"Britain is different"

In an interview with the Belgian newspaper Le Soir, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Juncker, made the following statement, regarding the value of public debate on the new EU "treaty":

I am astonished at those who are afraid of the people: one can always explain that what is in the interest of Europe is in the interests of our countries.

Britain is different. Of course there will be transfers of sovereignty. But would I be intelligent to draw the attention of public opinion to this fact?

So, Herr Juncker strongly supports public discussion of the "treaty" in all of the EU's 27 member states, bar one.

Why does he feel that the British public should be singled out for inferior treatment? Well, I suppose treating Britain worse than other countries is pretty much par for the course for the EU, but that doesn't really explain Juncker's objection to allowing us to know the truth about this further loss of sovereignty. Rather, it appears that he feels confident that the other 26 EU member states can be bullied or cajoled into accepting the "treaty", even if they know the truth. The British public, however, cannot be. So, what Juncker really feels about public debate on the EU "treaty", is that he's all for it if he thinks that the public can be tricked into supporting his point of view, but against it if the public cannot be tricked. If the British public were allowed a debate and a referendum they would reject the "treaty", and the goal of creating a United States of Europe (something of which Juncker is a devout advocate) would be derailed once again. And in the EU, democracy comes in a poor second when set against the dream of the USE.

Our own government seems to subscribe to Juncker's plan of lying to us in the hope of getting us to accept the "treaty". One of the last of many lies told by Tony Blair during the course of his premiership was the claim that the "treaty" is in Britain's interests, and Gordon Brown looks set to deny the public a referendum on this latest sell-out of our country. Neither of them has had the guts to acknowledge that, as the EU commissioner Margot Wallström has said, the "treaty" is "essentially the same proposal as the old constitution".

Of course, none of this should surprise anyone. We were taken into the EU on the basis of a lie (that all we were doing was entering a common market, not a political union) and we've been lied to at every turn ever since. We have no reason to expect our politicians to behave any more honourably this time.