Words changed, but meaning stays as D'Estaing swallows thesaurus

U.K. Independence Party MEP Nigel Farage today laughed off the 'concessions' claimed by the Blair government in the draft EU constitution which was issued this morning as 'an exercise in using a thesaurus'.

He said that the substance remained the same, and that many of the alterations amounted to little more than word games, which removed words such as 'federal' without actually altering the federal structure the constitution goes on to describe.

Proposals which remain largely untouched include the creation of a Common Foreign & Security Policy, the right of the EU to 'co-ordinate' economic policy, and the incorporation of the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights into EU, and hence British, law.

Worryingly, many of the safeguards touted by the government, including the right of national legislators to oversee EU legislation, have been so watered down as to become pointless. The body, provisionally entitled the 'Congress of the Peoples of Europe', which contains national legislators, is restricted by a provision which states "the congress shall not intervene in the Council's legislative procedures', effectively negating the entire idea.

U.K. Independence Party MEP Nigel Farage said, "This is much what we expected, despite attempts by the government to portray the whole exercise as nothing more than a 'tidying up' of existing treaties.

"The constitution leaves national governments with no areas of policy where the EU does not play at least a 'supporting' role. Worse, the body purported to prevent creeping erosion of national sovereignty has been neutered, meaning there is no recourse.

"This constitution will mark the end of the U.K. as a sovereign nation, and consign the idea of Britain as a self-governing democracy to the history books."

Euro announcement "designed to deflect calls for Constitutional Referendum"

The U.K. Independence Party today condemned the Government's apparent decision that the UK has not met the Chancellors' economic tests as 'designed to deflect calls for a Referendum on the proposed EU Constitution'.

UKIP said that the debate had moved on, and that for the UK to sign up to the EU's new Constitution would be to make the entire Euro debate irrelevant.

UKIP MEP Nigel Farage said, "The debate has moved on, as the British public awake to the implications of the European Constitution.

"The Government's decision to adopt John Majors' 'wait and see' policy on the Euro is a short term measure, designed to avoid serious discussion of what the EU Constitution means for the UK as an independent nation.

"Signing up to an EU Constitution will make the single currency question immaterial; if the UK is run by the United States of Europe, what does it matter what currency we use?"

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