mr president may i also add to the growing numbers of tributes that were paid to you earlier on
thank you very much for your chairmanship and your patience whenever we have risen to speak
i think it is very important that we recognise when it comes to the lisbon treaty that it has not been ratified yet and we should not behave as if it has been ratified
we should not ignore the will of the voters who have not yet ratified it and those countries that have not yet ratified it
let us also remember the rules at the start of the game and let us not try to change the rules half-way through
at the start of the constitutional process the rules were that every country had to ratify or it fell
france and the netherlands failed to ratify so the constitution fell
also with the lisbon treaty the rules at the beginning were that every country has to ratify otherwise it falls
yet when the irish people voted no we decided to continue and to make them vote again
if you really want the will of the people to follow this then i suggest to the british government that they meet their manifesto commitment and have a referendum on the lisbon treaty
