphasising a truth recognised by those in the room and all over Europe but explicitly denied by many of the British advocates of the Euro: that the Euro was part of the process of building a political union. The intention was to remove Britain's ability to run its own economic affairs. It would be difficult to achieve economic and monetary union, but ultimately decisions would be taken centrally and there would be nothing the people could do.

The single currency was not necessary for the single market. Within a single market individual countries needed to be able to adjust their exchange rates in order to remain competitive. Nor was the single currency necessary to encourage investment in Britain; foreign investors needed a competitive base from which to export to Europe. They also needed the prospect of profit, which could be improved by adjusting the exchange rate. Membership of the Euro would damage Britain because at least half of her trade was with the rest of the world. Britain's trade with other EU members was in deficit, whereas trade with the rest of the world had, until the last two years, been at a surplus.

In his view the real problem was the level of the pound, which was too high. Given the political will it could be brought down and market forces could be allowed to operate, but the process of monetary union would stifle that adjustment process, as had been experienced in the ERM. British interest rates were currently higher than those in Europe and Japan and the Bank of England had been given the power to control interest rates on a remit dealing only with inflation. The effects were to attract speculators and investors, to reduce the cost of imports, thereby squeezing manufacturing industry and causing it to cut costs and jobs.

The Euro was down because it was a flawed concept which did not appeal to foreign investors. He maintained that other EU countries, Germany in particular, wanted to keep the value of the Euro down to run their economies on the basis of a competitive exchange rate. He felt the members of the Euro had effectively undertaken a competitive devaluation against Britain.

The effects of the current situation were high pound, low Euro, growing trade deficit, problems in manufacturing industry which was now having to export without profit to keep market share. It was possible to bring down the value of the pound and to expand industry and get the economy going again but civil servants, trade union leaders and ministers were all arguing that the only way out was to join the Euro. Austin Mitchell argued that Britain could not join the Euro at the current exchange rate as she would be locked in permanently at an uncompetitive rate. The rules stated that counties had to join the Euro at the exchange rate they had maintained relative to other members of the single currency for the previous two years; it might be possible to fudge other issues but not the exchange rate, and the pound was overvalued. The Government should act to bring down the value of the pound.

Those opposed to the Euro needed the country to be economically successful, proving that Britain could manage her economy independently for her own purposes and making their case against the Euro. On the other hand, ministers in favour of the Euro had to knock the performance of their Government and say that the economy would do better if Britain joined the Euro. The way to convince the electorate that there was no case for joining the Euro was to run the British economy successfully outside it: to generate growth, jobs, more public spending and to build a fair society. It was also essential to show that it was the nation state which had made the people rich and had given accountable control over its management.

Sir Michael thanked Austin Mitchell for a brilliant speech and introduced Mike Woodin, Principal Speaker of the Green Party and a member of the Agenda Committee of the Congress for Democracy.  (full text of Mike Woodin's speech)

Cllr Dr Mike Woodin, Principal Speaker, Green Party of England and Wales
He acknowledged that the opposition of the Green Party to the single currency was not well understood; those on the left who occasionally voted Green felt uncomfortable with it and those on the right were surprised by it. The debate on the Euro had been dominated by political platitudes rather than economic analysis, which would present the anti-single currency camp with a challenge in the run-up to the referendum. A simple "Keep the Pound" campaign would appeal to a sizeable minority of nationalist-inclined voters, but it would not capture the votes of the fickle middle ground and it was therefore necessary, in his view, to lift the debate to sound economics.

He argued that the single currency was deeply flawed economically. From the Greens' perceptive this was because of the size and diversity of the area it covered. An Optimal Currency Area was one where the impacts of any economic shocks were not felt too asymmetrically within the area, so that no part of it required demand management. It was argued that labour and capital mobility would help absorb any shocks, and that the government of the currency could always bolster flagging regions with aid and fiscal transfers from wealthier regions. Euroland, particularly if Britain joined, was too big and too diverse to be an Optimal Currency Area due to the large variations in GDP, unemployment and the cultural environment for growth between the richest and poorest areas. Moreover, regional aid and fiscal transfers between EU regions were proportionately far smaller than the equivalent domestic measures within member states and labour mobility within the EU was limited by language and family ties.

By joining the single currency Britain would lose for ever the freedom to set interest rates at levels thought to suit local needs, a freedom needed by any government which wished to tailor its economy to local social, environmental and economic circumstances. The consequences of fitting the diverse area of Euroland into the economic straitjacket of a single interest rate policy administered by an unaccountable European Central Bank would be even worse than losing those freedoms.

He argued that even Britain looked too large to be an Optimal Currency Area and that there was a case for the Government to engage more actively in regional demand management. Regional discrepancies were inevitable in Euroland which, due to the national impotence to rectify them, could, over time, lead to resentment and possible unrest, making the Euro a potential force for European disintegration.

It was claimed by those promoting the single currency that the Convergence Criteria and the Stability Pact minimised the risk of regional disparity, but Mike Woodin felt that their arguments were in large part self-contradictory:

The case for the independent pound was overwhelming, based on the defence of the right of a nation to run its economy to meet the needs it identified. It was a right which he wanted all people to claim for themselves as they knew best the full range of their social, environmental and economic needs and were best placed to know how they should be met.

Dr Martin Holmes, Co-Chairman, Bruges Group
He said that the situation with regard to the Euro was much the same as it had been a year ago: the Government favoured entry in principle but was divided on the timing and the Opposition had ruled it out for the next Parliament, but would not rule it out in principle. During the past year there had been a clear intensification of the process of political union. Firstly, there had been the proposal that the Euroland 11 should be an economic government for Europe; secondly there had been proposals for a European Constitution, backed by a Charter of fifty or so rights; thirdly the Franco-German axis had intensified moves towards a Single Defence Policy.

In these circumstances he believed that the Opposition statement that it wanted to be "in Europe but not run by Europe" was a meaningless piety which had now been overtaken by events. He urged the Opposition to move its position to that of requiring a renegotiation of the relationship with the European Union. Otherwise, he warned, we were in danger of winning the battle to save the pound but losing the war to avoid a federal Europe.

 

Session 2: Getting the Message Across

Chairman: Austin Mitchell MP
Introducing the second session, Austin Mitchell said that communications were absolutely crucial to get the case across and to combat the distortions of the other side. The issue would be decided by the people. He welcomed to the platform Trevor Kavanagh, the Political Editor of the Sun.

Trevor Kavanagh, Political Editor, The Sun
The Sun sold 3.6 million copies a day - one in three of all newspapers produced daily. With ten million readers, it had quite a lot of impact. The Sun’s position on what Tony Blair described as the most important question facing Britain today, but not so important that he wanted his Ministers to discuss it publicly, was vehement opposition to any form of a European federal superstate, a position it had held for more than 20 years.

