Lisbon is a hammer blow to freedom and democracy

The battle against the Lisbon Treaty has been lost. The capitulation of the Czech Republic means full ratification is now imminent.  

Members of the European elite are exultant but the self­determination of the EU’s member states is going down the drain. Swathes of political issues previously subject to national vetoes will now be decided upon by majority voting in Brussels.

The deeply contentious post of President of the European Council will be created, along with a European High Representative for Foreign Affairs in charge of 100 embassies across the world. Pressure will grow for Britain’s permanent seat on the UN Security Council to pass to Brussels.

Despite promising to hold a referendum on these profound constitutional changes, the British political elite has not done so. Instead it has cynically betrayed a thousand years of freedom, insulting the memory of millions of Britons who gave their lives in the fight against European totalitarianism.

As the governing party, Labour is overwhelmingly culpable for this surrender. But Nick Clegg’s quisling Liberal Democrats also failed to back a referendum when the matter was raised in the Commons despite having pledged one in their last election manifesto.

Today it is the Conservatives who are being pilloried for finally admitting defeat in their battle to stop Lisbon. 

Yet it is the fault of Gordon Brown, not David Cameron, that our democracy is being dismantled.

Mr Cameron will today set out a new post­-Lisbon European policy. The immense challenge facing him is to find a way to repatriate some of the powers surrendered during the Labour years.

He must also guarantee to pass a law requiring all future European treaties to be put to a referendum in Britain. It was just such a clause in Ireland’s constitution that thwarted the federalists until they made the Irish vote for a second time. The Brussels elite must know that there would be no point in trying to strong arm the British people in that way. 

If Mr Cameron plays his cards right we can still hope that Lisbon will be remembered as the high watermark of federalism rather than a mere stepping stone on the route towards a fully­ fledged United States of Europe. The fightback must begin at once.