After twelve years of Government Britain has become a nation overburdened with debt, an overgrown public sector it cannot afford, a bureaucracy that stifles efficiency and enterprise and a profligate benefits system. There are real doubts about how will Britain will be able to maintain its economic position in competition with the powerhouse economies of Asia. Under Labour Britain has been crippled, national identity has been eroded and social cohesion has been weakened.

Already President Obama is proposing a Group of 4 (G4) of leading economies comprising of the United States, Japan, China and the Eurozone, leaving Britain behind as a diluted member of the G20 group of economies and in a further blow to the “special relationship”, the USA is seeking to have Britain, as well as France, removed as permanent members of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The Treaty of Lisbon will further erode Britain’s power. It is a federalist treaty and is in effect a re-drafting of the European constitution that France and the Netherlands said they would be unable to adopt after referendums by the peoples of these countries rejected the original Treaty in 2005.

In the UK, Labour also pressed hard for a modest "amending treaty", allowing them to escape from their promise of a referendum on a Constitution and the revised “treaty version” so it could be ratified by means of a parliamentary vote, rather than the will of the British public. In short, Labour could not afford a risk to their pursuit of demoting Britain from sovereign nation to an European state of one of twenty seven.

The Treaty of Lisbon is very similar to the rejected draft constitution. It contains many of the changes the constitution attempted to introduce, for example:

• A politician will be selected, although in the future, this will have to change to a democratic election. The American style of Presidential primaries seems an obvious route where Member (vassal) States will be required to vote for a preferred candidate from a European party to be president of the European Council for two-and-a-half years, replacing the current system where countries take turns at being president for six months.
• A new post combining the jobs of the existing foreign affairs supremo, Javier Solana, and the external affairs commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, will be created to give to give the EU more clout on the world stage. It is likely this is the proposal that has influenced Obama’s decision to move towards a G4, excluding Britain.
• A smaller European Commission, with fewer commissioners than there are member states, is planned for introduction in 2014. Effectively those states without a commissioner will have less influence than those with.
• A redistribution of voting weights between the member states, phased in between 2014 and 2017 - qualified majority voting based on a "double majority" of 55% of member states, accounting for only 65% of the EU's population will allow future EU legislation to exclude many of the protections Britain currently enjoys, ie, “opt-out” and vetos.
• New powers for the European Commission, European Parliament and European Court of Justice, for example in the field of justice and home affairs could lead to the establishment of European defence force; army air and navy as well as a European police force.

Most European leaders acknowledge that the treaty preserves the main substance of the constitution. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, former French President and President of the Constitutional Convention” was quoted in several European newspapers on 27^th October declaring “The Treaty of Lisbon is the same as the rejected constitution. Only the format has been changed to avoid referendums.” By implication, it is important to preserve the European ideal of the federal few by avoiding future referendums that allow the overall population to decide.

The European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights sets out a whole range of civil, political and social rights enjoyed by the EU's 372 million citizens. It is divided into six chapters: Dignity, Freedom, Solidarity, Equality, Citizenship and Justice, and covers everything from workers' social rights, asylum, immigration and visas to bioethics and the protection of personal data. Although the Charter of Fundamental Rights does not feature in the Treaty there is a reference to it, making it legally binding, however the full text does not appear, even in an annex.

The UK has secured a written guarantee that the charter cannot be used by the European Court to alter British labour law, or other laws that deal with social rights. However, constitutional and legal experts are divided on how effective this will be especially for the UK in terms of policy decisions in the entire field of justice and home affairs.

Poland is also due to sign up to the guarantees on the Charter of Fundamental Rights negotiated by the UK. During the treaty negotiations, Polish leaders voiced concern that the charter could contradict Polish law in moral and family matters.  Denmark will continue with its existing opt-out from justice and home affairs, but will gain the right under the new treaty to opt for the pick-and-choose system. Typically the federalist leadership of France and Germany would like to see the Charter enshrined as part of the full constitution for the supreme governance of the EU.

These proposals will further make Britain’s opt out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights weak and inconsequential. The EU has already established a Fundamental Rights Agency to monitor EU member states compliance with the Charter despite the fact that it has not even been ratified. And the EU is also using the principles of the Charter to guide its law making. If the Treaty is ratified before the next general election we can expect that the implications will be severe; for example, Section 3 of Article 69 even gives the EU the power to force Britain to adopt identity cards without our own Parliament being able to reject them.