The Sun received a terrific reaction from its readers; its opinions, leader columns and stories had a real impact. Contrary to popular belief the Sun had a very large proportion of A and B category readers, far more than the Financial Times and the Times put together and was included in the boardroom orders for newspapers in many of the largest companies in the country. Sun journalists were regularly invited to discuss the paper’s policy on the subject of the single currency. The newspaper also had an impact in Westminster and Whitehall, much greater than that of its closest rival, the Daily Mirror, which had no real political clout whatsoever, probably because it had never questioned the political party it supported. The Sun had supported both major parties on and off over its 30-year existence and had argued the case on each occasion for it. The Sun was really an independent newspaper which gave it the ability to punch above its weight as a tabloid, and have an impact on the political scene.

Another important aspect was that its readers followed its line far more than readers of, for example, the Telegraph. The Sun's very loyal and thinking readership took this issue quite seriously. The single currency was a subject which worried readers and whenever they had a poll on the subject of Europe tens of thousands phoned in and almost invariably opposed the idea of a single currency.

Today the Sun was seen by this Government and by the governments of France, Germany and Italy as the biggest single obstacle to Britain ever voting to scrap the pound. The Sun was not alone in its strong views about Europe: the Times, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail and almost all the Sunday newspapers were also strongly opposed. He expressed the view that the media generally, even the Financial Times and the Economist, which had always been in favour of the single currency, frequently came up with strong arguments against everything which was happening in Europe.

He felt that the BBC was ducking its very substantial responsibility on the single currency. In recent times Newsnight, the Today programme and several other supposedly impartial and informative programmes had interviewed solely those who were in favour of the single currency with no voice whatsoever from those with an argument against it.

He saw his job, which was to cover politics generally, as giving the Sun's readers all the ammunition they needed to make their minds up about the single currency. The European Commission had been kind enough to praise the Sun for sticking to the facts, a remarkable tribute. The Sun also tried to give a wider audience to articles which appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Economist etc, who were not only impartial, but knowledgeable on the subject, and where they were seen to be unearthing some of the myths and untruths peddled by Brussels.

Austin Mitchell then introduced Lord Bell of Belgravia, Chairman, Conservative Save the Pound Campaign, member of the Congress Agenda Committee and Chairman of the Congress Committee on the Media (full text of Lord Bell's speech)

Lord Bell of Belgravia
He began by advising the audience to pay no attention to the recent headlines that members of the Cabinet could not agree about a policy on the single currency; they were designed to portray Gordon Brown as defender of the pound and guardian of the five impenetrable economic tests so that he would sound credible when he announced that the five tests had been passed. He was convinced that Gordon Brown wanted to scrap the pound - he had said so in Parliament in October 1997. He recommended that his audience should believe that the Government had made up its mind to scrap the pound.

The only split in the Government was over the PR strategy: Robin Cook, Stephen Byers and Peter Mandelson wanted to tell voters now of their intentions, whereas Gordon Brown and Tony Blair did not want the subject to be raised until after the election.

Stressing the need for members of the Congress for Democracy to adopt a simple message, he quoted the changes in the declared aim of Britain in Europe from "the campaign for Britain to join the single currency" to "to ensure the British people reject the view of the anti-Europeans who would undermine Britain's position in the EU". He warned that the Government would like to present the electorate with a false choice: being "in Europe" and in the Euro, or being out of Europe altogether. It was vital that those campaigning to retain the pound should never give the impression that rejecting the Euro meant rejecting Europe and that the secret agenda of the campaign was to take Britain out of the EU.

He predicted that during the General Election campaign the Conservatives would keep to their promise: if William Hague was Prime Minister Britain would keep the pound. Labour would say that they would offer the electorate the opportunity to choose in a referendum after the election, which was a strong response to the Conservative position. He challenged Tony Blair to hold the referendum before the election, which he knew the Prime Minister would not do.

The campaign against the single currency had to be vigilant and ready to fight. Good work was already being done by the Conservative Keep the Pound Campaign, the Democracy Movement and Business for Sterling. Lord Pearson had introduced a Bill in the House of Lords requiring the Government to investigate and publish alternatives for Britain to Euro membership.

He repeated his belief that it was absolutely essential to have one campaign and one core message - about democracy - as outlined in the original Resolution passed at the first Congress for Democracy.

His advice to Congress was:

Brian Prime, Federation of Small Businesses
He said that he wanted to get across to the media that his members had become rather sick of the constant threat that foreign investors, particularly the Japanese, would pull out of the UK. The members of the Federation employed 1.2 million people and they would like to see small businesses given the same attention. In their view the greatest threat to British manufacturing came from the harmonisation programme and the effects of the employment regulations and they felt that the target should be the policy of harmonisation and not the pound. His members did not want to surrender to Brussels to please the Japanese.

John Townend MP, Treasurer of the Congress
He asked whether the campaign should not emphasise the word "irreversible". If Britain gave up the pound she would lose it forever, whereas if the electorate turned down the Euro a future Government could always join if they wished. He also asked where the campaign would be if the Sun changed its view, as Rupert Murdoch had been known to do in the past.

Replying, Trevor Kavanagh said that he agreed on the need to emphasise the irreversibility of joining the single currency. This was a point the Sun stressed at every opportunity. He saw no possibility of Rupert Murdoch, who had sought out arguments on both sides of the debate before making up his mind, changing his view on the single currency, nor did he see any indication that any of the titles he owned in Britain would change their editorial stance.

In his reply Lord Bell endorsed the view that the issue of the irreversibility of joining the single currency was a strong point, though he had been interested to read recently that Mr Prodi had claimed that the decision could be reversed. He was also convinced that Rupert Murdoch would not change his mind on the single currency.

Robert Halfon, Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for the Conservatives in Harlow
He said that he faced one of the most pro-European and federalist Labour MPs in the country, Bill Rammell, the Chairman of the Labour Group for Europe who, because of his position, had unlimited resources and put out scare stories about high unemployment in Harlow. He asked how, with his limited resources, he should deal with the problem.

Lord Bell advised that it was worth pointing out the source of the funds. Indeed, it was worth pointing out how Britain in Europe was funded and how the money from the European Commission arrived in the European Commission's pockets because it came from taxpayers. That would not dilute the message, which did the damage, not the money. He conceded that it would be very difficult, but suggested he could console himself with two thoughts:

Trevor Kavanagh made the point that campaigners had a very cheap source of information in Europe itself, which produced information at an enormous rate.

Austin Mitchell observed that those opposed to the single currency would have to pay twice for the campaign - they would pay for their campaign but would also have to pay for the campaign on the other side, which was pretty insulting.

Michael Shrimpton, National Committee, CIB, Bruges Group
He praised the Sun for its responsible reporting over many years and agreed with Lord Bell’s point about the need for all those involved in the campaign against the single currency to "sing from the same hymn sheet" in the run-up to the referendum. He urged that the campaign should go on the offensive, fight for imperial weights and measures and swing public opinion behind withdrawal from the EU.

