Just because many of the arguments deployed in favour of voting No in Friday's referendum on the Amsterdam Treaty are demented, that is not in itself a sufficient reason for voting Yes. For there are three substantial reasons for voting No and only the flimsiest reasons for voting Yes.
The three substantial reasons for voting No are:
To all but a tiny number of experts the Amsterdam Treaty is indecipherable. The vast majority of voters could not possibly comprehend what it is they are being asked to ratify and for that reason alone they should vote No. They would hardly sign a contract they did not understand. Why should they ratify a change to the Constitution of this State and of the European Union that they do not understand?
The European project is essentially undemocratic. Vast powers have been ceded, not to democratic European institutions, but to unaccountable bodies such as the European Council of Ministers, the European Central Bank and the European Commission. The Amsterdam Treaty makes a feeble attempt to rectify what is coyly called the "democratic deficit", but this is an opportunity to call a halt to the march of Europe until the democracy issue has been resolved satisfactorily.
The Amsterdam Treaty was conceived first to formulate structures for a common foreign and security policy. All the issues on that were ducked. The treaty was also designed to reform the institutions of the European Union in preparation for enlargement. The issues here were ducked as well. A treaty that is essentially a "cop-out" should not be ratified.
In its White Paper on the treaty, the Government said that during the course of negotiations "every effort was made to ensure that the text would be readable and comprehensible". This is the sole piece of hilarity in the White Paper and in the treaty itself.
It would be impossible for anybody, however skilled in European Law, to make any sense of the Amsterdam Treaty without reference to previous European treaties. It amends the Maastricht Treaty, the Treaty of Rome, the European Coal and Steel Community Treaty, the Euratom Treaty and the 1976 Act on European Parliament elections. It includes 13 new Protocols, all legally binding, and 51 Declarations.
There was and is no reason why any such treaty should be incomprehensible to the ordinary European citizen. The incomprehensibility is a reflection of Eurocratic contempt for ordinary Europeans. Among the professional Euro-enthusiasts there is no real sense that the citizens of the European Union have any legitimate right to determine where the Union is going. This is an opportunity to tell them where to get off.
WHICH brings us on to the related point. The European project as a whole reflects that Eurocratic contempt for the involvement of the citizens of Europe in decisions of European institutions. Perhaps the central feature of the European Central Bank, which henceforth is to determine interest rates here and fix our exchange rates with outside currencies, is its imperviousness to the will of the people.
The main institution of the European Union, the Council of Ministers, which is the main legislative body of the Union and where all the main decisions are taken, operates in secret and without any accountability whatever. Of course the Council of Ministers is formed by ministers of the governments of member-states, but because of the secretive manner of its operation there is no way of knowing what role any individual minister has played within the council and therefore no way of holding him or her accountable for what happens.
The Amsterdam Treaty does seek to address this issue by giving some more powers to the European Parliament, but it simply ignores the secretive and unaccountable mode of operation of the European Council.
The referendum on the Amsterdam Treaty may be the last occasion on which we have an opportunity to express our rejection of the unaccountability of European institutions. We should use it. And all the more so given the failure of the treaty to deal with the urgent issue of the reform of European institutions.
They simply kicked to touch. They refused to deal with the chaos that will ensue if, by the time there are 24 members, every member-state remains entitled to nominate a European Commissioner. They also ignored the paralysis that will arise from such a number taking part in European Council meetings.
Why should we ratify a cop-out?
The arguments advanced in favour of ratification are as follows: if we refuse we will be excluding ourselves from the European club, from the forward momentum of European integration; we will be rejecting initiatives on employment and social exclusion; we will be dismissing guarantees on human rights; and the old chestnut, we will be frustrating a project to bring lasting peace to the Continent.
Rejection by us of the treaty would make absolutely no difference to our membership of the European Union. Anyway, if it is the case that our rejection of a new European initiative endangers our position in Europe, does that not mean that we would have no option but to ratify a Defence Union should that come about?
The bits in the Amsterdam Treaty about employment and social exclusion are pathetic. Just proposals for proposals, with no commitment on funding or priority given to employment or social exclusion objectives. The commitment to the single market and the single currency remains paramount. Not that this should necessarily be a problem, but the claim that this does something significant about employment and social exclusion is poppycock.
The human rights stuff, too, is largely cosmetic. If it did require us to legitimise gay marriages there might be something to be said for it, but the reality is it makes absolutely no difference to what already is the situation, courtesy of the European Court of Justice.
As for the peace-in-our-time stuff, even if this ever had anything fundamentally to do with the European project (the whole thrust of the European Community from the beginning was economic), it has not even by the remotest extrapolation got anything to do with the Amsterdam Treaty. OK, enlarging the European Union to incorporate Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia and the Baltic states could stabilise Europe for a century, but the Amsterdam Treaty has nothing to do with enlargement, apart from copping out on the issues that enlargement throws up.
And there is a bonus in voting No. It would greatly annoy the Great and the Good of Europe, those who know what is good for us and who want to get on with what is good for us without our interference. It would be very satisfying if a small majority in a small member-state stopped the Great and the Good in their tracks.