Miliband signs Britain away
FOREIGN Secretary David Miliband signed the hated EU treaty - hours before Prime Minister Gordon Brown arrived in Lisbon.
Due to the PM's delayed arrival, Mr Miliband was the only foreign minister to attend the televised ceremony alone, amid a stream of prime ministers and presidents from the other 26 EU states.
Mr Brown also later signed the document - but behind closed doors.
The news will be a blow to the country's voters - The Sun's EU petition has received 28,000 votes saying no to the Treaty.
Today’s ceremony took place in the beautiful surroundings of Lisbon's 500-year-old Jeronimos Monastery.
Country by country, presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers of the EU nations were called up to put their names to the document.
Only Mr Miliband went to the podium alone to inscribe his name on Britain’s behalf.
He also took part in the official “family photo” following the signing of the Treaty without Mr Brown.
The PM's absence is expected to prompt speculation that he did not want to be pictured signing the book.
Shadow foreign secretary William Hague said: “What will other EU leaders think of a Prime Minister who dithers for a week about whether he dares be photographed putting pen to paper?
“Does he think that other European prime ministers don’t have diary commitments too? Instead of leadership we have indecision, gutlessness and broken election promises. Britain deserves better.”
The developments come despite an eleventh-hour bombshell that it means surrendering control of Britain’s immigration policy.
The warning was issued to the PM last night as he prepared to wave the white flag over our right to make our own laws.
It emerged tens of thousands of foreigners facing the boot from the UK will be winners.
They will get new rights to overturn decisions by Britain’s Immigration and Asylum Tribunal.
It means failed asylum seekers will be free to take their cases to the European Court of Justice in Strasbourg — giving the final say to unelected EU judges.
And it is all thanks to a treaty critics warn is practically the SAME as the ill-fated EU Constitution, which bit the dust two years ago after the French and Dutch rejected it in referendums.
Amazingly, Mr Brown — who vetoed a referendum on the treaty here claiming it was different — now admits it IS a “semi-constitution”. Interviewed in The Times today, he vows to get tough with EU leaders — while accepting the treaty mirrors parts of the Constitution.
The PM says: “What I’m going to say to Europe is stop looking inwards, stop looking at constitutions or semi-constitutions or institutions for a long time ahead — and for the foreseeable future concentrate on the big issues ahead of us.”
Last night Neil O’Brien, whose Open Europe organisation has scoured the treaty’s small print, declared: “By signing us up to the rejected Constitution, Gordon Brown is giving EU courts the right to hear asylum cases.
Grilling
“This could mean that decisions made by UK courts to deport failed asylum seekers will be overturned by Brussels.”
The signing today surrendered more than SIXTY of the UK’s prized vetoes on EU decisions — forever.
The treaty puts in place a powerful permanent EU president and foreign minister. Powers will be handed to unelected bureaucrats and judges in Brussels.
Tory leader David Cameron blasted Mr Brown’s “betrayal” of Britain.
Mr Cameron said: “He doesn’t even have the guts to put it to the British people.”
This morning the PM was grilled by MPs in Westminster — meaning he would arrive late for the historic signing ceremony.
After finally arriving in Lisbon he was set to put pen to paper hours after his EU counterparts — leaving many of them furious.
Article 21 of the treaty declares it will be illegal for any EU state to discriminate on “any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or other opinion.”
It bars any member country from “any discrimination on grounds of nationality”.
Other clauses which hand immigrants more powers are included in Articles 4, 19, 7, 15, 16, 18, 45 and 47. The UK Government has confessed in the past it has great concerns about the measures.
Fortune
Former EU minister Geoff Hoon — now chief whip — admitted they should NOT have been applied to the UK.
He said last November: “There is clearly a risk that adding what is in effect an avenue of appeal at a very early stage in the process might be an opportunity of further complicating our existing asylum and immigration processes.”
There are currently 167,000 appeals against deportation heard by the Immigration Tribunal each year.
Hundreds more are then taken to the Court of Appeal until they are exhausted — costing taxpayers a fortune. The new powers handed to migrants threaten to clog up the European Court of Justice.
It takes an average of two years to deal with a case — even though the EU court’s role SHOULD be to focus on helping industry, not sorting out asylum cases.
The changes will also cost UK taxpayers a fortune as failed asylum seekers contest their cases while remaining on full benefits. Government figures show the average bill for supporting a refugee is £129 a week.
A two-year court battle would see an applicant costing the taxpayer £13,500 in handouts and around £3,500 in legal aid costs. With more than 150,000 appeals in Britain each year, the bill could run into tens of millions — as a direct result of the EU treaty.
The pact ALSO threatens to destroy Europe’s ability to compete against the tiger economies of India and China — thanks to the French.
Measures outlawing EU countries from propping up their own companies with unfair cash handouts will be diluted. The treaty will effectively destroy competition — and allow failing firms and industries to snuff out any hopes of the EU getting its economy into shape.
Every other EU leader has admitted the treaty is virtually identical to the doomed Constitution. Last night Labour MPs on the powerful Commons Foreign Affairs Committee warned Foreign Secretary David Miliband not to treat voters as fools.
Andrew MacKinlay said of the Constitution: “A majority of the public feel it and the treaty are one and the same.”
Mr Brown faces a bitter Commons revolt in January when he tries to force the treaty through Parliament.
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