Lord Bell agreed that the campaign should go on the offensive but warned that it should not confuse the public into thinking that the argument about weights and measures would protect the democracy of this country or that the argument was about withdrawing from the European Union. It was imperative that the only argument was about the single currency and the protection of democracy.

Tessa Bramwell, Harris and Sheldon Group
She asked that the Sun should deal with Richard Branson, a hero to young people who were mostly in favour of keeping the pound, because he had come out in favour of the Euro.

Trevor Kavanagh replied that in the fight between Branson and Hanson the Sun had awarded victory to Lord Hanson. However, he felt that the issue should not be decided by businessmen because it was an issue of democracy.

Liz Saul, politics graduate, DJ, freelance journalist
She asked why the Conservative party was only undertaking to keep the pound until after the next Parliament and what its policy would be after that.

Lord Bell said that he was not a policy-maker for the Conservative party and that those speaking for the party were not supposed to answer the ever/never question because it would lose the point of the original argument. However, he thought the pound would be safe with the Conservative party at the next election, during the next period of Government and afterwards.

Trevor Kavanagh endorsed his view. He did not think the average voter was under any illusion about the true view of the Conservative party which was that it was ruled out indefinitely and probably permanently, but to say so would destroy that element of debate in the election campaign.

The Rt Hon Lord Shore of Stepney
He said that he was pretty confident that those in favour of keeping the pound were winning the argument, but that they should think hard how best to combat the stories alleging divisions in the Labour Cabinet, which were giving Gordon Brown a credibility which he did not deserve. He thought the Chancellor was the most ardent Europhile in the Government and saw his immunity from criticism and attack as a danger to the anti-Euro argument. The differences in the Cabinet were between the "sooners" (Robin Cook who would have joined yesterday) and the "laters" (Gordon Brown who would join the day after the General Election). This gave the BBC the opportunity to report the debate as being one over timing, and claim impartiality without reporting the debate between those who did not want to give up the pound and those who were conspiring to do so.

Concluding the discussion on Communications, Trevor Kavanagh acknowledged that, having spoken to Gordon Brown and to every other Cabinet member, he still did not know where the Chancellor stood on the single currency, thought he knew that many of his Treasury team were opposed to it.

He advised that all those against the Euro should be prepared for a referendum, though he felt it would be a very long time before the Prime Minister would take the gamble to persuade the 75% or 80% (85% of Sun readers) that they should change their minds and give him a victory in a referendum.

Lord Bell stressed the need to keep the argument about scrapping the pound and adopting the Euro and nothing else, avoiding all other arguments.

He warned against complacency in the light of opinion polls showing that the anti-Euro campaign would win a referendum by 60-70% and expressed the hope that the campaign could be kept so vibrant that the Prime Minister never dared to call a referendum. He urged that all those involved in the campaign should keep on presenting their different views, but not try to create a referendum question; they should avoid disagreements amongst themselves but keep delivering their arguments in favour of retaining democracy by keeping the pound.

Austin Mitchell thanked both speakers and closed the session.

 

Session 3: The Next Intergovernmental Conferences

Chairman: Sir Michael Spicer MP

 

He introduced Daniel Hannan MEP, who had for several years been secretary of the Congress.  (full text of Daniel Hannan's speech)

Daniel Hannan MEP, Member of the European Parliament’s Justice and Home Affairs Committee and Budgets Committee
He reminded Congress there would be a referendum on the single currency in Denmark on 28th September and that at its previous meeting it had resolved to try to raise money to reassure those in Denmark opposed to joining the single currency that they were not alone. After consultations with many anti-Euro groups in Denmark it had been decided that it would be legitimate to take advertising space in Danish newspapers and explain in those advertisements the essence of the British case for keeping the pound. To date £97,630 had been raised, and he invited those present to contribute if they wished.

He then turned to the Inter-Governmental process due to culminate in Nice early in December. There were four main items for which supporters of a federal Europe were pushing and which would be on the agenda at Nice:

All these ideals were included to a greater or lesser extent in the draft treaty which had now been commented on and amended by the European Parliament and which was beginning to grind through the process which would culminate on 6th December at a special summit in Nice.

1. The army
As none of the member governments in the EU had the appetite to expand defence expenditure, the focus would be on the creation of politico-military structures in Brussels involving direct input by the Commission and Council of Ministers. The Eurocorps, which had its first deployment in Kosovo was seen as the nucleus of a European army. He did not believe that there was a plot afoot completely to scrap NATO and to create a new European force; most European federalists wanted the Eurocorps to undertake the overseas peacekeeping deployment in high profile places.

2. Policing and the Judiciary
What was being proposed was not mutual recognition of judgements or co-ordination of juridical practice, which already happened both within the EU and around the world. The proposal was for the creation of a new criminal code for the EU. This was almost unprecedented; the only other example of a corpus of criminal law existing outside a nation state had been the Nuremberg trials. The EU claimed that it would only deal with things such as fraud against the EU budget which had to be prosecuted at EU level, but once they had in place a European Public Prosecutor and a European criminal law it would expand to all other areas of cross-border crime such as terrorism, money laundering, trafficking in drugs, etc. He suspected that English and Scottish law would still retain jurisdiction over crimes like murders, but most of the international and cross-border crimes would be gradually sucked up to EU level. A European legal system would need a European police force. Under the Treaty of Nice Europol would be given executive power and the ability to interfere in policing activity.

3. The constitution
The EU called it a Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, which sounded unobjectionable. As every member state of the EU was already bound by the UN's Universal Declaration on Human Rights, by the European Convention, by national legislation guaranteeing basic human rights and by a host of lesser international accords he saw no need to for the EU to muscle in on this territory. A guaranteed charter would become justiciable before the European Court of Justice and would then cease to be a Declaration and become a Constitution. This was the whole objective. It was democracy, not human rights, which was really in peril precisely because of instruments like this transferring further powers from elected accountable bodies to unaccountable institutions, be they bureaucrats or bankers or judges. Under this Charter of Fundamental Rights European judges would be empowered, or more correctly, obliged to overrule democratic national legislation when they deemed that it contravened their principles.

4. The creation of a political union and a functioning European polity
The aim was to break the link between individual member states and the Commission by having a Commission as kind of Cabinet or government rather than having each country nominating its own people. Sustaining this government would be an elected legislature, namely the European Parliament, which would have to have pan-European political parties for it to function as a proper pan-European legislature. Under the proposals political parties which did not respect fundamental rights and freedoms as defined in the Treaty of Rome were to be made subject to suspension proceedings in the European Court of Justice. He felt that this was designed explicitly to deprive funding and ultimately to deprive recognition from political parties which opposed the European project. He did not think that it was proposed that they be banned in their home countries, but that they would be banned from taking up seats in the European Parliament. The leaders of the four biggest groups in the European Parliament had set out in a letter to Romano Prodi a number of criteria for official recognition as a European party at Brussels level, including the fact that the would have to have a common manifesto. Neither the UK Independence Party nor the Conservative Party had a sufficient number of sister parties across the EU with whom they could agree a pro-European manifesto.

