I like your questions.

The pity is that the Parliamentary system has failed to give the electorate any power of decision over successive changes to Britain's relationship with the EU.

The main parties have conspired to bury the EU as an electoral issue.

When EU issues have become important at election time the parties have used the prospect of a referendum to avoid or defer serious discussion. Of course what particularly sickens about Lisbon is that the commitment to a referendum was withdrawn.

I hope I am proved wrong, but I see little sign that Cameron wishes to open up Britain's future in the EU as a political issue. If we are offered a vote, it will be to approve sweet nothings, like the Irish.

Parliament has become a shadow of its former self. As the scope of Parliamentary lawmaking and scrutiny has shrivelled, so has its authority and respect. Parliament, and through it the British people, is sovereign no longer.

Posted by: Tim Skinner at November 4, 2009 11:54 AM

I do not like your questions, for the simple reason that the assumptions behind them are fraudulent.

On Q2 - if we remain in the EU, there is no need for any further treaties, since the Lisbon constitution is explicitly self-amending. Therefore, to offer a referendum on any future treaty is holding out the hope of something that does not, cannot, exist. There will be no more treaties; people who answered "yes" to this would have been deceived and duped into thinking some sort of "middle way" exists. It does not.

On Q3 - the British (provincial) government can negotiate all it wants; the other member states will simply say "No". And what then? Exactly nothing, no change. There is nothing to negotiate, the EU powers have made this totally clear: they have no interest in re-opening any of these old sores.

So only Q1 is a realistic one, and it should be only one on any future referendum. The others merely perpetuate the lies and deceits which have brought us this low.

Posted by: Andrew Duffin at November 18, 2009 12:59 PM