You tell Geof that the Lisbon Treaty greatly enhances the power of the EU Parliament and thus reduces the democractic deficit. Before the Lisbon Cositreaty, your fellow federalists always told us that the federal institutions were democractic. Have you gilded the Lily? Of course you haven’t, there was a democratic deficit before the Lisbon Treaty and we are still short of democracy now.

Your interesting assertion that the Lisbon Treaty is not a constitution deserves further consideration. It is not the view of some leading EU figures.

Angela Merkel said that the two documents were ‘practically the same’; a view shared by former president of France and EUphile par excellence, Valery Giscard d’Estaing. Monsieur d’Estaing should know he wrote the EU Constitution!

The pretence that the EU Constitution and the Lisbon Treaty are completely different documents is just a Euro Myth dreamed up by the Lib/Lab/Con Party to excuse their broken promise of a referendum.

I would be happy for you to visit my Blog Eutribune where I have several pieces explaining the benefit of the Lisbon Treaty.

I am glad that my comments met with your approval. May I answer your question asking what we need to do to start the ball rolling? It was addressed to David Martin but as he has not yet replied, allow me to make a couple of suggestions.

If you want to see the governance of this country returned to this country you could visit http://www.ukip.org On the bottom right hand side you will see an invitation to ‘Sign the Pledge’. The pledge states that those who sign it want a referendum to determine if Britain should be ruled from London or from Brussels.

Should you want to go further you could scroll up to the top of the same web page and accept the offer to ‘Join UKIP’.

Daniel – spot on.

David – So we can leave any time we want – decent of them isn’t it?
Lets start the ball rolling as soon as possible – what do we need to do?

I hope that you will continue to contribute to the Honeyball Buzz. It does not, in my view, get anything like the attention it deserves.

I enjoyed the now traditional slapstick EUphile demonisation of EUsceptics. ‘Unlike the unthinking eurosceptics Hix is convinced that we need the EU principally for its economic benefits’ – unthinking! – not sure about this, I am an Eusceptic and I have thought about the ‘economic benefits’. I think that they are a Euro Myth, there are no benefits, we trade at a loss with our fellow members of the EU.

All this condemnation is quite funny. You don’t agree with us so you are ‘unthinking’. We know best, so disagree with us and you are a deranged madman. Funny certainly but not as good as Rory Bremner’s take on it with his TV statement to all UKIP members. He begins with tapping the camera lens to wake up the ageing UKIP member and then says in an exaggerated loud voice. Hello Dear, wake up now listen to the telly – an important announcement, the War is over, yes, yes dear its over, we won.

Mr. Hix’s views on policy gridlock and the lack of popular legitimacy are both absolutely spot on. The ‘what is chocolate policy’ was certainly gridlocked and the EU’s powerless parliament and its appointed Head of State do point to a distinct lack of democracy.

I did consider buying a copy of the book but then it occurred to me that it might not be all that impartial. A quick check on google confirmed my initial view. I read that in 2002 the author received £53,700 from the EU Commission for his work on Domestic Structures and European Integration. One wonders if payments like this would dry up if the book had been called ‘Whats Wrong with the EU and Why We Should Dump It’. I might be wrong but I certainly have not heard about any EU Parliamentary awards being offered to Marta Andreason for wrtitng ‘Brussels Laid Bare’. What do I know though, I am unthinking.

In my typically unthinking way, I was also struck by Mary’s assertion that ‘there is no way we can leave’ (the EU). This was great. It is not very long ago that the EU’s advocates did not engage with such an idea. It was all about further integration, how Britain should get more involved, etc. Clearly a sign of the times and of even more widespread hostility to our federal institutions. The asssertion was about the UK leaving the EU but a different country did manage to get out. Greenland escaped a long time ago.

Will Scobie’s comments were also interesting, especially when he wrote that ‘Hix’s proposals could be achieved without a treaty and are mainly procedural changes that would just need to voted through by the relevant institutions’. This is pure EU in my unthinking view. I presume the relevant institutions do not include the electorate – those unthinking proles like me who just pay for it all. What a problem the European public are to the relevant institutions, without us they could decide and vote on everything and it would be so good for us all. So good because of course the EU knows best.

It is not the number of treaties which annoys the public. It is the deceitful why in which they are presented as being for an entirely different purpose to the one the EU intends and the annoying way in which we are either denied a vote, have our vote ignored or have a vote and then get told to vote again until the correct vote is cast.