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Break
Free: from the outdated EU The DM has scored a resounding victory in the Luton EU referendum. After a head-to-head battle with the European Movement, filmed for ITV's Tonight programme, 63% voted 'No' to the Lisbon Treaty and a ground-breaking 54% voted to come out of the EU altogether. The programme documenting the event was shown on ITV1 this evening and is typically watched by between 3 and 6 million viewers. The result reflects major disatisfaction not just with the prospect of further decision-making being passed to the EU but also with the extent of the EU's current powers, its financial costs and the damaging effects of its activities.
The Democracy Movement is a non-party pressure group to defend liberal democracy in Britain and across Europe. We believe that this is being fundamentally undermined by the single currency, the proposed EU Constitution, and the drive to create a Brussels-based system of government in which all major decisions are taken at the EU centre by undemocratic institutions.
ITV's
Tonight programme is staging an See
a video clip of the launch of campaigning on ITV's Anglia
News. We're making the case that:
A
majority of MPs voted yesterday evening against a referendum on the A Conservative amendment for a referendum was defeated by a majority of 63 votes - 311 votes to 248. A second referendum amendment, put down by rebel Labour MPs, was defeated by a majority of 64 votes. Click here and enter your postcode on our dedicated ReferendumList website to find out whether your MP voted for or against a referendum. The way that this treaty has been forced through Parliament lacks all legitimacy. Government promises of a public vote, of 'line-by-line scrutiny' and then of plentiful time to debate the treaty have all been broken. Large swathes of vital powers the treaty gifts to remote EU institutions - such as in defence, borders, future treaty revision and voting weights - have been blocked from Parliamentary debate. The verdict of the cross-party House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee that the Treaty is "substantially equivalent" to the EU Constitution has also been completely ignored by the Government and large numbers of MPs. Most serious of all, various polls show that the Government has utterly failed to convince the public that the Lisbon Treaty is not the EU Constitution re-named, yet have still refused to honour their clear manifesto promise of a public vote. In
the vote, the bulk of the Conservatives were supported by A breakdown of how those referendum rebels we had identified actually behaved during the vote is as follows:
The Democracy Movement has responded to the vote by announcing the launch of an 'Integrity Fund' to finance local campaigning in marginal constituencies between now and the next general election, which could now be just over a year away. The fund will target MPs of all parties who have voted against the referendum they promised at the last election, and will finance the distribution of thousands of leaflets, advertising and other campaign activities in each target constituency. Funds have already been pledged to cover more than a dozen constituencies. Democracy Movement director Stuart Coster said:
After the remaining stages in the Commons, the Bill ratifying the Lisbon Treaty will move to the House of Lords where there will be further debates about a referendum. If the Lords pass a referendum amendment, the issue could be put to the vote once again in the Commons. The matter of this treaty and broken promises of a referendum is very far from over.
Break
Free: from the outdated EU Featuring a picture on the front of jubiliant 'No' campaigners after Ireland's recent Lisbon Treaty referendum, this new campaign leaflet leads with the question; What part of 'No' doesn't the EU understand? The French and Dutch peoples also rejected the "substantially equivalent" EU Constitution in referendums and polls show a large majority of the British people would have too. Had our government and the Liberal Democrats kept their election promises to hold a public vote. Yet the European Union is still trying to side-step the people's verdict and transform itself into your government. The Lisbon Treaty and the reaction to the Irish 'No' vote show that EU is stuck in the past and incapable of reform, even when people overwhelmingly reject centralising more decision-making in its undemocratic institutions. The Break Free campaign sets out the main failings of today's EU, together with the benefits of major change. Its main theme is that it's time for Europe's leaders to drop the top-down EU state idea and to instead spend their time addressing today's challenges - rather than planning how to centralise ever more power in Brussels without democratic consent. Stop
the Cheques In
December 2005, Tony Blair went to a European Union summit in Brussels and agreed
to a big increase in Britain's payments to the EU budget - from the current level
of £3.5 billion a year, to over This is an astonishing £115 million every week, even taking into account the money we receive back from the EU in grants and subsidies. Blair agreed to this increase despite regular reports of EU fraud, despite failing to reform the EU's wasteful Common Agricultural Policy and despite the inability of auditors to approve the "majority" of the EU's spending for 12 years running. All
MPs will get to vote on his bad EU deal. So the Democracy Movement has launched
a new campaign against this shocking waste of so much money.
We've teamed up with the June Press to bring you a range of the best books on the European Union issue. Click here to view our stock.
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