CREC
Campaign to Reject the European Constitution
66 Chippingfield, HARLOW, Essex, CM17 0DJ
Tel: 01279 635789

Website: www.european-referendum.org.uk <https://www.european-referendum.org.uk />

Patron: The Duke of Rutland
Chairman: Derek Norman
Secretary: Tony Bennett
Press Officer: Bryan Smalley
Webmaster: Peter Rogers
Development: Graham Wood

Sunday 2 March 2008

On Target Britain: Dear Editor,

I write to draw the attention of your readers to an increasingly popular campaign to try to win a referendum on the E.U. Reform Treaty, which nearly all European leaders recognise and admit is the European Constitution in disguise.

Our campaign consists of a simple pre-printed and numbered petition card, pre-addressed to Her Majesty the Queen, a copy of which I am pleased to enclose for your attention.

It is in effect virtually the same card that we used on a previous occasion, back in 2003, when nearly 180,000 people ordered our cards and sent them off to Her Majesty. During that campaign we were greatly encouraged when we received a letter from Her Majesty’s Chief Correspondence Secretary, Deborah Bean, informing us that the Queen had instructed her staff to brief her regularly on the number of postcards being received. At the height of our campaign, Buckingham Palace was receiving several hundred cards a day. We terminated that campaign on the day in May 2004 when Tony Blair faithfully promised us a referendum on the terms of the E.U. Constitution.

We revived our campaign at the beginning of the year. Last Wednesday, 27 February, we attended the Mass Lobby of Parliament, where 3,000 or so queued to see their MPs demanding a referendum. The majority of those present had not heard of our campaign. Once they understood what it was about, they eagerly took our petition cards, signed them, and posted them to Buckingham Palace. I should add that our campaign is strictly non-party-political.

Many asked us what we were doing to inform the nation about our campaign. This letter to the editors ... is the result.

In our previous campaign, we distributed 180,000 cards in a year. It is a measure of the intense frustration and anger felt by many at our politicians breaking their promise to allow a referendum on the terms of this Treaty that although our campaign has been running just two months, already over 150,000 cards have been requested and requests are coming in at over 2,000 a day. The campaign until now has spread almost entirely by word of mouth, though we do have a website. We make a small charge for the petition cards to cover the cost of printing them, plus postage, but will always send them out free to individuals and those who can’t afford to pay for them.

We believe our previous postcard campaign may have broken two records:

(1) the highest number of a single postcard ever printed and
(2) the largest number of people to petition the reigning monarch on any issue.

If we ‘top’ 180,000 this time round, we shall break our own previous records. We would therefore be most grateful if you would kindly agree to print the Letter to the Editor’ pasted below.

Yours sincerely, Tony Bennett, Secretary....................

Letter to the Editor

Dear Sir,
Many of your readers may be frustrated that despite each political party promising us a national referendum on whether or not Britain should adopt the European Constitution, we are not being allowed a vote on the E.U. Reform Treaty (the ‘Lisbon Treaty’), currently going through Parliament. Nearly all E.U. leaders admit that this treaty is the E.U. Constitution under another name.

In a situation where our very Constitution is at risk, and our MPs will not allow a vote, there is provision for the people to appeal directly to the Queen.

We have devised a simple petition card, addressed to Her Majesty, which calls on her to refuse Royal Assent to any Bill to implement the Lisbon Treaty, until such time as we, the people, have had a referendum on its terms. The Irish people are being allowed a referendum. So should we.

To those who say the Queen is above politics and is bound to follow government advice, we say two things. First, the Queen is not bound to follow advice that is clearly unconstitutional. Second, if you visit the website of the U.K Parliament, it quite clearly states there: “The Monarch has the right to refuse Royal Assent”.

The emphatic result of the polls conducted in Harlow and nine other constituencies in the U.K. in February, revealing a massive 88% who want a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, underlines the need for us to appeal to the Queen over the heads of Bill Rammell and all the other MPs who are denying us the referendum they promised.

In just two months since our campaign began, over 150,000 cards have been requested. We need many more to sign this petition. To obtain a supply of petition cards, please write to us, e-mail us or ’phone us. (emphasis added throughout...ed)

Yours sincerely, Tony Bennett, Secretary

Campaign for a Referendum on the European Constitution
66 Chippingfield, HARLOW Essex CM17 0DJ
Tel: 01279 635789 Website: www.european-referendum.org.uk

For further reading and information:

SEND TO:

Bloomfield Books, 26 Meadow Lane, Sudbury U.K.

