Libertas accepts invitation to meet Sarkozy

[Coleman]

[quote=Magror14]

[I agree with you on one point: it is not a sudden transformation but an evolution, of which the European Constitution / Lisbon Treaty is the legal apotheosis. Many of the characteristics of a state are there already, it was a case of copperfastening some of them as you indicate, by pointing to the continued extention of QMV. But the changes are still radical since the new EU would take over, for example, the "intergovernmental" powers over crime, justice and home affairs, as well as foreign policy and security (presently outside the reach of European law).

There is so much about this that is disingenuous. The EU is not getting any more powers than the previous European Communities. Ireland and the UK has to opt in to justice and home affairs and anyway the EU's role in these areas is limited. Foreign policy and security issues to the extent that we do get involved have to be decided by unanimity.

This is like trying to have a rational argument with a religious fundamentalist!

You obviously

1) Either do not understand what I have written since I have factored in the problem of the current structure of the EU, as well as provided clear evidence of the extension of its institutional powers, which you denied.

or

2) Do understand but are unable to form a coherent response and instead are attempting to cut short the discussion by labelling- a favoured means of silencing opponents, which used to be effective but is no longer in the current climate.

I thought you were saying that the powers of the existing institutions have been extended by the transfer to the EU under the Lisbon Treaty, which they have not. If you are complaining about the powers of the EU institutions under the existing treaties then you are not voting against Lisbon per se but the EU in general.

You did not mistake me. The powers of the EU would have been greatly extended.

Like many others I am against the EU in its deliberately undemocratic from. It might be news to you but

It is more than 60 years since one of its progenitors, Altiero Spinelli, wrote that its aim should be stealthily to assemble the components of a supranational government and only to declare its true purpose at the end of the process by unveiling a "constitution".

It is more than 50 years since another founder, Paul-Henri Spaak, advised Jean Monnet, who was above all "the Father of Europe", that the only way to achieve their goal – a politically integrated Europe – was to pretend that it was only a "Common Market".

It is more than 40 years since Harold Macmillan and Edward Heath went along with this, deciding to withhold from the British people that the real aim was a European state – a deceit perpetrated by Heath in spades when he took us into the Common Market in the 1970s.

Christopher Booker

Well you have stated your position to some extent and I am aware that there is a distant goal to unify Europe politically.
May I take it, Sir, that you are a British Eurosceptic?[/quote:2v0fmh18]

I am not. I am 100% Irish. I would have added the Telegraph link to Booker's name but I rightly feared that this might produced more knee-jerk labelling. I also dislike the newspaper's traditionally anti-Irish leanings.