Jon Bright (London, OK): Writing in the Telegraph today, Philip Johnston is right to point out that all the noise made over the EU treaty is as much about our constitution as about anything else.
It is what the row about the European constitution is all about: what control do we have over our own destiny; and how do we call those who govern us to account?
But his arguments about the EU are absurdly defeatist. He concludes:
This week, Jack Straw, the Justice Minister, will deliver a major speech about whether the UK should have a new Bill of Rights and, possibly, a written constitution. However, since successive governments have surrendered so many of the sovereign powers which they – and, by extension, we – once possessed, this is an increasingly futile exercise.
Our most fundamental right is to hold those who govern us to account, something understood, if not achieved, by the Putney radicals. But when so much of our law is decided by people beyond any influence that we can exert, then the old constitutional order really has broken down.
His argument - that our sovereignty has been surrendered to Brussels - is a well rehearsed one often repeated by the anti-Europe camp. Repeated so often, in fact, that one almost forgets that the EU is an institution we play a major part in and have a major say over. The sense of the EU as a hostile, invading organisation (rather than something that is part of ourselves) is reinforced by Brown's presentation of the treaty. When he talks about red-lines and preserving our national interests, he reinforces the idea that we are under threat from a monolithic constitutional bureaucracy.
So what to do? Well - we at least have to start from the basis that we can do something. As I've written before, I would be pro junking the current European treaty and starting again from the basis of meaningful public involvement in the process (if that sounds like wishful thinking then consider what that says about the nature of our democracy). If that involvement came as part of a wider discussion about a British constitution, then so much the better. As Matthew Parris wrote on Saturday, our system of government can always be changed - nothing is ever written in stone. I think it's important that, on some level, people recognise that they have this power, and are able to wield it.
