The nationalised of Northern Rock is to be shrunk to half its size, with thousands of jobs being axed, due to EU competition rules.

I thought the idea of the nationalisation was to prevent thousands losing their jobs through the inevitable slimming down that any private purchaser would enact?

Why didn't Brown and Darling think of the EU rules before they decided on nationalisation? Or did they just not look through it properly - despite the length of time they took to come to a decision?

Seems like the next queue won't be outside Northern Rock, but ex-Northern Rock outside the Job Centre.

A Labour government planning to axe thousands of jobs in a nationalised bank primarily based in the north of England. You couldn't make it up.

The news that the Lisbon Treaty has now formally been passed by the House of Commons has been very much slipped out, without very much - if any - fanfare, with MPs voting by 346 votes to 206 to approve the EU (Amendment) Bill, despite the extreme importance of the issue.

They just won't give us a referendum on this important issue, despite every MP in the Commons having been elected on such a pledge.

Now we can only pin our hopes on the unelected House of Lords to do what is right and democratic and give us, the people, our referendum.

As the news informs us that MPs have decided not to allow us a democratic vote on the Lisbon Treaty...

Read the rest here.

The loser today is Nick Clegg, as about a fifth of his party vote against his orders with the Conservatives and for democracy, and three frontbenchers resign.

But, of course, the real loser today is Britain, who has pretty much just had the Lisbon Treaty ratified without the people being asked.

Saturday was the night when this years British entry to the Eurovision Song Contest was chosen.

At the very least, it is a better song than last year's embarrassingly bad entry.

It just needs to be "Eurovisioned" up a bit. Hopefully we'll end up doing better this year as well... hey, stranger things have happened... haven't they?

Liberal Democrat MPs walk out of the House of Commons...

...in a huff as part of a pre-arranged stunt after their ridiculous call for a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU - rather than over the current Constitution "Treaty" being debated - was denied by the Speaker.

Are they now going to stay out of the Commons?

Please, please do.

At least for the rest of this debate.

Please? Pretty please? With a cherry on top?

It's not as if they add anything to the discussion, anyway!

Nick Clegg wants a vote on EU membership but not on the EU Constitution 'Lisbon Treaty'.

How does this make any sense?

If you consider that the British people should have vote over whether or not they stay within the European Union, surely you also think that they should have a say over the direction in which it develops? You can't seriously believe that the people should have a choice over membership but not the direction in which that organisation develops.

If a referendum is held on the Treaty and the British people vote "yes", then it is obvious that they want to stay within the EU. If they vote "no", then the issue of EU membership itself becomes an issue.

I agree completely with Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP, over this when he says:

The Lib Dem leadership should either back a referendum on the Treaty or finally accept that they don't want the British people to vote on the EU at all.

The Lib Dem membership seem to want to back a referendum on the Treaty, so why don't the leadership? Is it because they're chicken, and want to be able to sit on the fence? Yes, of course it is.

So MEPs are stealing £100 million from the European people every year. But this isn't really all that surprising - pretty much the lot of them are just pigs with their snouts in the trough. What is most disgusting is the piece of the article that follows the revelation of the obscene amount of taxpayer's money being stolen:Excuse me? You can't make reform if the people know how corrupt you all are? How does that make sense? That level of security stinks of a cover-up of an even greater level of corruption and criminal abuse than already revealed. Even so they have the audacity to claim that "the document is not secret. It is confidential." - and to flatly reject an inquiry by the EU's own anti-fraud office. One rule for us, another for them.

Trixy has the transcript of an email sent by the President of the European Parliament, asking MEPs to submit a declaration of their financial interests "within two months". Which is a long time. And yet this isn't the even first time a request has been made for this, originally made back in November. So they've had four months already, and get another two months grace now. That's six months before they even start chasing them up. Absolutely ridiculous. And I thought giving British MPs two months to submit a list of any family members who work for them was ridiculous.

I was going to say "well at least it seems that our elected representatives really aren't all that corrupt after all". But then I realised that MEPs in the European Parliament are our elected representatives as well.