He asked how it was that the British Government was now seriously contemplating signing up to a treaty that contained all these provisions, quite separate from the single currency. Instead of making the case for transferring power from Westminster to Brussels the Government was creating a sense of Britain having to go along with it because she was too small to survive. Britain was the fourth biggest economy in the world, the fifth military power on the planet, one of five members of the UN Security Council, one of eight members of the Group of Eight industrialised countries and had unparalleled links with the United States, the Commonwealth, the rest of the English-speaking world. He pointed out that the four wealthiest countries in Europe (Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein) were not even members of the EU and asked why Britain should not be able to survive running its own affairs in its own interest.

He saw the message going out from the Fourth Congress as one of faith in the capacity of the UK to survive as an independent country, faith in the character of its people and their ability to thrive living under their own laws made by their own people. The sovereignty of Parliament meant sovereignty of the people - the right to choose the laws and measures under which they were governed.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon
He congratulated Daniel Hannan on an excellent speech. He then read out a message sent by M Charles Pasqua, Leader of the Europe of Nations Group in the European Parliament, Leader of Rassemblement pour la France and former Minister of the Interior in a previous French Government. He had been unable to accept an invitation to speak at the Congress because it was Bastille Day.

In his message M Pasqua said that since the Maastricht Treaty the European endeavour had got lost in a mass of institutional change which had reduced democracy. The proposed European Constitution made no sense because there was no European nation. However, he saw it as a reminder of the need to reform the way in which the EU worked and to create a different kind of Europe, one of co-operating states. He urged that in each country people should stand against the homogenisation imposed by a federalist Europe, and asked for British support for the French struggle to defeat proposals for a five-year Presidency and the Danish fight to say No to the Euro. He described federal Europe as "an artificial Europe of technocrats and ideologues"; the Europe of Nations was the true Europe of peoples.

Sir Michael Spicer said that he had received a message from Lord Blake, who had also been unable to attend the Congress. In his message Lord Blake expressed the hope that Congress would make the political objections to the Euro its top priority.

Rt Hon Lord Lamont
He said that Daniel Hannan’s very powerful speech showed why the debate about Europe was not just about the single currency. There was a need to find a way of stopping the relentless process of integration and reasserting the supremacy of the British Parliament.

He would comment particularly on the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, which he considered one of the most underestimated and most sinister things to come out of Europe; as every single country in the EU had already signed the European Convention on Human Rights as a condition of membership he wondered why the EU needed its own Charter of Fundamental Rights, which he saw as a source of conflict between the courts in Strasbourg and Luxembourg. He wondered why the Charter contained some extraordinary elements: the right of the citizens of Europe to marry, not to be put into slavery, to vote, to documents of the European Parliament(!), to balance their family and professional lives. The way in which the Charter was drafted would, he felt, lead to ambiguous and unpredictable interpretation. An example he gave was Article 1 about respect for the dignity of every individual, which could possibly be interpreted as restricting the way in which parents disciplined their children, or for the protection of the dignity of an unborn child. The Charter might also be used for interference in the affairs of another country as recently seen vis-a-vis Austria.

He thought it was being done to persuade people that their rights came from Europe, which was an insult to British history. The Charter of Fundamental Rights was intended by those drafting it to be the Constitution of Europe. It was designed to be part of the federalising process and of a vague, ill-defined attempt to harmonise the system of justice and law in Europe. There was no mention in the Charter of Habeas Corpus, which did not exist in Europe. The Charter would hand over to judges in Europe more decisions that ought to be taken by the British Parliament, and he urged people to reject it.

Roger Helmer MEP
He quoted a reply given by Lady Thatcher to one of his MEP colleagues about the Charter of Fundamental Rights at a dinner the previous week. Lady Thatcher had said, "You cannot legislate for fundamental rights. Here in Britain we have democracy and that is good enough." The Euro issue and the broader issue of Britain’s relationship with Europe were fundamentally about democracy, which was now under threat. Campaigners must also be prepared to rebut the economic arguments of their opponents, who claimed that jobs were at risk if Britain did not join the Euro.

He referred briefly to the point made by Martin Holmes, who asked for a renegotiation of the British position in Europe. From within the Conservative party he intended to continue arguing and campaigning for a fundamental renegotiation of the relationship with Europe so that at least from Britain’s point of view it looked and behaved like a free trade area and nothing more.

Josephine Wilkins, West Kent Democracy Movement
She asked what action could be taken to prevent all the horrors described by previous speakers coming into effect, triggered by the Prime Minister’s signature on a document.

Owen Paterson MP, member of the House of Commons Select Committee on Europe
He said that the Select Committee on Europe was failing to scrutinise European legislation in the British Parliament. The process was proceeding under existing legislation. He quoted three areas in which the Commission was pulling power to itself under existing rules: the European Sky (air traffic control), Food Safety, where the Commission wanted to take control of all areas to do with food production, and Environmental Liability, where the precautionary principle would be established on all matters to do with the environment, allowing the Commission to fine businesses which they thought were harming the environment without any scientific evidence of environmental damage.

There was a drive by the Commission constantly to pull matters which should rest with nation states and sovereign Parliaments into its own hands and to overrule national law.

John Walker
He invited Daniel Hannan to comment on whether the Charter could be used to remove a Government elected in a member state. It seemed to him that the Treaties were becoming more important than the people for whom they sought to provide rights.

Daniel Hannan replied that there was no mechanism to eject the Government, but there was a mechanism either to eject the state that elected the Government from the EU or to freeze all its voting rights while subjecting it to all the continuing obligations of EU membership. This was part of the Amsterdam Treaty, which had already passed into law. He found it extraordinary that members of the European Union should be living under arbitrary government in that way because the decision as to whether such a Government constituted an undemocratic one or a violation of human rights was not to be taken by any judicial body but by a vote among the other countries.

Session 4: Referendum Legislation

Sir Michael Spicer invited Frederick Forsyth and other members of Constitutional Sub-Committee, Martin Howe QC and Anthony Ogilvie to join him on the platform.  (full text of Frederick Forsyth's speech)

He reminded those present that at the previous congress it had been decided to set up a constitutional sub-committee with the purpose of tracking the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill in which Congress had a particular interest. The Sub-Committee had been briefing politicians in both Houses of Parliament and they had had an impact on that bill.

He also thanked Anthony Coughlan of Trinity College Dublin who had been fighting a fantastic battle in Ireland on these matters.