FOR A LIST OF BOOKS AND/OR VIDEOS ON THE DANGERS FOR BRITAIN OF THE EUROPEAN UNION.

To; Mr Roger Bolton. BBC Radio 4 ‘Feedback Programme March 3, 2008

Dear Mr Bolton,
Reporting of EU Lisbon Treaty Debates
Many thousands of BBC listeners to this week edition of ‘Feedback’ on the above matter may well be in despair once again at the BBC’s lightweight, if not cavalier, approach to this EU Treaty/Constitution.

Indeed they would assert that this is characteristic of the whole BBC coverage, or rather non-coverage, of EU matters in general and the Treaty in particular - thus justifying the ‘BBC’s popular label as the Brussels Broadcasting Co.

I mention two things:
1. The matter of coverage of EU matters on BBC Radio 4, and particularly the ‘Today’ programme, has been carefully and meticulously monitored by several people, and not least Lord Pearson of Rannoch over a period of many months which provided the basis of a report.
His conclusions revealed clear evidence of massive bias on the part of the BBC towards a pro-EU position and hostile to eurosceptics, as much through omission as well as through a preponderance of pro-EU commentators. May I suggest you verify his findings through his office at the House of Lords?

2. On the ‘Feedback’ website you refer to the Lisbon treaty as follows: “The Treaty of Lisbon has been debated in Parliament for two weeks. If it is passed it could have huge ramifications on the UK, but where have the news reports been?
The BBC’s Europe editor Mark Mardell will be discussing coverage or lack of it, of the EU”.

Firstly, in response to this, many listeners would simply point out to Mr Mardell and to ‘Feedback’ that not once so far, and certainly in my own experience I have found this to be the case, have the implications of the Treaty been honestly spelled out on Radio 4. (I leave aside BBC TV ‘Any Questions’ & ‘Question Time* coverage which is equally unbalanced).
This is a grave charge, but it is entirely accurate, and I challenge you to deny this and reproduce any evidence to the contrary. Secondly, Mr Mardell repeated the frequent comment about the sheer complexity of the Treaty’s content, quite rightly, but then used it as an excuse for failing to make clear to listeners the easily understood main proposals, or their implications, in what he earlier referred to as its “huge ramifications”.
Further, there are countless websites, ‘think tanks’, as well as responsible and well informed ‘blogs’ which have consistently made clear these “ramifications” without any difficulty and with clarity.
Why is the BBC not able to research in this area where others have already covered the ground extensively and in great detail?
For example, the think tank ‘Open Europe’ has excellent and well researched information about the Treaty that can be read and absorbed by any average reader who wishes to know the truth.

Thirdly, whilst I do not profess to be an ‘expert’, I managed with a little research via various commonly known sources of information to produce a small handbook on the Treaty and, equally important, its implications for us in the UK (see enclosed ‘Plain Man’s Guide to the EU Constitution - Questions and Answers’ ).
This continues to sell in thousands in the UK, and consistently the response to it is:
A. Why has nobody told us all this before?, and
B. The facts you have made known about the EU treaty are clear and easily understood by ordinary people.

Finally, perhaps ‘Feedback’ should ask the question as to why as many as 160,000 or more people have, in just the last two months alone, via CREC’s campaign, petitioned the Queen direct to ask her not to give her Royal Assent to a Lisbon Treaty/Constitution Bill without the government first honouring its promise of a referendum? (please see CREC ‘purple postcard’ petition card enclosed).
All of these - and we received orders for an average of 2000 more purple postcards from CREC each day - have understood the implications of Lisbon sufficiently to take this action, and without the apparent difficulties that Mr Mardell and his BBC colleagues seem to have in overcoming their continued reticence on the Treaty and their inability - or is it really unwillingness? - to articulate something of its meaning.

Yours sincerely, Graham Wood Development Officer CREC – Northern Office

FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION SEND TO:

BLOOMFIELD BOOKS, 26 MEADOW LANE, SUDBURY U.K.

FOR A LIST OF BOOKS AND/OR VIDEOS ON THE DANGERS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION.