The Island’s MP Andrew Turner has called for the new Prime Minister Gordon Brown to keep the promise made in Labour’s 2005 election manifesto that stated ‘We will put the EU Constitution to the British people in a referendum and campaign whole-heartedly for a ‘Yes’ vote’. The new Treaty which was agreed in Tony Blair’s final week of office hands over key powers in foreign policy and criminal law to European bureaucrats and for the first time gives a single legal identity to the European Union and a permanent president.

Other EU leaders have publicly acknowledged that the new treaty is fundamentally the same as the EU Constitution which was thrown out by France and Holland. Bertie Ahern, the Irish Taoiseach said: “They haven’t changed the substance – 90 per cent is still there.” And German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated: “The fundamentals of the constitution have been maintained in large part.”

Mr Turner said:
“If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then to my mind it’s a duck and no amount of legal gobbledegook changes that. Gordon Brown launched his leadership campaign by promising ‘a different type of politics, a more open and honest dialogue’. He said that ‘Government must be more open and accountable’. Now he is Prime Minister he has the perfect opportunity to begin his premiership by asking the British people whether they want to hand over more powers to Europe”.

END Contact : Andrew Turner’s office 01983 530808