The Veto and democracy

"E.U. Leaves U.K."

These were the first three words of the Indy's headline this morning - the full headline continued with "out in the cold" but I initially saw the first three words which seem curiously apposite. You can take them more than one way. Remember "Fog in the Channel: continent isolated!"

A surprising number of commentators don't appear to get the main reason why David Cameron had no choice but to veto the proposed treaty this week. Some of the Liberal Democrats obviously do get it, which is one of the reasons that, despite all the efforts by some in the media to stir up a coalition split on the subject, I don't believe David Cameron's veto is going to bring down the government.

* The fact that David Cameron thought the proposed treaty might damage the City of London was a very important argument against signing, but there was an even stronger one.

* This was not about bashing Europe. Signing would have given DC a huge amount of grief with Tory backbenchers and some of the press, but that neither would nor should have stopped him signing if he had thought doing so was in Britain's interests.

And preventing a Eurozone meltdown is in Britain's interests provided they don't sabotage key sectors of our economy - there will be collateral damage to British jobs and incomes if the Eurozone slumps.

* Nobody with any sense wants Britain isolated, but actually, if a British P.M. had tried to sign up to what was on offer, the end result would have been even worse - and because of something positive which the coalition did when it first took office.

That was to address the lack of democratic legitimacy in past EU treaty changes by passing the "Triple Lock" legislation under which transfers of power to the EU require a referendum in Britain before they could be ratified.

If David Cameron had signed a 27 member treaty as proposed, the "Triple Lock" law would have forced a referendum on that treaty.

Can anyone in their right mind imagine that a majority of British voters would have voted yes?

Better to be open and forthright, say No now, and let the other nations agree a different solution, than leave everyone thinking the treaty was agreed and having it voted down by the electorate a few months down the line.

Of course, the other EU nations can go ahead and organise a separate treaty with up to 26 of the EU member nations, and we can't stop that. Nor should we try.

But that separate treaty will not damage the UK in the way that the treaty which DC blocked would have.

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