Frederick Forsyth, Chairman, Constitutional Sub-Committee, Congress for Democracy
He said that as the Prime Minister had given an undertaken to hold a referendum on the Euro it must be expected that one would be held. Whereas there were strict and comprehensive regulations about the holding of general elections there were currently no rules governing the holding of referendums, which were still quite rare in this country. The only previous national referendum had been in 1975, which had been an endorsement exercise. There had never been a national referendum in this country on a consultative basis.

The Committee under Lord Neill, the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life, which had been charged by the Government with looking at the funding of political parties in this country, had included in its report twenty-two paragraphs on the matter of referendums. This report had led the Government to introduce the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill, the content and progress of which had been the concern of the Constitutional Sub-Committee.

The sub-committee had identified at least five areas where, if the rules were not scrupulously fair to both sides of the argument, the result of the referendum could be arranged:

The proposals in the Bill included provision for a Speaker’s Committee of nine Members, who in turn would appoint the Electoral Commission. The body of nine members would include the Home Secretary, another Minister, the Chairman of one of the Select Committees, two more Government backbenchers, thus giving a majority of Government supporters (five) on the committee.

The members of the Constitutional Sub-Committee had objected strenuously to the proposed composition of the Speaker’s committee and their points had been noted by Conservative Party members in both Houses of Parliament.

The Electoral Commission, as proposed, lacked many powers which the constitutional committee felt it ought to have. The sub-committee felt that it should have powers to deal with all the five issues listed above and that it should be composed of men and women of unimpeachable integrity and impartiality, which they doubted could be achieved by the proposed method of selection. It was also felt that the supervision of the Electoral Commission by the Home Secretary would prevent that body from being completely objective, a point made to Conservative Members in Parliament.

The Bill had completed all its stages in the House of Commons, had received a second reading in the House of Lords and had made no progress since the first day’s debate in Committee in the House of Lords on 11th May. Members of the House of Lords had been briefed by members of the constitutional sub-committee, who hoped that amendments would be tabled and debated in the course of the Bill’s progress through that House.

He expressed the view that if the Bill were passed in its present state the campaign would be very rough, especially if the funding available to the Yes campaign were double or triple that legally available to the No campaign, if the media were slanted against the No campaign and if the views on impartiality of the Electoral Commission were overruled by the Home Secretary.

Martin Howe QC
He briefly outlined the position on the progress of the Bill. It had entered the House of Lords but it had not made much progress. Much debate had taken place on the early sections dealing with political parties but the Government had not made any further time available to it in the Lords. There was therefore some reason to suspect, or possibly even hope, that the Government might have concluded that the amount of time that would be involved in taking this bill through the Lords would be so great that it could not be accommodated in the current session. It was therefore possible either that the Bill would be dropped or possibly that the Political Parties part of the Bill would be proceeded with but that the Referendum part of the bill would be dropped. In that case he thought the arguments would come back again because the Bill was likely to be reintroduced either in the next session or possibly, if there were no Act of this sort on the statute book in advance of a decision to go for a referendum on the Euro, the provisions would be put into the Bill authorising the referendum.

The House of Lords was performing a vital function as a constitutional guardian. There was no doubt that the provisions of the Bill relating to referendums were slanted in favour of securing the result favoured by the Government of the day. There were spending limits on campaigning which were arbitrary, unworkable and unfair and gave large allocations of cash to minor political parties. The Government propaganda machine was left completely untrammelled until a very short period before the referendum vote and even leading up to the poll they could use the Civil Service machine to issue press releases. The Euro Institutions themselves were left untrammelled in terms of spending money or putting out propaganda as were all the bodies to which they had given grant aid or assistance.

Sir Michael thanked Martin Howe for lending his brilliant legal mind to the cause.

Robert McCartney QC MP, Leader of the United Kingdom Unionist Party
He said that he believed passionately in the independence of the United Kingdom. He had experienced in Northern Ireland almost everything about which the speakers had warned: the issue of irreversibility, the dismissal by Mr Blair that there was a constitutional issue at stake, and the setting-up of institutions to move from harmonisation to fully executive power. He was saddened the Congress of Democracy had not taken up the cudgels for democracy in a part of the UK for it would have learned much that would have been of service in the defence of the United Kingdom against an assault by a federal Europe.

Anthony Coughlan, The National Platform, Ireland
He confirmed that the composition of the body in charge of the referendum was crucial. In Ireland they had a Referendum Commission, composed of a former Judge of the Supreme Court, the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Clerk of the Dail and the Clerk of the Senate and the Ombudsman, five persons who were above the political fray. The Referendum Commission had run the last two or three referendums in the Republic of Ireland quite fairly.

The chairman thanked Mr Coughlan for the fight he had personally been putting up on the referendum issue and thanked Mr Forsyth and his team for their contribution to the discussion.

 

Session 5: The Danish Referendum

Chairman: Sir Michael Spicer MP
Sir Michael then welcomed Jens-Peter Bonde MEP, Leader of the campaign against Danish entry into the Euro, who had been a long-standing fighter for the cause in Denmark and had been very much involved in the first No campaign victory over the Treaty of Maastricht and was extremely well-known in his own country and abroad. He also said that there were present one or two other members of the campaign from different parties, including Peter Skaarup MP from the People’s Party.  (full text of Jens-Peter Bonde's speech)

Sir Michael told Mr Bonde that Daniel Hannan had made it clear to Congress that the money which had been collected was not for direct contributions but was to take advertising space in Danish papers which would simply say that Britain also had a strong interest in the issue.

Jens-Peter Bonde MEP
He said that there would be a referendum on the single currency in Denmark on 28th September. It had been called when the Prime Minister was confident of winning, but since then the "No" campaign had improved its rating in the polls, which were currently showing its support at 50%, 7% above the "Yes" campaign at 43%.

He had no objection to an international currency for trade and tourism working alongside the national currency. A single currency would need a single government to control it, whereas individual governments needed to retain their own currencies to run their economies. Europe was too diverse in terms of language, culture and economic prosperity to form a European democracy.

The European Central Bank was only concerned with inflation, which had to be kept between 0 and 2%. Its single interest rate could not meet the economic requirements of all the member nations. The Euro was not, in his view, a common currency to promote trade, but a single currency to promote a new state, which could develop from the next Inter-Governmental Conference, which would include proposals for a Europe with no internal boundaries and common police and defence forces.

The Danish Government had tried to limit the referendum to a simple question of saving transaction costs, but had ignored in its argument and calculations the costs of changing equipment to cope with the new currency. The referendum campaign was being fought by the Danish Government on the economic arguments because the Danish people were most likely to support them on those issues. However, since it had become clear that further political integration was proposed public opinion had moved against the single currency.

He outlined the chief strategies of the Danish Government in the referendum campaign:

The "Yes" side continued to deny all plans for further integration and had engaged in negative campaigning against the "No" side, saying that Lady Thatcher had been collecting money for it:  this was completely untrue.

