§ Mr. Tony Benn (Chesterfield)I rise to present the first batch of signatures to a petition signed by tens of thousands of people from all over the United Kingdom, representing all political parties—Conservative, Labour and Liberal. It is a petition for a referendum on the Maastricht treaty.
The petitioners make three points:
That the provisions of the Maastricht Treaty, which was negotiated by the Heads of Government of the Member States within the European Community, are designed to bring about a European Union, complete with its own constitution, in which all the countries that are a party to it, will belong;That this Union, and its laws, will have a profound effect upon the way in which the United Kingdom is governed, and upon the democratic rights of the citizens of this country to elect and remove those who now enact and administer the laws of this Nation;That the British people have been given no right to determine, for themselves, in a democratic vote, whether or not they wish these constitutional changes to be made.The petition ends in the traditional way:Wherefore Your Petitioners pray that your honourable House:Will ensure that before the Maastricht Treaty, or any modification or amendment of it, is approved by Parliament, or ratified by Her Majesty's Government, the Citizens of the United Kingdom shall be given the right to vote for or against that Treaty, in a National Referendum, and that the decision reached in that Referendum be accepted as binding upon the Government and Parliament.And Your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, etc.
§ To lie upon the Table.