Call for referendum on new EU treaty

8:24am Monday 4th February 2008

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COUNCILLORS in Bolton will be urged to crank up the pressure on the Government to hold a referendum on the new EU Treaty.

Conservative group leader Cllr John Walsh will put a motion to the next full Bolton Council meeting asking the council if it will vote to tell the Government "to honour its general election manifesto pledge to hold the referendum".

Whitehall had promised to hold a referendum on the EU Constitution, which was abandoned in 2005 after being rejected by voters in France and The Netherlands.

But it is refusing to hold a referendum on the new treaty which has replaced it, rejecting Conservative claims that the document is largely the same as the constitution.

Provisions in the treaty include scrapping national vetoes, giving the European Court of Justice more powers and effectively creating an EU foreign minister.

The abandoned constitution contained plans for a European flag and anthem and they have now been dropped, but the Conservatives fear the UK Government and courts will lose powers to Brussels.

Cllr Walsh said: "I hope councils like Bolton will put enough pressure on the Government to make it realise it has a moral obligation to hold this referendum. The people of Bolton ought to be able to vote on an issue so fundamental to their future.

"I think this treaty comes perilously close to putting us on the road to a European super-state. It will take more powers away from the UK."

But deputy Labour group and council leader, Cllr Linda Thomas, hit back, describing Cllr Walsh as a "Little-Englander".

She said: "Gordon Brown has done great things for the economy and I have every faith he has made the provisions needed to protect our constitution in this treaty."

Liberal Democrat group leader, Cllr Roger Hayes, said "Having made the promise of a referendum the Government should honour it."