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The Alternative to an EU Referendum is Civil Disobedience

Adrian Hilton says today's politicians will come to regret not listening to the will of the people.

By Adrian Hilton

23 Oct 2011, 15:27

I suppose, as a menial member of the Conservative Party, I am one of the ‘grassroots’. For most of my politically-aware life I have advocated and fought for a referendum on the issue of the UK’s membership of the EU, even to the point in 1997 of standing against John Maples in Stratford-upon-Avon for Jimmy Goldsmith’s Referendum Party. Whilst I managed to secure for them one of the highest turnouts in the country, it was, of course, nowhere near enough to dent the majority of a safe Conservative seat. But at least I tried. After being reprimanded by Lord Freeman and sent to the cooler for a few years by William Hague, I eventually made it onto the Conservative Party’s Approved List of Candidates. And I’ve been on and off that List now three times, but that’s another story.

In a true democracy, it is the people who decide which powers to lend to their leaders. In a false democracy, it is the leaders who decide which freedoms to lend to the people. A decision is taken democratically if the answer to the question ‘Who takes it?’ is ‘more or less everybody’, in contrast to decisions taken only by those best qualified to take them, as in meritocracy, or those taken by only one person, as in autocracy. A decision is taken democratically if it is reached by debate and compromise. Democracy also describes the spirit in which a decision is made, being concerned with the interests of all, instead of only a faction or party. It demands that sovereignty should rest in the hands of the people and be exercised by their representatives, to whom the Executive should be responsible. It is a fragile system of government, and can only work if people share enough in common to feel part of one community, so that minorities can accept majority decisions and live with the consequences. If, on the other hand, political differences are intensified by divergences in language, nationality and culture, then minorities will regard majority rule as oppressive and are likely to rebel against it, and in so doing threaten civil peace, as we are presently witnessing in Greece.

It is becoming increasingly evident that we no longer live in a democracy. Yes, we elect those who represent us, but many of them have very low opinions of the ‘grassroots’, almost to the point of contempt. Yesterday, on Twitter, Louise Mensch MP referred to ‘the fallacy of the "grassroots = right" argument’. She patronisingly accused euro-sceptics of being ‘Labour’s little helpers’, and made it perfectly clear, without any empirical evidence, that she possessed some higher knowledge of the ‘true grassroots’ who are ‘far more progressive’ than the recalcitrants who read ConservativeHome (who are presumably, in her superior judgement, regressive).

With all three main parties apparently intent on whipping and bullying their MPs to vote against an EU referendum, it is manifest that the problem is deeper than oligarchical governance from Brussels or Strasbourg. But this comes as no surprise. A former member of the European Commission, Claude Cheysson, once stated that the presently constituted European Union ‘could only have been created in the absence of democracy’. Another former Commissioner, Raymond Barre, said: ‘I never understood why public opinion about European ideas should be taken into account’. This is the precise Mensch philosophy. There is, she avers, ‘no constitutional crisis’, and so we ‘grassroots’ should leave it to the elected experts to exercise their judgement.  
 
No constitutional crisis? The EU is about to move towards trans-national economic governance. That is not only a matter for eurozone members, but for the whole EU, because it impacts upon each and every member. Doubtless a new treaty will be required, but not one which will trigger anything as inconvenient as a referendum. We have seen this contempt time and again: in order to ratify the Maastricht Treaty, Belgium suspended her parliament’s democratic process, thus avoiding debate, scrutiny and consultation. Italy suspended the powers of her parliament in order to force through the budgets (or creative accounting) required in order to fulfil the EMU convergence criteria. Greece manifestly deceived her electorate, and it has been observed in Denmark, France and Ireland that when a referendum is held which yields the ‘wrong’ answer, the question is asked again, again (and, in the case of Denmark, again) in order to elicit the ‘correct’ response.

The pesky ‘grassroots’ seemingly don’t know a damned thing in any country.

The treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam and Lisbon have incrementally created a one-party state – a state which may comprise 27 nations, but in which any political dissent expressed by any political party or elected government that goes against the tenets of that Union will lead to that government being pilloried and their electorate deprived of their democratic rights (and billions of their euros). This, of course, makes nonsense of the oft-repeated claim that the Union ‘is founded on the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.’ As former Conservative leader Michael (Lord) Howard wrote in The Times in 1997: ‘It does not take much imagination to see how (Article F.1 of the Amsterdam Treaty) could be used to disarm the veto. If one country were preventing the others from adopting a measure which they regard as vital, Article F.1 could be used as a pretext to suspend its voting rights.’ In the event, UK vetoes didn’t need to be disarmed: our elected representatives just gave them away. In tandem with this goes the repeated observations on the consequences of the EU-wide criminal justice system Corpus Juris. It is entirely conceivable that the criminal law may eventually be used to stifle dissent and opposition. It is the rights which are removed in times of freedom which are most needed when freedom is under threat.

Tony Benn once observed: ‘One reason that we do not have many riots in Britain is that people can have a say. Over many years I have said, “Do not riot; vote. You can defeat the government in that way and you will achieve what you want by peaceful means.” People do not realise that democracy hangs on a very slender, delicate thread. If the line is broken and people realise that no matter for whom they vote in an election, decisions will be taken by the European Union, I do not say they will riot, but we could not argue against action taken directly by them because there was no democratic route for the solution to their problem.’

Despite all the assurances and cast-iron guarantees we have been given by successive ministers and leaders of all political parties, the European Commission and Parliament are transforming the European Union into a single political entity – a United States of Europe. The European oligarchy is sovereign over so many aspects of British life that general elections have become nothing but a piece of theatre. British politicians like Louise Mensch are right to this extent: she is not elected to represent the views of her constituents, for we have no tradition of direct democracy. But she is quite wrong to insist that she exercises her own judgement on these matters: she is a mere delegate of Brussels, and by refusing the British people a referendum on this fundamental constitutional issue, she helps to shield the EU government from the wrath of the electorate. In due course, civil society will learn to ignore the law and EU institutions, and will turn, instead, to civil disobedience; for other than capitulation, this is increasingly the EU citizen’s only option.