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		At last! Good news from Brussels! Lincolnshire Echo - December 15 2003 It was wonderful last Saturday (13th Dec) to hear that the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) of EU heads of government in Brussels to agree the EU Constitution had broken up in disarray. The proposed Constitution was a huge threat to Britain's independence and self-determination, and we can heave a collective sigh of relief to see it kicked into touch. But there is a twinge of regret, too. The talks failed over the issue of voting weights. Important as these are, they are really no more than a technicality. The real issue is whether European nations wish to give up the right to manage their own affairs -- and this seems to have been accepted in principle. I would have been happier if the Constitution had fallen because heads of government felt that integration had gone too far already, and they wanted no more of it. Whether or not Blair gets his "red lines", the whole draft Constitution is a huge advance in EU integration, when most of us feel that we have too much integration already. We in the Conservative Party, for example, are committed to taking back control of our fisheries from the EU. Michael Howard says this will be a "Day One" task for an incoming Conservative government. Many of us feel that other areas -- including Foreign Aid and agricultural policy -- should also be brought home. (Even if Blair gets his Red Lines, by the way, they are likely to be over-ruled by the European Court as unconstitutional). I was shocked over the weekend, to hear government minister Ruth Kelly on Any Questions, claiming that the Constitution was "good for Britain", and (she said) "returned powers to member states". I can only assume that she hasn't read the draft, because if she has, her remarks are a downright, bare-faced, shameful lie. The Constitution hands over powers to Brussels for economic, industrial and employment policy, justice and home affairs, foreign policy and defence, asylum and immigration, transport and energy (including North Sea oil and gas) -- just about everything except health and education, leaving Westminster little more power than a County Council. And the so-called Charter of Fundamental Rights transfers huge areas of policy out of any sort of democratic oversight, into the hands of unelected and unaccountable judges in the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. Last week I made a quick visit to Prague in the Czech Republic (which is joining the EU next year) to confer with Czech like-minded politicians. Czech President Vaclav Klaus sums up the Constitution: "The attempt to impose a European constitution was a radical step on the way to creating a European super- state. Anyone who did not know that, knew nothing". Even more remarkable was a prescient comment made forty years ago by a former leader of the Labour Party, Hugh Gaitskell. Addressing the Labour Party Conference in Brighton in 1961, speaking of the then "Common Market", he said: "We must be clear about this; it means the end of Britain as an independent state ….. it means the end of a thousand years of history. You may say 'Let it end'. But my goodness, it is a decision which needs a little care and thought". Gaitskell would turn in his grave to see his successor as Labour Leader, Tony Blair, dragging Britain kicking and screaming into the People's Republic of Europe. It is dangerous to over-do the comparisons between the EU and the former USSR, but there is a sinister parallel in this respect at least: the political élites of both have been driven by their own, obsessive vision of a superstate, and they don't give a damn about the opinions or aspirations or ambitions of ordinary people. The collapse of the IGC is only a reprieve, not final victory. The Constitution is in the long grass, but it's not dead. Tony Blair is being advised to leave it until after the 2005 General Election (which he still imagines he'll win). So keep on signing the referendum petitions. We have to convince him he can't give away our independence without asking us first.