first thoughts
WORKERS, JULY 2003 ISSUE
The Daily Mail's poll on whether we should have a referendum on the proposed EU Constitution received 1.7 million responses. 89.8% said that the final decision should be put to the British people. An ICM poll of 54,973 people in 172 town centres across Britain, also on 12 June, confirmed that result: 88% for.
So the Mail poll, whatever criticisms some make of it, expresses pretty accurately what the majority of the British people actually want! If the Independent's editor doesn't like the way that the Daily Mail did it, the answer is simple - let's have a national referendum!
Meanwhile the government is pressing ahead with its plans for referendums - on regional assemblies, of all things! Ministers claimed an "overwhelming case" after getting no more than 3,329 people, out of 14,000,000, to back referendums in Yorkshire and Humberside, the North East and the North West. So we are to get referendums we don't want, but not on the core constitution of Britain.
This Blair government wants to de-recognise Britain as a sovereign, independent nation. (Hence, no doubt, its rushed plans to introduce a euro-like Justice Ministry and Supreme Court.) We must act to de-recognise this anti-British government, and get rid of it.