Campaign News Archive

Postcard campaign: No EU referendum? No trust.
30 November 2009

In response to David Cameron's recent statement setting out his party's revised policy on the EU (see our blog for details), the DM has this week published a new campaign postcard.

Addressed to the Conservative leader, the card highlights the contradictions between Mr Cameron's stated principles, his words about 'trust' and his actions in not only dropping his "cast iron guarantee" of a vote on the Lisbon Treaty but refusing to hold any EU referendum at all.

The campaign is aimed at those who want to make clear to
Mr Cameron that, both in the interests of democracy and in his own electoral interests, he must commit to delivering the referendum on Britain's relationship with the EU that has long been promised.

DM letter: Challenges for the Tories
6 October 2009

DM campaign director Marc Glendening has the lead letter in today's Evening Standard, responding to an article yesterday by Matthew d'Ancona about the Conservatives and a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

Here's Marc's response in full:

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To support his view that the Tories should drop their commitment to a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty once it is ratified to avoid charges of crankiness, Matthew d'Ancona concludes, "a referendum is a fine thing but after 12 years ... a red box is finer"
(5 October).

But here is the crux of the matter: EU directives already account for a majority of the laws we must obey. If Lisbon goes through, 60 further areas of decision-making will be subject to majority voting in Brussels and EU leaders, meeting in secret, will be able to add unstipulated new powers.

If David Cameron becomes PM after the treaty has gone through and he abandons his referendum pledge, to what extent will owning those ministerial red boxes mean anything?

The Tories must now decide whether they will play the political game by the EU's rules, or risk outraging Brussels' political class and metropolitan liberal opinion - but not lose any general election votes - by letting the British people determine their own future.

It should not be forgotten that without the UK's contribution to the EU budget, the whole edifice would collapse: an important bargaining chip for the next government.
Marc Glendening, The Democracy Movement

Not Liberal - Not Democrats
12 May 2009: updated 30 November 2009

The DM has launched a hard-hitting campaign to highlight the growing conflict between the Liberal Democrats' claimed values and their enthusiasm for handing ever more decision-making to the EU.

The campaign started in the run up to the European Parliament elections on 4th June but will continue right through until the next general election, which is expected within months.

The campaign follows a succession of affronts to democracy and civil liberties committed by the Liberal Democrats, caused by their enthusiasm for handing ever more decision-making to the EU. They amount to a stark conflict between the party's claimed values and actions that can no longer be allowed to pass unnoticed.

Not only did they vote to approve the highly illiberal and anti-democratic Lisbon Treaty, but at every stage of the treaty's progress through Parliament the Lib Dems did what it took - abstaining in the Commons and voting against in the Lords - to prevent us being given the EU referendum they promised us at the last general election.

In addition, their group in the European Parliament, led by Lib Dem MEP Graham Watson, gave money to the 'Yes' side in the repeat Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, disrespecting the previous clear and democratic 'No' vote.

That's why our campaign has been called Not Liberal - Not Democrats.

Powers the Lib Dems approved handing to the EU have resulted in:

Having approved treaties handing the EU powers to make such laws, the Lib Dems then posture in opposition when the inevitably authoritarian implications become known. Yet once EU laws are made they cannot be blocked by national Parliaments.

A giant mobile poster bearing the campaign slogan (pictured above) has been deployed to rove the marginal seats of the party's Westminster MPs who refused to support the EU referendum they promised local voters.

The roadshow will be accompanied by a targetted local leafleting and letter-writing campaign by DM activists, and many other activities. Thousands of campaign leaflets have already been distributed in Liverpool, Totnes, Aylesbury, Welwyn Garden City, Bakewell, Stanford le Hope, Richmond-upon-Thames, Folkestone, Tunbridge Wells, Norwich, Bournemouth, Maidenhead and Havant.

Luton EU Referendum: The Results
21 October 2008

The DM has scored a resounding victory in the Luton EU referendum.

After a head-to-head battle with the European Movement, filmed for ITV's Tonight programme, 63% voted 'No' to the Lisbon Treaty and a ground-breaking 54% voted to come out of the EU altogether.

The programme documenting the event was shown on ITV1 and is typically watched by between 3 and 6 million viewers.

The result reflects major disatisfaction not just with the prospect of further decision-making being passed to the EU but also with the extent of the EU's current powers, its financial costs and the damaging effects of its activities.

Click here for the full results and more about the Luton referendum campaign on the DM blog.

Click here for more about our Break Free campaign.

The Luton EU Referendum 2008
19 October 2008

ITV's Tonight programme is staging an
EU referendum in Luton. The edition of the programme about the referendum, EU Decide, will be shown at 8pm, Monday 20 October.

Three thousand Luton residents have been given the chance to vote 'Yes' or 'No' to the Lisbon Treaty, and whether to stay in or come out of the EU.

See a video clip of the launch of campaigning on ITV's Anglia News.

The Democracy Movement is leading the 'No' side and supporting DM activists on the campaign trail have been the Labour MP for Luton North, Kelvin Hopkins, together with Thomas Rupp and Gayle Kinkead from the European Referendum Campaign.

Music producer and Pop Idol judge Pete Waterman has also pledged his support for a 'No' vote, as has Bob Crow - RMT union leader and chair of Trade Unionists Against the EU Constitution.

We're making the case that:

• The EU costs Luton. Britain pays far more to the EU than we get back - £6 billion more every year, from 2007, equivalent to £115 million every single week. This means that for any money a Luton project receives from the EU, our government has sent more than twice that amount to the EU in the first place. It's ridiculous for the 'Yes' lobby to claim that paying ten pounds to be given back less than a fiver is a 'good deal' we should be grateful for.
  
