mr president i should like to ask mr barroso why the unseemly haste
why change the rules of the game
why does your re-election for five years as commission president have to take place now
well of course the answer is ireland and the lisbon treaty
the plan is to show everybody that the ship is steady that everything is going well that all the irish have to do is to correct their rather silly little mistake and indeed your working document is written as if the treaty were already ratified
but there is a rather important point being missed here you have been the boss you have been the governor for the last five years
you have been in charge of overseeing that the constitutional treaty was pushed through
but things went wrong did they not
the french said no and the dutch said no but you refused to accept these democratic results and you took part with many members of this parliament in the absolute deceit that is the lisbon treaty
you told us that the flag and the anthem would be dropped but i have not seen much evidence of that
no you rebranded it as the lisbon treaty but you could not stop the irish from voting and the irish said no
but once again you could not accept a democratic result oh no the irish have to vote again where in all of this given that you are in charge is the principle of democratic accountability
well you might argue that there is not much democracy left in the european union now but there should at least be some degree of accountability and i would argue that on the eve of what may well be a fourth rejection of this treaty the one that kills it off for good this parliament should not install you as commission president for the next five years until we have that result
if the irish people say no for a second time then we simply have to respect what they say and you have to go as president of the commission
it would happen in any other walk of life it would happen in any business and i suggest that it really ought to happen in european politics
and what about your record
you have overseen the lisbon agenda it was sunk without trace way before the credit crunch hit us
now you are telling us we have to have a commissioner for immigration taking away from nation states their most basic right to decide who comes to live work and settle in their countries
you have pushed on with your obsession with climate change which has led to massive costs and no material benefits whatsoever
but above all it is the fact that you ignored that irish referendum that you said the irish cannot stop this treaty for that reason alone i simply cannot support you
but it is possible that i have got this horribly wrong
it is possible that you are the right man after all because yesterday in the a poll asked if lisbon goes through without a referendum would you want britain to stay part of the european union
and by forty-three to twenty-six for the first time in over thirty years a massive majority of britons said they want us to leave this european union if mr barroso gets his way
so maybe i got it wrong maybe you are the right man
we will see
yes he is very happy to go