Finally, he expressed the hope that a "No" vote in Denmark would give confidence to those in other countries who opposed the single currency (50% in Germany) and progress towards a single European state. He urged that a Danish "No" vote be used as inspiration throughout the member nations for a campaign for Transparency, Decentralisation and Democracy in the European Union.

Sir Michael thanked Mr Bonde for his stirring speech and for having broken away from the front line to be at the Congress.

Peter Skaarup MP, member of the Danish People’s Party
He pointed out that one question which Mr Bonde had not addressed in his speech, which was currently quite a big topic of discussion in Denmark, was what would happen to the Danish Crown if there was a "No" vote. People were concerned that the Crown would be at the mercy of currency speculators, an argument which had been used by the Prime Minister. However, the leader of the Central Bank, Wim Duisenberg had recently demolished this argument by giving an assurance that the Danish Crown would be protected under the ERM treaty.

He explained that one of the goals of the "No" campaign was to create a new agenda for Europe, not only for Denmark but for the rest of Europe as had been the case after the Maastricht referendum in Denmark; the narrow "Yes" vote on Maastricht in France had also helped to make the bureaucrats in Brussels think more than once about what they did. A referendum in Austria might also help the cause. Their main objective was to protect democracy in Europe, based on sovereign states.

Idris Francis
He made the point that there was a constitutional flaw in the concept of a referendum because it could not reflect the view of every citizen. In his view it was wrong to allow those people alive and of voting age to decide to give away for ever the rights of the people who could not vote and who had not yet been born.

Mr Bonde replied that this was the fundamental problem of the EU. A decision taken in Brussels could never be amended by the British people. The only way to amend law decided by Brussels was by a draft proposal from the 20 members of the Commission. Alternatively, it would be necessary in 80% of the cases, to have 62 out of the 87 votes in the Council of Ministers or a Committee under the Council. He claimed that it was not known in either the Westminster or Danish Parliaments that the UK had ten votes and Denmark had three.

Michael Shrimpton
He asked Mr Bonde to confirm that the Danish Government proposed to abolish the Danish Crown in the Faroe Islands and in Greenland without consulting the people there in the referendum. He described the constitutional implications for Denmark of such a result and foresaw implications for NATO if the people of Greenland wished to break their association with Denmark.

Mr Bonde replied that if his campaign lost the referendum the next battle would be to keep the Crown in Greenland and the Faroe Islands and to run them as a parallel currency, which would be possible but not realistic. If Denmark gave up the Crown Greenland and the Faroe Islands would be bound to do the same.

Sir Michael thanked Mr Bonde again and closed the session, saying Congress would meet again after lunch.

Session 6: Communications and General Discussion

Chairman: Sir Michael Spicer MP

Sir Michael said that the afternoon session would initially be spent discussing the work and proposals of the Media Committee, which would be followed by general discussion.

He introduced Stephen Prendergast to report from the Media Committee.

 

Stephen Prendergast
He said that the Media Committee had met two or three times, and had agreed that there were two essential requirements before embarking on a campaign:

  1. A point of unity between the groups. Without that unity the differences between the groups would become the issues in the campaign.

  2. To make the case that Britain was not dependent on the European Union. The Media Committee perceived that there was a deeply held view in the public mind that there was not much alternative economically to the EU.

In order to achieve these requirements, the Media Committee had suggested the following:

Sir Michael commented that at the root of these suggestions lay the question whether the Congress was best characterised as a meeting point on a regular basis for different groups who were against the single currency for different reasons or whether it was some kind of an embryonic campaigning organisation bringing all the different groups together. That, he said, was a discussion which could continue.

Lord Pearson, Global Britain
He referred to Lord Bell’s comments earlier that the campaign should concentrate on one argument only, the single currency. He acknowledged that it might be a very powerful PR argument, but there was also the political argument that if it were possible to move the national debate on to whether Britain wanted to be in the European Union or not, then the EMU argument became subsidiary and easier to win.

Sir Michael introduced Peter Troy from the Federation of Small Businesses, who had been responsible for organising the highly successful FSB/Congress meeting in Darlington the previous week.

Peter Troy, Federation of Small Businesses
He said that there had been a very successful meeting in the parliamentary constituency of Sedgefield. He urged Congress to encourage the organisations which were represented in it to hold meetings of a similar kind throughout the country at grass-root level. He would also like to see the trades unions holding meetings for their members. The arguments would not be reported in the press and it was vital that they were put across as widely as possible.

Anna McKeown, Trade Unions against Single Currency, MSF Union
Her main concern was with manufacturing industry which, she felt, was being pushed aside. It was the design in Europe that Britain should become a service country involved only in financial services and tourism. She argued that the Government and the trade union leaders had abandoned manufacturing industry and were not communicating with the millions of trade unionists who wondered if they had a future in this country. The future of British manufacturing industry was a key element in the debate about the Euro because it would have no future if Britain were to become part of a European super state. She urged that more emphasis be placed on the likely fate of manufacturing industry in the arguments against the single currency.

Sir Michael Spicer commented that Congress had been in touch with many trade union leaders and had good links with Doug Nicholls. Although there was much support for the campaign privately, the leaders did not want to show their support publicly, a situation which he hoped would change.

Mark Hill, Campaigns Co-ordinator for the Green Party
He was worried about the groups who were not involved in the campaign against the single currency: there were not many trade unionists or Labour MPs involved, nor were those whom the Green Party tried to reach, those concerned about peace and third world development and those organising amongst the ethnic minorities. He agreed with Lord Bell that a minimum common denominator had to be found which would appeal to the very large proportion of the country who were opposed to the single currency. If national opinion polls showed that 60% of the population was against the Euro, then only half of them would be represented by the conservative elements which currently dominated the debate. It was essential to talk to the whole community: democracy was the key issue and should be reflected in the way the debates were conducted. Turnout would be vital at the referendum and could not be achieved without using wider arguments.

He agreed with Lord Bell that it was essential to concentrate on the question of the Euro in the debate and avoid the issue of membership of the European Union.

Eric Deakins, Labour Euro Safeguards Campaign
He was concerned that the issue of the Euro was seen solely in economic terms; the debate in the press was about the value of the pound, manufacturing etc and no attention was being paid to the political and constitutional implications. In fact, when the German Foreign Minister had said that the Euro was about politics and would lead to a closer union and a federal government, he had been disowned by his own people, who claimed he had been speaking in a private capacity.

Earlier in the week there had been a letter in the Financial Times from Sir Roy Denman, a passionate, ardent advocate of the Euro who had been a Deputy Secretary in the Department of Trade in the 1970s and had gone on to work for the European Civil Service, ultimately becoming EU Ambassador in Washington. In his letter he had said, "adopting the Euro would be a leap into the unknown. Many suspect that the Government has been less than frank about the political integration that will follow economic union." Mr Deakins welcomed this as the first time anyone in authority in the pro-Europe camp in Britain had admitted that there would be political implications and he urged the Media Committee to pursue it.

