The Euro debate - 'why we should not join' (From Gazette & Herald)

The Euro debate - 'why we should not join'

John Ashworth, chairman of the Ryedale Conservative Association, puts the case for the UK staying out of the single European currency.

THE public is not being informed about the full implications of joining the single currency.

This is the view of John Ashworth, who says that signing up to the euro is not just about the notes and coins in our pockets. It is about our nation's financial affairs passing from our elected representatives at Westminster to the unelected European Union (EU) Commission, demolishing rights that have been built up over hundreds of years.

Mr Ashworth's view was confirmed for him when he met the EU commissioner for the preparation of the single currency, Yves Thibault de Silguy. Mr Ashworth asked him: "If the UK joins the single currency, will our economic and monetary affairs pass from Westminster to Brussels?"

The answer was given in one word: "Oui."

This is the crux of the matter for Mr Ashworth. Unlike their counterparts on the continent, he says, UK politicians are reluctant to tell the public in this country the truth about what joining the single currency would actually mean.

Mr Ashworth believes that the chancellor of the exchequer, Gordon Brown, is not keen on joining the single currency "because he knows if we did, his treasury department, presently very influential, would be downgraded to no more than clerks carrying out the instructions of the EU."

He adds: "We elect MPs to look after our interests, including our financial affairs. If we don't like what they are doing, we, the electorate, have the right to throw them out and replace them with others, who can change what a previous parliament has done.

"Join the single currency and our affairs are dealt with by people not elected by the people of the UK, and which we, the UK electorate, have no controls over whatsoever, other than through civil disobedience. EU legislation is very difficult to overturn."

Mr Ashworth is keen to stress that he is not anti-European, but against the structure of the European Union. "The EU is not Europe," he says. "They are two totally different things."

The single currency is part of EMU (economic and monetary union), Mr Ashworth points out, which the UK signed up for as part of the Maastricht Treaty. The then prime minister, John Major, secured the country an opt-out for stage three (an abrogated derogation, in EU speak), which referred to the single currency.

Also, Mr Ashworth says, the late Sir James Goldsmith, who led the Referendum Party, forced the two main political parties to abide by a referendum before joining the single currency.

"Without these two options, we would today be in the single currency," says Mr Ashworth. Had we already joined, he believes, the country could have gone the same way as Germany, which currently has unemployment of around 4.6m.

"For myself, the most serious situation of the single currency," adds Mr Ashworth, "is that our national parliament, Westminster, has decided by an EU treaty (ie Maastricht) to temporarily hand our financial affairs from our nation to a system that is alien to us, even if we are hanging on by a thread because of the derogation and the referendum commitment."

However, he says that the single currency is being forced upon us by stealth - take our new £2 coin. He points out that it bears an uncanny resemblance to a one euro coin.

Mr Ashworth also voiced his concern about regionalisation, which, he says, the EU identified in the 1970s as its answer to the anti-single currency argument that the same interest rate does not fit all member states.

He explains that the thinking was that individual member states were too large and, therefore, regionalisation would break those nations down into "pint-size pieces".

This would allow the EU to redistribute wealth from the more affluent areas to support the poorer areas, he says, in order to balance the disparities and make the single currency work.

Therefore, Mr Ashworth points out, when the EU is enlarged next year, only Cornwall, as part of the south-west region, would come out on the plus side out of the eight regions plus London into which England would be divided.

Mr Ashworth is also keen to refute the suggestion that if the UK joined the single currency, it would not be able to withdraw from it.

Though he admits that it would be very difficult in practical terms, he says that there are no legal reasons why the country could not bow out of the euro after joining.

"What is not often known is all EU treaties only work in the UK through an Act of Parliament - The European Communities 1972 Act," he says.

He explains that this means that our parliament could take back power from Brussels by amending or repealing this act, as the UK constitution makes clear that no parliament can bind its successor. Again, he points out that some UK politicians are reluctant to inform the public fully about this point because of pro-EU feeling among them.

Says Mr Ashworth: "Do we really want the single currency to see the eradication of England, the creation of a new nation of the European Union, all so you don't pay currency transactions in this new nation?"

He adds: "As Lord Burleigh said in the reign of Elizabeth I: 'England can never be ruined but by a parliament' - it is the will of the present parliament to cede more and more control to Brussels.

"The freedom, sovereignty and democracy of the people of the UK are enshrined in our national parliament. What right have our elected MPs got to give that right up by stealth?

"And joining the single currency is part of the demolition of our rights built up over hundreds of years."

Updated: 08:59 Wednesday, March 12, 2003