What has Her Maj signed?

[R1Geezer]

According to the front page of the Express, Brown has "forced" the Queen to sign away our soveriegnty in "secret". Anyone know what she has signed? Obviously it's not totally a secret! More detail? I thought we where already subjugated by the Eurocrats, so what else is there to sign over?

[Ethel]

A link would have been helpful

http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/52947

That is the way our Constitution works - the Queen cannot refuse to sign the documents. She was not held at gunpoint by Brown.

If you read the article you refer to, it is The Lisbon Treaty.

More info, with excellent links, here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/690135 3.stm

[R1Geezer]

thanks, Ethel.

But I thought the paddies blew all that out of the water the other week. So are we signeing in leu of some sort of rule bypass scenario?

[jno]

not exactly, R1Geezer. All countries have to sign if the treaty is to come into force in Europe. Ireland is the only one that bothered to ask its citizens what they thought. So at the moment the treaty, though passed by other individual countries (not all of them - I think the Czechs also have their doubts) can't take effect till the Irish support it. Whether this means the Irish will be ordered to do so at gunpoint I don't know, but I expect the referendum there will be rerun.

[R1Geezer]

So we are relying on the paddies to save us!

[jno]

yes. Bribe an Irishman today. What might happen is that the Irish might be offered some sort of opt-outs to remain in the union, as Brits were offered a cashback years ago.

[obNOXious]

I'm here. Please leave all donations in a brown paper bag in the bin by Macdonalds.
Thank you.

[Theland1]

What happened to democracy?
(will you take a cheque Nox?)

[Gromit]

At the last election, everyone had the chance to vote for an MP. A majority of those elected MPs voted for the Treaty. Democracy.

[Theland1]

C'mon Gromit. You're playing devils advocate.
Writing one solitary, "X", on a voting slip, to decide on the multitude of issues that affect us all, may be the best system we have got, but such a huge departure from our constitution should have been a choice made by the people, not in a second hand way.
The evidence is that throughout Europe, the people ill reject creeping federalism wherever they have had the opportunity to voice their opinion.
Our system is flawed, and Brown and Co lack integrity.

[Gromit]

Theland1

Europe is not very high on the majority of people priorities. A few UKiP nutters are obsessed by it but nobody votes for them.

The Conservatives stood at the 2005 General Election saying they opposed the EU Constitution. They were the only one of the three main parties to oppose it. They lost.

[david1702198]

ireland isnt the only country to reject it, holland rejected it also

[jno]

Holland and France rejected an earlier version, as I recall. But yes, the British voting public at the last election had a chance to vote out the government that had gone into Iraq, that wanted ID cards for all, and that wanted the EU constitution; and they didn't. I suppose they're all sorry now that Michael Howard isn't PM; but that's democracy.

[rov1200]

Don't trust reading right wing propaganda from the Daily Express. You have a brain, use it!

[Theland1]

So those reading right wing papers either don't have brains, or if they have they don't use them.
On the other hand, readers of left wing papers have large brains, and, they use them.

Oh, I see.

[jno]

penny dropped at last, has it, Theland? Enlightenment comes slowly to some.

[Theland1]

I've taken the red pill.
I can see the Matrix.
I'll order a Gruniard.

[Gromit]

Do you think the words Brown makes Queen sign... is misleading?

Brown did not force her to do this against her will. She has no option to sign anything the elected Government puts before her. That is her function.

It implies the Queen did not want to sign, and there is no evidence that that is true.

[Theland1]

So he didn't say to her, "Your brains or your signature on this document .. NOW!

And she didn't say, "One has made one an offer one can't refuse ... hasn't one?"

[Gromit]

The House of Commons debated extensively the Lisbon Treaty and voted to approve it on the 18th of March.

The House of Lords debated it extensively, and they approved it on 18th June, It was granted Royal Assent the next day.

The document was drawn up and ready for the Queen to sign this week.

The Express describes this process as
"Under a cloak of secrecy, the Government finally ratified the Lisbon Treaty earlier this week"

[Theland1]

Well I hand it to you Gromit, that Express headline and article is totally out of order.
Misleading in fact.
I'm glad I'm a leftie.