Donald Martin, Policy Chairman, Federation of Small Businesses
He advised Congress to be careful about drafting a "charter", especially if they were critical of the documents emanating from the European Union. He urged that the message should be simple: "keep the pound and our democracy". Spokesmen should be briefed to stress the point on which the Congress was united and avoid becoming involved in debate on the differences between the aspirations of the various participating groups.

While it had been agreed within the Federation of Small Businesses, which had a membership of between 150,000 and 160,000, that they wanted to retain the pound indefinitely, the Federation had recently discussed its position with regard to Britain’s membership of the European Union and had unanimously agreed to call for the removal of Section 2 of the European Communities Act, which would mean that all regulations effective in the UK would have to be looked at by Parliament

He hoped that those involved in the campaign against the Euro could create the conditions under which the Government would never call a referendum, and suggested two points which could be used in the argument:

The Federation of Small Businesses had faith in Britain and they had representatives all over the country; 94.7% of all businesses in Britain employed less than 10 people.

Brian Farmer, Business for Sterling
He asked that Congress think of organisational matters. It was the only organisation which brought together all those who were like-thinking over Europe and the Euro; there were differences but the similarities transcended the differences. If there was to be a referendum the campaign would have to be fought in the constituencies and he recommended that regional organisers be appointed, who in turn would appoint constituency organisers so that the campaign had a cohesive and related effort in every constituency in the country.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon, Chairman of Campaign for Independent Britain and of Anti-Maastricht Alliance and one of the founder members of Global Britain
Referring to the remarks made by Mark Hill of the Green Party about Congress not having people from the left, he stated that the issue transcended party politics. The issue was whether Britain and other countries were to be governed by their own institutions, their own elected governments and their own elected representatives.

Some people thought that the threat was federalism, when in fact it was unitarism. The idea was not to devolve power but to centralise it, to create a unitary state in Europe, a new European empire. He did not think it would be possible simply to talk about the pound because constitutional arguments would be involved and people should be prepared for them.

Although there was a majority of people in Britain against losing the pound there was also a majority who believe that it was inevitable. The Government’s new ploy was to state that Britain could not be left alone and must join the Euro club. People had to be convinced that they had the power to defeat what was considered to be inevitable.

There was already much co-operation: the Anti-Maastricht Alliance had just signed an agreement with the Alliance for the Sovereignty of France and was going to work together with those in that country who believed that sovereign independence was important and must be maintained. It was, however, essential that party political alliances were forgotten because the defence of democratic rights was far more important than mere party political differences.

Mark Hill stressed that his point was that Congress was not currently seen as a truly cross-party group.

The Chairman reminded those present that Sir Richard Body was the last sitting Member of Parliament who had voted against entry into the EEC.

Stuart Gulleford, Press Officer, Campaign for an Independent Britain
He cautioned against completely writing off the BBC as a means of communication. Although it was unhelpful on a national broadcasting level there was much mileage to be had from working with the local radio stations.

Derek Bennett, United Kingdom Independence Party
He said that the campaign could be fought with letters, not just in this country, but, he suggested, in Denmark. He and three others had been corresponding continuously in the columns of the English-speaking Maltese press. He objected to being described as "anti-European", he and those who shared his views were pro-Europe, a Europe of self-governing free democratic nations.

Lionel Bell, Anti-Maastricht Alliance
He said that, having made an agreement with the Anti-Maastricht Alliance in France, they were proposing to prepare a declaration about democracy similar to that proposed by Congress. He thought it would be valuable to obtain agreement on the nature of the document from other countries because it applied equally elsewhere, and offered to make contact with the French. He saw it as being based on a very simple principle: that democracy was possible only within nation states; it was not a practical or reasonable proposition for a supranational organisation to be genuinely democratic. He also offered the services of the Anti-Maastricht Alliance in the preparation and discussion of such a document.

Will Podmore, UNISON and Labour Euro-Safeguards Campaign
He agreed that entering the Euro would mean ending the sovereignty of Britain, and likened the Euro to a snare to catch a bird. He believed the Euro would be bad for industry and blamed the recent loss of 6,000 jobs in manufacturing on the Government’s preparations to join. Any nation which was going to retain any credibility, any power in the world had to have manufacturing viability, which had to be preserved in Britain.

He decried the Government view that there were three capital cities in Britain: London, Edinburgh and Cardiff, and described as nonsense the European Commission’s description of London as a region of the European Union, not as a capital city of a sovereign nation.

Robert Ingle, New Europe
He argued that there was no such thing as historical inevitability in anything. It was likely that France and Germany would form a core union within the EU because France wanted to get its hands on the government of Germany. The only times Britain had been at the heart of Europe had been when she had come in and scuppered other nations’ plans for domination. He hoped that Denmark would vote to keep its own currency and that Britain would follow suit, in which case he predicted that other European countries would be saved because political union without Britain and Denmark would not work. He believed that all good Europeans should join together to prevent Britain joining the Euro.

Martin Harvey, Democratic Alliance
In his view the federalist or unitarist threat was progressing at a horrific pace, quoting as examples the Bank of England being set up as part of the system of European central banks, the incorporation of corpus juris, regionalisation, the armed forces and the new suggested system of running politics and elections. He feared that the single currency could be imposed without a referendum. Britain did, however, have the option of withdrawal from the political side of the EU, which was what he thought people should be urged to vote for at the next election.

George West, UKIP and other organisations
He felt that it was time for collective and positive action to involve social and ethical groups not present at Congress. He was tired of EU propaganda and of the glossy literature available through European Information Offices around the country and had opened a European Union Information Office in the centre of Leicester where they displayed anti-European Union literature from a multitude of sources under the banner "UK Independence and Freedom".  It was open on Friday and Saturday and had been given a couple of paragraphs in the local paper, though the BBC had refused to give any information about it. He hoped that other people might consider setting up a similar venture.

Sir Michael Spicer turned the discussion to the draft resolution before Congress:

"Bearing in mind the five principles agreed to at the First Congress, this Congress notes with concern the continuing transfer of powers from democratic parliaments to unelected agencies in the European Union, calls for democratic rights to be enshrined in a Charter of Democracy, and mandates the Agenda Committee to draw up such a Charter for submission to the Fifth Congress."

He said he thought that Donald Martin had indicated that he did not support the proposal, and that someone had said to him over lunch that the words "democratic rights" should be replaced by "basic democratic structures".

Nigel Spearing, Member of the Labour European Safeguards Committee, Vice-Chairman of CIB, Chairman of the organisation committee of the Anti-Maastricht Alliance
He wondered whether those present, who were not delegates, ought to go as far as suggested in the resolution, although as individuals they might wholeheartedly agree with the first part.

