Sir Anthony Meyer, Chairman of Federal Union, introduces the new campaign.
The purpose of Federal Union is to campaign for decentralised and democratic structures of government at the local, regional, national, European and ultimately global level. We fully support the European Movement, of which most of us are anyway members, in its campaign for active British participation in the European Union; as we support Britain in Europe’s campaign for British membership of Economic and Monetary Union when the conditions are right. We also support the European Movement’s campaign for reform of the European Union’s institutions to make them more responsive to popular needs, to give fuller recognition to the role of Civil Society, and to bring the process of decision-making closer to the citizen.
Federal Union believes that to achieve these objectives will require a written constitution for Europe to replace the existing impenetrable jungle of treaties.
But we at Federal Union are equally, and possibly even more urgently concerned to replace the present ramshackle structure of Great Britain with its partial arrangements for devolution, the emasculation of local government, its transitional and makeshift upper chamber of Parliament and the unacceptable blurring of the distinction between the judiciary and the executive, and to resolve these problems by means of a properly thought out constitution on federal lines.
And we would not be true to our federal ideals if we did not cling to the eventual hope that the United Nations and other international organisations might better serve the peace an prosperity of the peoples of the world by accepting the rule of law in international relations, which is surely the greatest achievement of the European Union. (21/05/01)
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