A debate about the stable door, the horse having already bolted

1st December 2007
By Andrew Blick

‘Treaties are quite as important as most laws, and to require the elaborate assent of representative assemblies to every word of the law, and not to consult them even as to the essence of the treaty, is prima facie ludicrous’.

So wrote Walter Bagheot in 1872. Perhaps he would be pleased to know that parliament will be consulted on the ‘essence’ of the European Union Reform Treaty. Unfortunately that is where its involvement begins and ends.

Democratic…