EU Bill A Joke Says Expert MP Michael Connarty.

One of parliament’s leading experts on European Union matters has described the Coalition Government’s EU Bill as ‘a joke’. Michael Connarty, former Chair of the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee, who received the ‘Inquisitor of the Year Award’ for this work, told the House of Commons is a joke Bill – because it makes no difference to what went before or what will come afterwards.”

EU BILL A JOKE, SAYS EXPERT MP CONNARTY

One of parliament’s leading experts on European Union matters has described the Coalition Government’s EU Bill as ‘a joke’. Michael Connarty, former Chair of the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee, who received the ‘Inquisitor of the Year Award’ for this work, told the House of Commons is a joke Bill – because it makes no difference to what went before or what will come afterwards.”

The government has claimed that the Bill, by making provision for future referendums on important EU proposals, reasserts the sovereignty of the British parliament. However, Michael Connarty pointed out that when Britain joined the EU, the 1972 EU Communities Act which parliament passed, giving primacy to EU law, will continue.

Every expert witness he had questioned at the European Scrutiny Committee enquiry confirmed that the Bill would not change things. Further, the Bill does not provide for automatic decisions on future referendums, nor does it give power to parliament to decide whether to hold them. That power remains with the government as it does now.

Mr Connarty accused the government of, “playing a joke on Tory Eurosceptics”, and said that, “the true solution for them would be to leave the Conservative Party, which is clearly not a Eurosceptic party,” (and then join UKIP).

But most of all, Mr Connarty said, “The terrible thing is that this is a joke being played on the British people – on the people who voted for a Conservative Party that cloaked itself in Euroscepticism without ever meaning to deliver any change in the relationship between the EU and this parliament.”

He urged MPs to vote for a Labour amendment that required the government to report annually on how much the Bill had been used to challenge anything coming from the EU. “That would give everyone a chance to see whether the Bill is the joke that I say it is!” Coalition MPs, however, voted down this amendment".

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