Dear editor,
The Prime Minister promised us ‘Treaty change that I’ll be putting in place before the referendum’ (Daily Telegraph, 5 January 2014). President Hollande quickly replied, “No revision of the Treaties is planned.”
In 2015 the Prime Minister promised ‘fundamental change’ in our relationship with the EU, the return of powers to Britain and a change in the EU’s immigration policy. Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament, told us it’s ‘not possible’ to change our relationship to the EU and that Britain ‘belongs’ to the EU.
When the Prime Minister went round Europe’s capitals trying to get the deal he wanted to keep us in the EU, he got nothing. As his long-time friend Steve Hilton commented, “I think that the demands were relatively modest and even those modest demands were treated with total contempt.” Mr Cameron’s failure proved that we have no influence in the EU and that the EU cannot and will not change.
The Remain camp is now, all of a sudden, talking about changing the EU’s policy on the free movement of labour. An EU spokesperson has already responded that any concessions on this are ‘totally, fully and entirely ruled out’. A senior Christian Democrat in Germany confirmed this, saying “it’s absolutely out of the question …”
We have no control over immigration because inside the EU we have no sovereignty, no power to decide our own policies. We cannot aid our steel industry because we have no sovereignty. We cannot adopt any economic policy other than George Osborne’s ‘austerity’ – depression – policy because we have no sovereignty.
Yours sincerely,
Will Podmore
