What If

As the date of the second election on the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty by Ireland draws ever nearer bringing with it the possibility of a yes vote, it seems inconceivable that not one national daily newspaper or any other media source has highlighted the effects of a yes vote, and especially with all the troubles in Afghanistan how it could directly affect British foreign and defence policies.

If the Irish vote yes to the Lisbon Treaty it gives the green light for the EU to create its own president and foreign minister, a foreign minister who will be able to make foreign policy without a full British veto, and scraps 55 national vetoes outright, bringing up the question of how long the EU will allow us to go on acting in our own interests and how long we will be able to maintain our own separate position within NATO.

How can our government plan for and justify billions of pounds of English money being spent on our armed forces when there is a grey area on who will decide where those forces will be deployed and even brings into question whether we will be in sole command of them.

Although the British have usually supported American policies and looked on America as a friend, the same cannot always be said of the EU whose pressure must already be being felt; add an EU President and an EU Foreign Minister and its odds on the EU will put a strain on that relationship and all the talk on our future in Afghanistan or anywhere else for that matter could be taken out of our hands?

No written constitution or any other major constitutional changes should be seriously discussed until the people of the United Kingdom have been given a chance by referendum to decide whether they want to stay in or come out of the European Union because that is fundamental to any decisions we have to make, and it effects the very existence of the nation state.

David Cameron must be made to give us a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty whether the Irish vote yes or no.