Britain hails EU deal
Well, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about this. Britain is hailing a new deal achieved at the EU after Blair won a legal exemption from a new rights charter for the UK. Tony Blair achieved his aim of an explicit declaration in the proposed treaty that the European Court of Justice will not be able to use the Charter of Fundamental Rights to change British law. The declaration stated: “For the avoidance of doubt, nothing in the charter creates justifiable rights applicable to the UK except in so far as the UK has provided for such rights in its national law.”
And that's good, right? Europeans will enjoy rights that the UK government can deny their citizens if they choose.
As a parting gift from this particular Prime Minister there's something oddly appropriate about this. I think I'm getting all misty eyed here. It's like being body searched by Tony for the last ever time.
Thankfully, Brown immediately intervened and demanded that some things be reversed. He'd noticed that the changes to the preamble of the treaty now commits the EU to “an internal market” but omits the condition “where competition is free and undistorted” and demanded that this be rectified.
On British citizens being potentially denied the same rights as other EU member's citizens... Gordon was strangely quiet.
The more things change....
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