Tony Blair would be President of the EU, but only if they give him enough power. This is one good reason for Gordon Brown to fight giving the EU power [or at least the President role], as Blair being President of the EU would be his nightmare.

This is a perfect reason to re-post William Hague's speech in the EU (Amendment) Bill in which he paints the picture of Brown receiving Tony Blair as "Mr President"...

Watch the video of Hague's hilarious demolition of Gordon Brown in his speech on the EU (Amendment) Bill below [via Harry Hook].

Or read the text here at Daily Referendum.

Even Miliband can't help from laughing!

Nick Clegg has broken his party's 2005 manifesto commitment to supporting a referendum on the EU Constitution Treaty. He is, however, following on from Ming Campbell, who also opposed letting the people of Britain vote on the one piece of legislation which will dictate how this country works for the foreseeable future. Clegg said:

But he is wrong - in every way. It is not "playing games with the treaty itself" or specifically 'party politics' to suggest that the very people who are supposed to give parliament it's power should be allowed to vote on it, considering that all the main parties were elected with promises of a referendum on this issue in their manifestos. Since two of those parties have broken their pledges, they really don't have that democratic right any more to decide this issue at the very least.

The "Lisbon Treaty" as it is now called is not "a series of amendments to a sort of edifice of treaties already in place" but far more than a codification of existing treaties - and even that would be subject to a referendum, just like any codification of the British constitution would have to be - since it provides the very foundations of the removal of sovereign power [even if, as some claim, that has already begun] in the creation of an EU President and Foreign Minister.

Quite simply, Clegg's refusal to push for a referendum on this puts the lie to the very name of his party - the Liberal Democrats. Maybe that's why there are rumours of him wanting to change to to the "Liberal Party" instead?

The idea of a referendum is not about getting the treaty voted down, but about democratic legitimacy. If a popular vote has been held, no-one who opposed the treaty can possibly argue against it being ratified and becoming law. If we the people vote for the treaty then those of us who oppose it would accept it. But if it is passed through a Parliament which promised to hold a referendum on this when it was voted in refuses to meet it's promises, then the opposite will happen.

Such large changes as proposed by the "Lisbon Treaty" require a referendum - or at least it should in the eyes of any true believer democrat.

UPDATE: At least all Lib Dems aren't as anti-democratic as their leaders [via DK].

UPDATE 2: Norfolk Blogger yet again shows why his blog is one of the few Lib Dem blogs I bother to read.

Even MPs are being denied the ability to vote on the EU Constitution - sorry, Lisbon Treaty - now.

So we, the people, aren't to be allowed to vote on this "treaty" and now even the ability of MPs - who are supposed to be deciding this issue for us - aren't being allowed to either.

Yes, we're living in a European Democracy... Not.

The EU has already appointed an EU Ambassador to Africa more than a year before the EU Treaty comes into force, and before it has been ratified by any member state [even though it shouldn't even be signed before it has been ratified].

Just disgusting, and technically illegal since the position and the power to give the job does not yet exist.

The EU are running roughshod over the people, with no regards even for their own rules.

Any world leader who does not object and publicly condemn this abuse of power is betraying the people of their country. The EU cannot and must not be allowed to take and use powers that they do not even possess.

Source: The Telegraph

So Gordon Brown has signed the EU Constitution "Reform Treaty" today, even if several hours after everyone else had. But the point I want to make here doesn't rely on whether you are pro, anti, or ambivalent towards the treaty, or whether you support parliament or the people deciding whether or not we should sign up to it.

The point is simple: why has Brown - or any other national leader - signed the treaty before it has been ratified?

Whether you think that parliament or the people should vote on it, they have not yet, so why has it been signed? What right does any government have to sign this sort of treaty [or any sort of treaty] before it has been ratified? Until the vote has been cast, the outcome cannot be known. It can be guessed, but not known.

You could claim that Brown's signature was signalling the intent of the current British government to push for ratification of the treaty, but you would be wrong. Intent can be signalled by means other than a signature on the bottom of a document.

