Sir John Major said Britain may be able to snatch back powers from Europe
Monday October 10,2011
By Daily Express reporter
BRITAIN could use the eurozone crisis as an opportunity to snatch back powers from Europe, Sir John Major said yesterday.
The former PM said that any new treaty drawn in its wake would allow the UK to renegotiate its relationship with Brussels – particularly on employment issues.
He claimed that it was likely that Europe was heading towards a “federal state within the eurozone” as leaders try to find a resolution for the debt crisis.
Sir John said: “It gives us an opportunity to negotiate for the looser form of Europe that I would have liked to have seen in the 1990s.”
Last night French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel met for crunch talks in Berlin. Mr Sarkozy said the two countries will present proposals for the eurozone by the end of the month. He said: “We are very conscious that France and Germany have a particular responsibility for stabilising the euro.”
Well that's commendable Sir John, but perhaps it would have been better if you hadn't ratified the Maastricht Treaty when you were in power, then we wouldn't be in this mess!
From Wikipedia
On becoming Prime Minister Major had promised to keep Britain "at the very heart of Europe", and claimed to have won "game, set and match for Britain" – by negotiating the social chapter and single currency opt-outs from the Maastricht Treaty, and by ensuring that there was no overt mention of a "Federal" Europe and that foreign and defence policy were kept as matters of inter-governmental cooperation, in separate "pillars" from the supranational European Union. By 2010 some of these concessions, but not Britain's non-membership of the Single Currency, had been overtaken by subsequent events.
However, even these moves towards greater European integration met with vehement opposition from the Eurosceptic wing of the party and the Cabinet as the Government attempted to ratify the Maastricht Treaty in the first half of 1993. Although the Labour opposition supported the treaty, they were prepared to tactically oppose certain provisions in order to weaken the government. This opposition included passing an amendment that required a vote on the social chapter aspects of the treaty before it could be ratified. Several Conservative MPs, known as the Maastricht Rebels, voted against the treaty, and the Government was defeated. Major called another vote on the following day, 23 July 1993, which he declared a vote of confidence. He won by 40 votes, but the damage had been done to his authority in parliament.
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