Wise words on the EU Reform Treaty

My old English teacher, a wonderful man called Mr Phelps, used to say "Give that man a chocolate mouse", when someone came up with a clever answer in class.

The chocolate mouse was never forthcoming, but we were nonetheless delighted with the accolade if it was directed at us.

Well, this week's theoretical chocolate mouse deserves to go to Richard Gadsden who wrote this remarkably perceptive comment on Liberal Democrat Voice, regarding the EU Reform Treaty:

The European Union has had a constitution since the Treaty of Rome. It’s ludicrous to suggest that this is some new thing.

The problem with Giscard’s constitution was that it didn’t change anything; it just rewrote the existing one from treatyese to constitutionese. There were a couple of minor amendments, but that’s what they were - minor. The Treaty of Lisbon is essentially those minor amendments rewritten back into treatyese instead of constitutionese.

Eurosceptics keep getting offended by things that were in the Treaty of Rome - and then pretending that they are some new innovation.

The EU is a constituted structure that is superior to the nation-state. Always has been. It already is a federation - has been since the Treaty of Rome. The so-called federal superstate is something I’ve lived in my entire life - and I’m in my mid-thirties.

If you don’t like it, propose changing it, or propose leaving it, but so-far-and-no-further does require you to actually have a clue how far so far is. And you don’t.

Superb! And, because Richard mentioned the "F-word", we ought to add the next comment from
MatGB:

I agree with pretty much everything Richard has just said except “it’s already a federation”. Byt most definitions of what a federation is, it isn’t. It’s more closely a confederation with some extra bits, my old lecturer in EU politics called it a “confederal consociation” which is good enough.

I’d like it to be a proper Publish Postdevolved federation with proper democratic accountability at each level and as little as possible decided at Brussels, but that would require a proper rational informed debate. Which we might manage to get after we have the membership referendum.