Paul Sykes on the EU constitution

As Europe's leaders gathered in Rome to sign the new EU constitution seven politicians and business leaders gave their thoughts on what it could mean for Britain.

Charles Kennedy Lib Dem leader "Nothing in constitution can force Britain into single currency" Jack Straw Foreign Secretary "EU constitution strengthens role of national governments" Caroline Lucas Green Party MEP "It marks a dark day in the history of European Union"

Michael Ancram Shadow foreign secretary "Countries have constitutions; nation states make treaties" Roger Knapman UKIP leader "Successive Labour and Tory governments signed away British rights" Lord Haskins Businessman and Labour adviser "EU has delivered unprecedented peace to western Europe "

Paul Sykes
Businessman and
Tory supporter

"Brussels is a
government trying
to build a nation

Paul Sykes

Mr Sykes is a vehement opponent of the constitution

Tony Blair says the battle for the European constitution will be a fight between myth and reality. On this much, at least, he and I can agree.

But it is Mr Blair, and the advocates of ever closer political and economic union in Europe, who are deploying the weapons of myth, not us their opponents.

And I'll tell you why. It is because the architects of what I call the "European project" know that if they were ever to tell the people the truth, their grandiose designs would be rejected by the citizens of Europe.

This isn't something new. Remember 1975? Back then, the people of Britain thought they were joining a Common Market. But that was just a convenient myth.

The reality, written into the small print, was very different: this made it clear that the real goal was not a Common Market but a common country.

But who reads the small print?

Chamberlain?

The same has been true of every European treaty since.

From the Single European Act to Maastricht and Amsterdam, our political leaders have tried to present each giant step down the road to a federal Europe as a victory for British common sense: a Europe of nations, not a nation of Europe.

Remember poor old John Major coming back from Maastricht like Chamberlain returning from Munich declaring "game, set and match?"

That was meant to spell the end of the drive to federalism. It wasn't even a pause.

Now we have the EU Constitution. And once again our political leaders are telling us that it is a victory for Britain, a triumph for Whitehall diplomacy.

Vague yet dense?

It isn't. Weighing in at over 200-pages, this turgid, sleep-inducing tome is a testimony to the power and influence of the Brussels bureaucracy.

How a document so vague and yet so dense can ever hope to bring the European Union "closer to its citizens" is beyond my comprehension.

I'd laugh if its implications it weren't so serious.

Unlike the American constitution, which was designed to limit the power of the state, the European draft is designed to maximise its powers and influence.

This constitution will make the European Union more remote not less, more intrusive in our lives not less, more fiendishly complex not less.

Supremacy?

With this constitution the EU will have the powers of a state giant, but the democratic stature of a pygmy. Is that what we want?

There is nothing in this document which will cut the 97,000 pages of accumulated EU laws and regulations that now dictate how we are governed and how we do business with our trading partners.

If the British people voted for this constitution in a referendum, they would set in stone the supremacy of EU laws over those made by national parliaments.

In doing so, they would be ensuring that if the EU applied to join itself it would fail on democratic grounds.

That is why I will be campaigning during the referendum for an emphatic 'No' vote.

Heart of the matter

I want to send a signal to the political establishment in Britain - as we did during the recent European elections - that they are dangerously out of touch with the people they are meant to represent and serve.

This campaign, like the last, will be an information campaign: a myth-breaking campaign.

It will show that you can be both a good European and yet opposed to the creation of a federal super-state.

For me, what is happening in the European Union is not a peripheral issue - it goes to the very heart of what it means to be a self-governing democracy.

For me, the referendum on the EU constitution will be a referendum on the question: who governs Britain?

Common country?

I will do my utmost to get a 'No' vote in the referendum. And then, having won the 'No' vote, I will ask that the British people be given - for the first time ever - the chance to vote on whether they want to remain as fee-paying members of a club which arrogantly ignores their wishes.

Britain is a nation that has a government. Brussels is a government that is attempting to build a new nation.

It has its own flag and anthem, its own parliament and president, and now it seeks its own constitution.

We the people should make sure that the EU fails in its attempt to create a country called Europe.

We should reject the constitution and ask for more free trade with our neighbours on the continent which is what the British people voted for in 1975: a Common Market not a common country.