As Brown has already signed Britain up to the EU Constitution "Reform Treaty", what can he do if parliament declines to ratify it? Say "oops, anyone got any Tippex?" Simply, signatures should be applied to a treaty only after it has been ratified. No matter how you believe it should be ratified, if you claim to be a democrat then you can't support this.

Sources: BBC, The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian

Gordon is absolutely right to have boycotted the EU/Africa summit over the attendance of Robert Mugabe and his human rights violations. I said the same when this was first announced as possibility, and I haven't seen anything that could change my mind about it since.

If anything, in fact, I think that Brown is even more right than I thought before to boycott this, since it is being proclaimed as a "summit of equals". This just boosts Mugabe, something which the civilised world should not be doing.

It is certainly ironic that the EU, with all it's rules and proclaimed interest in human rights to back a man who is killing his own country. In fact, wasn't Mugabe supposedly banned from entering the EU due to his human rights violations? Isn't it nice how consistent they are.

Gordon Brown is absolutely right to boycott this summit over Mugabe. Just a pity he's so wrong about everything else...

UPDATE: It seems it isn't such a principled stand after all, since "pseudo minister" Baroness Amos has been sent to represent Britain. If Brown was really serious over this, he wouldn't have sent anyone.

This woman thinks it is. She also isn't sure whether France is a country...

Of course, not knowing that Budapest is the capital of Hungary isn't so bad in itself, thinking that a continent is a country is, and not being sure at all whether France is a country [and that Budapest is it's capital] is really quite ridiculous. There is at least some internal logic to it, though.

via Daniel Hannan

The government has said that it is banning unskilled workers from non-EU countries for the "foreseeable future". This is just pointless and probably illegal under some EU law. It is pointless because there are hundreds of thousands of unskilled migrants in Eastern Europe which are inside the EU who will immigrate, and it is them who are said to be causing the problems.

Frankly, I have no problem with immigrants, wherever they come from, if they come to work and are willing to integrate - my problem is with lazy-arse Britons who don't bother getting a job because they can live off the State. I just can't see how so many just can't get jobs - since they are supposed to be "Job Seekers" - and yet so many unskilled immigrants can.

So long as they come and work and try to integrate, why can anyone object? If we have jobs that need filling, they need filling. if Britons are too lazy/unwilling to the job, then give it to someone who will. And instead anyone talking about how much they are taking out of us in services, talk about how much the Britons who could be doing the job if they could be bothered are taking out - far more, since they are also claiming benefits.

This ban is pointless as it is mostly unskilled migrants from inside the EU who are coming here - and this ban won't stop them. All it is aimed to do is make the government look tough while they are being soft.

Sources: BBC, The Guardian

I am a temp, and it seems that the EU plans to put my job at risk by insisting that temps get the same working rights as permanent staff after just six weeks. This would put the jobs of 250,000 people in positions such as mine at risk.

I currently temp at a large, well-known company which will remain unnamed on this blog. I have been there for more than two months now, and recently moved to a new role within the company - with a pay rise. This job was the first 'real' job I have had. Before I got it, I had been unemployed [though not claiming benefits] for nearly a month, and getting quite depressed over my apparent inability to get a job. But then I signed up to a new agency [some are seriously crap], had an interview the next day, and then started work the following Monday.

But if this new EU law had gone through, I doubt that I - or many of the other new graduates who temp - would be in their current jobs, earning money and gaining skills. It is impossible to suggest that companies would take these sorts of risks and hire completely inexperienced people such as I was and most new graduates are if this law went through. It's not like I'm anti me getting paid more, but I can't see how this will really help anyone. Instead of hiring temps, companies would just expect their permanent staff to do more. And everyone would suffer.

Of course, temping is not all great. You have a lack of permanence, and your job is not always secure, and you usually lack some of the benefits. But you have a far greater freedom of work. You can move as you like, with far fewer strings attached, and on a whim. Some prefer temping, some don't.

But this EU plan will just cost temps their jobs, and cost new graduates the chance to gain experience.

UPDATE: It's been delayed - but for how long?

Sources: The Times, ePolitix