Today I listened to a good BBC Radio Five discussion on the vexed issue of MEPs allowances/salaries, possible abuses thereof (see eg Guido). A commendable airing of some basic facts, plus sensible discussion between various experts/pundits and two MEPs.

The subject ended up with a ‘what if’ exchange on the possibility of an Irish No vote in the forthcoming referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

One UK pundit opined that this would be no bad thing. It was disgraceful that the British voters had been denied their referendum since it was clear there would be a clear No vote here.

This prompted a tetchy intervention from the German MEP, who said she was completely fed up with such British attitudes. We seemed to want a non-existent ‘Europe a la carte’, ie only the beneficial aspects of EU membership and none of the aspects we did not like. That was impossible in ‘solidarity Europe’. Maybe we should have a parallel referendum on actually leaving the EU as well?

Hmm. 

The UK has expressed Bountiful European Solidarity for decades by paying generously into the EU pot and receiving back far less than we put in. Plus eg (unlike Germany) we opened our borders to all new member states in the 2004 enlargement, as generous an example of operational solidarity as could be conceived.

So we need no ticking off on that subject (although at least Germany too has paid in ‘net’ more than generously, so their nagging is a bit less annoying).

But what is really annoying is the idea that the views of the population of one of the largest EU member states whose enterprise generates so much wealth for the collective EU pot should not be listened to. That we are in effect told to keep quiet on far-reaching institutional changes, since to reject them allegedly shows unsatisfactory and disloyal ‘unsolidarity’.

The EU’s very own rules say that any member state does not have to agree with such new treaties, and indeed that any one member state can block a new treaty. To take that decision and reject a new treaty is quite consistent with a European vision. Just not exactly the vision shared by the Brussels elite.

So, 60 million UK population can not be given their chance to pronounce directly on the Lisbon Treaty, even though we were promised this at the last UK general election. Where is the solidarity – and more importantly most basic honesty – in that?

Go it Ireland.