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Press Release from Nirj Deva DL MEP |
13th
January 2005 |
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South
East MEP Says "No" To European Constitution |
All 28 of the British Conservatives in the European Parliament voted
in Strasbourg today (12 Jan) to reject the proposed EU Constitution,
and many of them attended an anti-constitution demonstration outside
the Parliament building (photo).
 137
MEPs voted against, and a further 40 abstained, so even though it
was approved by the Parliament, it was not supported by 35% of the
Members.
Nirj Deva, MEP for Bucks, pictured left, with Daniel Hannan (SE) and
Geoffrey van Orden (East Anglia) said:
"I heard a lot of fine words during the debate about "bringing
Europe’s Institutions closer to its citizens," "greater
transparency" "more democracy" etc. etc. but in my judgement this
constitution would do the opposite. It would centralise more powers,
make institutions more remote and autocratic, drain even more power
away from national parliaments, and lead us inevitably toward a
European State.
"This is not the Conservative vision of Europe. We are true
Europeans in the sense that we recognise and value the shared
history and culture of Europe. We want to cooperate fully in the
field of trade, investment, transport, and all the other things that
matter to our people. What we are against is giving more and more
power to EU bureaucrats who have already shown themselves incapable
of controlling fraud and waste, and cannot even get their accounts
audited.
"This constitution cannot come into force unless the British people
vote for it in a referendum, and we do not think they will. We
believe that the nation state is the best unit of government, with a
parliament which can be dismissed by the voters if they get it
wrong. The stealthy transfer of powers to the Eurocrats has already
gone too far, and we want to see some of the key policies, such as
fisheries, transferred back to the UK Parliament." |
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