Jobs:

The EU will be able use its power to force Britain to move away from its job creating free-market model economy and towards the uncompetitive and high-unemployment European social model. There will be more power for trades unions with EU wide trades unions a possibility leading to EU wide collective bargaining and industrial action. Britain is currently the EU’s top destination for foreign direct investments. In 2006 Britain benefitted from inflows totalling $140 billion creating 27,481 jobs. A major reason why Britain has this advantage is because Britain has more flexible labour laws than other EU countries. However, Britain’s lead over other EU members will be threatened as the EU seeks to undermine our flexible labour market and impose its costly bureaucratic anti-business laws on Britain.

Greater Immigration:

There will be a mutual recognition of asylum decisions across the EU, allowing asylum seekers who received their status in one EU county to travel to Britain and automatically be given the same rights and benefits in the UK. Britain will be forced to take on the burden of immigrants arriving in other EU member states, particularly those arriving in Southern Europe. In what are described as ‘mobility partnerships’ the EU will take control over migration and will make it easier for people to enter Britain, this means refugees that are awarded indefinite leave to remain in one EU country can then come and reside in Britain. Finally, asylum seekers that have been in Britain for more than five years will also be allowed to remain here indefinitely, regardless of change of circumstances in their country of origin. This will make it almost impossible for the UK to return refugees to their country of origin

Asylum:

The EU will replace the minimum standards for asylum seekers with costly mandatory standards to improve their treatment and force the British government to spend more on integrating asylum seekers. Ratification of the Treaty will also allow the EU to force Britain to give immigrants and asylum seekers the same access to benefits as British citizens, regardless of the wishes of a British Parliament or population.

No Longer an Island Fortress

The EU will take away power from the UK Government to implement policies by establishing a European Support Office and determining common guidelines on enforcement of the rules relating to asylum seekers. It will create a single process for designating and assessing applications for refugee status and decide, however much the British government may oppose, who should be eligible for subsidiary protection thus allowing them access to the UK

The EU will also take control over the UK’s Borders Agency by awarding greater power to FRONTEX,the EU agency for the management of operational cooperation at the EU's external borders.

Money:

Although there is no mention of currency and tax rates in the Treaty, the implications of the change to the balance of power between national governments and the EU are stark will be moved towards after Lisbon becomes EU law. The current funding structure of the EU cannot sustain a federal Euro state. The first moves are likely to be a harmonisation of VAT across EU states, leading to a better integration of the notion of currency and tax as a single fiscal measure rather than separate monetary issues.

The reality of an EU Border Agency and a “Europol” rather than Interpol will provide the basis for the argument that each member state should contribute to the costs of maintaining security across the state. This can be achieved with an introduction of a European tax band drawn from individuals, rather than the current bloc payments made by individual states. The federalist argument will be that this is much fairer, as each member state will be contributing to sustaining the EU on a pro-rata basis based on a per head of population.

Apart from the promise by the Government that a referendum would be held on a constitution, Labour has reneged on this by insisting the Treaty is not a constitution. However the wording of the treaty makes clear, that apart from flags and anthems, it is a constitution in all but name.

At a time when the British Government is delivering a programme of devolving power to the countries making up the United Kingdom in accordance with the wishes of a British electorate, it seems inconceivable that the Treaty of Lisbon, which will remove power from nation states to a centralist bureaucracy, will be ratified without a referendum.

It is impossible to serve two masters and Britain will not be able to maintain its Commonwealth commitments as a vassal state within the EU. Either Britain will sign up to a European defence arm and pay for a duplication of the British Army, Air Force and Navy, to maintain its role outside of the EU, or accept that as a part of an EU military, these are no longer needed. In this instance, should a crisis like the Falklands arise again, will Britain receive the necessary backing for a similar action that liberated the islands in 1982.

Britain’s welfare state is not compatible with the rest of Europe. Gosta Esping Andersen’s book “The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism” makes clear the differences that exist between Britain’s welfare system and those of other EU member states. As harmonisation is achieved across the EU, this will have to change. Whether to conform with the Mediterranean model or the Insurance based model, the National Health Service and welfare benefits system that Britain has developed over the last fifty years, with some national pride, will have to be dismantled to conform with EU legislation once this stage of the European experiment has been reached.

The loss of national control on all of the issues covered in this article will damage Britain irreparably. It cannot be left to the political will of a Parliamentary majority to decide.  The future of Britain is now dependent of how well the Czech and Polish governments can resist the pressure that federalists will place on their respective Governments to ratify the Treaty. If that happens before the next election, then under a Labour Government, Britain, as a proud nation, will be consigned to the history books.  It is now a race against time. If Poland and the Czech Republic can withstand the pressure until after May and if the Conservatives win the general election, the British people will have a say as to whether or not they want to remain independent or be swallowed into a deeply federal state that is instinctively and diametrically opposed to the British psyche.