Yet Another Broken Promise

Manifesto - noun (pl. manifestos) a public declaration of policy and aims.

-The Oxford English Dictionary

"We will put it (the European Constitution) to the British people in a referendum and campaign whole-heartedly for a ‘Yes’ vote to keep Britain a leading nation in Europe."

-The Labour Party Manifesto 2005. P.84.

In British Politics, a general election manifesto outlines the policies that a political party will seek to pursue if they are elected to government; this document forms the basis of the government’s democratic mandate. Prior to the last General Election, all three major political parties made an explicit commitment to hold a referendum on the European Constitution.

In the House of Commons yesterday, MPs had an opportunity to honour the pledge they made in their election manifestoes; the majority of Labour MPs, including Karen Buck, declined to do so. Conservative MPs demonstrated that they alone would uphold their promise to the British people by voting overwhelmingly in favour of holding a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

We must not allow the terms of this debate to become blurred; it is an issue of trust, of honouring promises and of treating the British people with the respect that they deserve. Yesterday’s decision in the House of Commons left voters feeling cheated and further reinforced the air of cynicism that surrounds politics today.

Gordon Brown insists that there is no need to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty because it no longer has the characteristics of a constitution and does not represent 'a fundamental change' in Britain's relationship with Europe. This argument was utterly undermined by Jack Straw who, in his role as Labour’s Foreign Secretary, informed Parliament that:

"Those points (The creation of a Foreign Minister and a European President) are central to the European constitutional treaty, and of course I see no prospect of their being brought into force, save through the vehicle of a constitutional treaty."

It goes without saying that the Lisbon Treaty would see the creation of both a European Foreign Minister and a European President.

Personally, I agree with David Cameron’s comments at yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Question Time that: "If it LOOKS like the constitution, if it SOUNDS like the constitution, that’s because it IS the constitution."

The one and only one reason why Labour refuses to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is that they cannot face the prospect of losing. This remarkable insight into our government’s attitude towards democracy is yet another damning indictment of Gordon Brown’s Premiership and is indicative of the broken promises that have characterised Labour’s decade in power.