Martin Harvey suggested that the resolution should include a statement that the democratic rights should include the return to the Westminster Parliament of control of British laws in their entirety.

James Harvard
He reinforced what Lionel Bell had said, that a pan-European democracy was not possible because a democracy required a "demos", a group of people who felt sufficient unity to accept a common government, and unless the Charter of Democracy specifically addressed that it would be greeted with the "usual hogwash about strengthening the European Parliament".

Iain McGregor, Scotland against being ruled by Europe (SABRE)
He support Donald Martin's suggestion not to use the word Charter, and Nigel Spearing’s reservations but he thought both could be resolved by the use of the word "Declaration", which was an antithesis of European Union Directives.

Ashley Mote, Magna Carta Society
He maintained that there was no need to draw up any new charter; there were Magna Carta and the Declaration of Rights of 1688 neither of which could ever be repealed because they were not Acts of Parliament. They represented the British Constitution as a sovereign nation.

Clive Easton, Herefordshire Keep the Pound Campaign
He argued that, as the Congress for Democracy, the constitutional issues should be stated quite clearly in any statement of aim. Congress should not limit itself to the single issue of the common currency. In his view the reason people were nervous of coming out of Europe was because they did not know the issues and implications of the Inter-Governmental Conference at Nice. He believed that the British people would speak with authority once they were made aware of the threats to the Constitution and to jurisprudence. He supported the resolution.

Alan Orme, Christian Group in Shropshire
He said that he was in favour of the resolution, but with a particular caveat and amendment. He felt it was essential to find the right single issue on which to fight the campaign, but wondered whether independence was important to most people. He agreed that the use of the word "Charter" might cause confusion with the Charter of Fundamental Rights and favoured the use of the word "declaration".

To the Chairman’s question whether there was a general mood that the word "Declaration" was preferred someone warned against the concept of Charter/Declaration on the grounds that it was very similar to what would be considered at Nice.

Robert McCartney QC MP
He endorsed the suggestion that "declaration" be used as it was not a term used in the European sense, whereas charter was. He recommended that it should be a declaration of the democratic rights of the British people and should include references to Magna Carta, the Glorious Revolution, and all the precedents in the law which established all the civil and democratic rights. It should declare "This is what we have, what we wish to retain and what we wish to hold in contradistinction to anything which might diminish it or might be offered in substitution for it".

Sir Michael Spicer asked Congress to vote on the resolution, assuming that the word "Charter" would be changed to "Declaration".

The Resolution, as amended, was approved by Congress:

"Bearing in mind the five principles agreed to at the First Congress, this Congress notes with concern the continuing transfer of powers from democratic parliaments to unelected agencies in the European Union, calls for democratic rights to be enshrined in a Declaration of Democracy, and mandates the Agenda Committee to draw up such a Charter for submission to the Fifth Congress."

Date of Next Congress
Sir Michael said that he had received the impression from those to whom he had spoken that people would prefer the next Congress to take place after the results of the Nice conference were known, which would mean meeting early in the new year, rather than before Christmas. He invited those who wanted to speak against that to do so.

Mr Idris Francis commented that holding a meeting in January after Nice would give Congress the opportunity of closing the stable door.

Lord Stoddart said that he felt the next Congress would be most useful once the results of Nice were known. Congress just before Christmas might not be very well attended and the proposals for Nice would not have been completed. He felt a delay of a couple of months at the most would be desirable.

Sir Michael commented that anything which came out of Nice was more than likely going to require ratification by the British Parliament, which was unlikely to happen until well into the new year. Congress would therefore have the opportunity to influence how Parliament addressed that matter, which could be of some importance.

In response to a request from the floor that the Congress for Democracy should become less of a talking shop and be more active in support of keeping the pound, Sir Michael replied that the role of Congress, whether it existed for people to put their views across in a common forum or whether it was a campaigning group, was constantly debated. He had the impression that most people thought it should be the former, but he undertook to try to restrict the number of speeches and allow more time for debate about specific proposals at future Congresses.

Colin Hannaford, teacher of ethics at European School at Culham in Oxfordshire
He said that when he began working for the European Union it was a community of independent nation states and that he had watched with dismay the transformation in that plan. He did not think that those in the room understood that they were facing "the most unscrupulous, ruthless, hypocritical gang of people that this country has ever faced". He described the argument over Europe as "the third European war for democracy". It was not about logic, economics or currency, but about sentiments: did people want to be governed without representation or not?

The "enemy" were not bad people, they were opportunistic and they saw an opportunity to exercise more power and they were being met with no better arguments than economic arguments or arguments about sovereignty which would not wash. People in this country did not feel that they had a democracy. They did not feel that Westminster was representing their views. They wanted democracy and they were not having democracy. Mr McCartney was right - we should insist - this is what we have and this is what we will not let go of.

Miss Margaret Savile, former elected councillor
She felt that Congress was wasting energy which could be better used for the Conservative party. The public were just beginning to wake up to the disadvantages of Europe: fraud in the European Commission and the fact that it was an unelected body. She asked people to vote against the resolution, which she felt was a half-way house and urged them to support the Conservative Party at the election.

Pam Barden, Save Our Sovereignty
She remarked that it had been the Tory party which signed the Treaty of Rome, the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty. She claimed that the country was being continentalised with the development of regional assemblies which had embassies in Brussels. None of the members were elected and they were forming themselves into an English Regional Network. She feared that by the time the referendum was held on the Euro it would be too late to reverse some of the process. She also told of events following a local election in Stroud where, although the Conservatives had won the largest number of seats, they had been sidelined by a rainbow coalition of Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green Party members. The public wanted to know the facts and she warned that they would not be convinced by the Conservative slogan "in Europe but not run by Europe"; they would only be interested in an undertaking to renegotiate the treaties and, if that proved impossible, the offer of a referendum on withdrawal from the European Union.

Sir Michael Spicer then closed the proceedings, thanking everyone for attending.

He also reminded those present about the Danish appeal - cheques should be made out to the Danish Referendum Campaign.

He said that Congress would meet again, probably early in the new year.  (The date of the next Congress has now been fixed for 2 February 2001 - to receive an invitation, please click here).

 

It was announced that there would be a rally on 28th October from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square, leaving Hyde Park at one o'clock.

Sir Richard Body thanked Sir Michael Spicer and those involved in bringing the Congress together for all their efforts.

Eric Clements, Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians
He argued that if Congress wanted trade unionists to attend, meetings should be held on Saturday. At a recent trades council conference he had been warmly applauded when he warned of the threat to freedoms from corpus juris and denounced the constitutional heresy that democracy consisted of voting once every four or five years between which Governments did what they liked.

Finally, Sir Michael Spicer again thanked Jens-Peter Bonde for breaking away from the campaign to speak at Congress.

 

 

 

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