Tracey Crouch

This afternoon I joined Kent MEPs Richard Ashworth (pictured) and Dan Hannan for a rally in Maidstone High Street calling on shoppers to sign a petition demanding a referendum on the EU Treaty.

The cross party campaign group “I want a Referendum” explains the case for a referendum quite clearly:


“The original EU Constitution was drawn up in 2003. It proposed a significant shift of power from Britain to Brussels. As a result in 2004 the Government decided it was so important that voters should be given a say on it in a national referendum.

In 2005 French and Dutch voters overwhelmingly rejected the Constitution in their own
referendums. But despite this EU leaders have decided to bring it back again, in the form
of a new treaty.

Now Gordon Brown argues that a referendum is now unnecessary because, he claims, the
revised treaty is substantially different to the original Constitution. But other EU leaders
are more honest:
• The author of the Constitution, Valery Giscard d’Estaing, says: “All the earlier proposals
will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way.”
• The Spanish Prime Minister Jose Zapatero admits: “We have not let a single substantial
point of the Constitutional Treaty go… It is, without a doubt, much more than a treaty.
This is a project of foundational character, a treaty for a new Europe.”
• The German Chancellor Angela Merkel says simply: “The substance of the Constitution
is preserved. That is a fact.”

Only 10 out of 250 proposals in the “new” treaty are different from the proposals in
the original EU Constitution. In other words, 96% of the text is the same as the rejected
Constitution. “

So it is clear that what we have now is practically what we had before. Back then a referendum would have been allowed – now it is not. Well I want a referendum so I have signed the petition for one – you can join me HERE.