Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-09-15-Speech-2-157"
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"en.20090915.18.2-157"2
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"Mr President, I should like to ask Mr Barroso: why the unseemly haste? Why change the rules of the game? Why does your re-election for five years as Commission President have to take place now? Well, of course, the answer is Ireland and the Lisbon Treaty. The plan is to show everybody that the ship is steady, that everything is going well, that all the Irish have to do is to correct their rather silly little mistake – and indeed your working document is written as if the Treaty were already ratified.
But there is a rather important point being missed here: you have been the boss; you have been the governor for the last five years. You have been in charge of overseeing that the Constitutional Treaty was pushed through. But things went wrong, did they not? The French said ‘no’ and the Dutch said ‘no’, but you refused to accept these democratic results and you took part, with many Members of this Parliament, in the absolute deceit that is the Lisbon Treaty.
You told us that the flag and the anthem would be dropped, but I have not seen much evidence of that. No, you rebranded it as the Lisbon Treaty but you could not stop the Irish from voting, and the Irish said ‘no’. But once again you could not accept a democratic result, oh no – the Irish have to vote again!
Where in all of this, given that you are in charge, is the principle of democratic accountability? Well, you might argue that there is not much democracy left in the European Union now, but there should at least be some degree of accountability, and I would argue that, on the eve of what may well be a fourth rejection of this Treaty, the one that kills it off for good, this Parliament should not install you as Commission President for the next five years until we have that result.
If the Irish people say ‘no’ for a second time, then we simply have to respect what they say, and you have to go as President of the Commission. It would happen in any other walk of life, it would happen in any business, and I suggest that it really ought to happen in European politics.
And what about your record? You have overseen the Lisbon Agenda: it was sunk without trace way before the credit crunch hit us. Now you are telling us we have to have a commissioner for immigration, taking away from nation states their most basic right to decide who comes to live, work and settle in their countries. You have pushed on with your obsession with climate change, which has led to massive costs and no material benefits whatsoever. But, above all, it is the fact that you ignored that Irish referendum, that you said the Irish cannot stop this Treaty: for that reason alone, I simply cannot support you.
But it is possible that I have got this horribly wrong. It is possible that you are the right man after all, because yesterday in the
a poll asked: If Lisbon goes through without a referendum, would you want Britain to stay part of the European Union? And by 43% to 26% – for the first time in over 30 years – a massive majority of Britons said they want us to leave this European Union if Mr Barroso gets his way. So maybe I got it wrong: maybe you are the right man. We will see.
Yes, he is very happy to go!"@en1
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"(Applause and laughter from certain quarters)"1
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