NICE TREATY UPDATE

The Government Bill which ratifies the Treaty of Nice was given a Third Reading in the House of Commons on 17th October as expected. The Conservatives voted against, but some of Mr Duncan-Smith’s Party defied the whip and voted for the Bill. The Bill is now in the House of Lords. Every Bill has to pass through both Houses of Parliament in an identical form before it is signed into law (enacted) by Her Majesty the Queen, to become an ‘Act of Parliament’.

The Treaty of Nice has to be ratified by every ‘Member State’ of the ‘European Union’ to enter into force. Technically, of course, the Treaty of Nice is dead, because the people of the Republic of Ireland threw it out in their referendum. The Government is technically wasting Parliament’s time. In practice, it is necessary for the EU states to isolate Ireland and to force the Irish to hold another referendum to achieve the correct result, just as the Danes had to over Maastricht. Hence the pressure in the UK to ratify the Treaty here.

PRAY: That the House of Lords will reject the Nice Treaty Bill, although as that House has been shorn of its hereditary members and packed with coach-loads of ‘Tony’s Cronies’ it is becoming more difficult for righteousness to prevail there.