  The EU loses so much public money in fraud and mismanagement that its auditors have refused to approve the "majority" of its spending for what looks set to be 14 years in a row. Despite this, the government recently agreed to increase the amount we hand the EU by more than 60%.
  
  Only a 'No' vote will send the strong message that the scandal of this huge waste of public money has to stop. Support greater investment in local public services, not waste on the EU. Click here to read more about the recent EU budget deal.
  
  
• The Lisbon Treaty is about centralising even more important decisions in unelected Brussels institutions.
  The treaty will mean ...
  
  ... more interference by the EU in how we manage big issues like our energy supplies, National Health Service, criminal justice, sport, transport and much more. EU interference typically places heavy burdens on job-creating businesses and often has disastrous side-effects. This has been seen over EU laws on postal services and chemicals, action on high mobile phone charges for holiday-makers causing call charge hikes for pay-as-you-go users, and in how the EU-managed Common Fisheries Policy has decimated Europe's fishing resources and is causing an environmental disaster.
  
  ... a significant loss of influence over new EU laws due to increased majority voting in the Council of Ministers and a 30% cut in our ability to block EU laws we disagree with;
  
  ... the EU becoming more like a country in its own right with the creation of a full-time 'President of Europe' and foreign minister;
  
  ... more powers for the EU's embryonic police force Europol, including to 'implement' operational action. Europol will retain its immunity from criminal prosecution.
  
  Yet the Lisbon Treaty will do nothing to reform the EU's failing environmental policies, won't solve widespread waste and corruption and doesn't make the EU more democratic.
  
  Vote 'No' to say you want a better deal. Click here to read more about the Lisbon Treaty and its "substantially equivalent" predecessor - the EU Constitution.
  
  
• There is a better way. Trade and co-operation between European countries is perfectly possible without having to pass ever more decisions over our lives to remote EU institutions in Brussels. Trade between countries existed long before the EU and the idea that we would "say goodbye" to trade if the EU did not exist is irresponsible scare-mongering.
  
  Countries that have decided not to join the EU like Norway, Switzerland and Iceland successfully trade and co-operate with those countries that are EU members. More importantly, they can look beyond the EU to greater opportunities worldwide. Britain needs to co-operate with countries right around the world to solve common problems to do with the environment, the economy and the fight against crime. To do this successfully, we must first prevent ever more decision-making being centralised in Brussels.
  
  Click here to read more about our Vision Europe.

MPs reject a referendum on the
re-named EU Constitution Treaty
5 March 2008: updated 6 March 2008

A majority of MPs voted yesterday evening against a referendum on the
re-named EU Constitution Treaty, despite having promised one at the last election.

A Conservative amendment for a referendum was defeated by a majority of 63 votes - 311 votes to 248. A second referendum amendment, put down by rebel Labour MPs, was defeated by a majority of 64 votes.

Click here and enter your postcode on our dedicated ReferendumList website to find out whether your MP voted for or against a referendum.

The way that this treaty has been forced through Parliament lacks all legitimacy. Government promises of a public vote, of 'line-by-line scrutiny' and then of plentiful time to debate the treaty have all been broken. Large swathes of vital powers the treaty gifts to remote EU institutions - such as in defence, borders, future treaty revision and voting weights - have been blocked from Parliamentary debate.

The verdict of the cross-party House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee that the Treaty is "substantially equivalent" to the EU Constitution has also been completely ignored by the Government and large numbers of MPs.

Most serious of all, various polls show that the Government has utterly failed to convince the public that the Lisbon Treaty is not the EU Constitution re-named, yet have still refused to honour their clear manifesto promise of a public vote.

In the vote, the bulk of the Conservatives were supported by
29 Labour MPs, 15 Liberal Democrats, the Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties and some independents. But this was not enough to overcome the Government's majority.

A breakdown of how those referendum rebels we had identified actually behaved during the vote is as follows:

- of the 29 Labour MPs we had recorded as supporting a referendum, three did not vote and three voted against a referendum. One who voted against actually supported a referendum amendment at the Second Reading of the treaty Bill, and voted against its Second Reading, so his switch is inexplicable. The remaining two who voted against a referendum have evidently been writing misleading letters to their constituents stating that they would support a public vote. Six additional Labour MPs voted in support of a referendum.

- of the 10 Lib Dem MPs we had recorded as supporting a referendum, one abstained and one did not vote. An additional seven voted in support of a treaty referendum, totalling fifteen rebels against Nick Clegg's policy.

The Democracy Movement has responded to the vote by announcing the launch of an 'Integrity Fund' to finance local campaigning in marginal constituencies between now and the next general election, which could now be just over a year away.

The fund will target MPs of all parties who have voted against the referendum they promised at the last election, and will finance the distribution of thousands of leaflets, advertising and other campaign activities in each target constituency. Funds have already been pledged to cover more than a dozen constituencies.

"Those MPs who hoped this issue would go away once they had voted contrary to their election promises have made a huge miscalculation.

"On the basis of how MPs have voted on a Treaty referendum relative to their election promises, between now and the next general election we intend to ensure local voters know who they can and cannot trust."

After the remaining stages in the Commons, the Bill ratifying the Lisbon Treaty will move to the House of Lords where there will be further debates about a referendum.

If the Lords pass a referendum amendment, the issue could be put to the vote once again in the Commons.

The matter of this treaty and broken promises of a referendum is very far from over.