When is a Constitution Not a Constitution?
"Not reformed, not amended, but abandoned. The constitutional treaty has been abandoned. That is not just my view, nor is it just the view of our Prime Minister - it is the view of the 27 Heads of Government who signed the document." - UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband
"The fundamentals of the Constitution have been maintained in large part. We have renounced everything that makes people think of a state, like the flag and the national anthem." - German Chancellor Angela Merkel El Pais (25 June)
"The mandate approved by the EU will preserve the substance of the Constitutional treaty". Agence Europe (25 June) - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier
" thankfully they haven't changed the substance - 90 per cent of it is still there." - Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern
"(The Constitution) is nothing more than a tidying-up exercise" - Peter Hain
"This is not a major change . . . there is no need for a referendum." - Peter Hain
"I am not saying it has got no substantial constitutional significance, of course it will have." - Peter Hain
"Our task is nothing less than the creation of a new constitutional order for a new, united Europe." - Peter Hain
(I hope that cleared up his political stance on the European Constitution?)
The European Charter of Fundamental Rights will have no more significance than the Beano" - Keith Vaz
"The British people must be led, slowly and
unconsciously
into abandonment of their traditional economic defences,
not asked. . . " Lord Thornycroft
The UKIP is really a tin-pot organisation that has yet to prove itself in the
polls. Why do these kinds of fringe groups make the front pages? Josie Appleton, Daily Telegraph, 2004
"...cranks and political gadflies..." - Michael Howard
"...fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists..." - David Cameron