It's an agreement between 27 states, with their heads of state and/or government as the "High Contracting Parties", signed in our case by two Ministers acting as the Queen's "plenipotentiaries", ie granted full powers by Her, to represent Her and exercise the Royal Prerogative on Her behalf.

Equally, because it's an external agreement made by the British government it can't have any effect in our internal law until Parliament has passed a Bill saying that it shall have such effect, and the Queen has given Her Royal Assent to that Bill, making it an Act.

Parliament is under no legal or moral obligation to pass that Bill. If Parliament had given its approval to the Treaty prior to signature that might be a different matter, but even then Parliament could change its mind.

If there was any provision included in the Bill which would limit the application of the agreed Treaty to the UK, in such a way that any of the other 26 states could object that their rights under the Treaty had been materially diminished, then no doubt they would object and they would insist on a re-negotiation to restore the balance between their rights and their obligations.

On the other hand, Parliament could and should repudiate the attached Declaration 17, which flagrantly denies the sovereignty of our Parliament by espousing the fundamentally incompatible legal doctrine of the primacy of EU treaties and laws – a theory which was no more than the invention of federalist lawyers at the EU's Court of Justice, exceeding the powers granted to them under the original Treaty of Rome – without the rejection of that doctrine in itself having any material effect on the rights of the other EU states.

See Christopher Booker's Notebook today:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/n…

New Clause 9, tabled by Bill Cash MP, would in effect repudiate Declaration 17::

"Notwithstanding any provision of the European Communities Act 1972, nothing in this Act shall affect or be construed by any court in the United Kingdom as affecting the supremacy of the United Kingdom Parliament."

In the event that this amendment joins the dozens of others which are not being debated, let alone put to a vote, an Early Day Motion would provide a mechanism for those MPs who are still loyal to this country to clearly express their determination that their (and our) Parliament will retain its legal supremacy in the United Kingdom.

Reply: as a co-signatory to Bill Cash's amendment I am keen to have a vote on it. An EDM is no help – any MP who agrees with us can just sign the amendment, which increases the chances of it being debated.

Does it meet the criteria of the Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties? I certainly do not think so. Having read the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, I do believe that Members of Parliament have a duty to really look at the Treaty in the light I have mentioned and if they believe that people may not be able to understand this Treaty that will affect the lives of every one throughout this our Country for generations to come, it should either go before the convention now with a challenge or rejected by those "Honourable" Members that sit (for now) in those hallowed Halls.

Have ALL Heads of State had sight of the Contents or was a blank sheet of paper signed by them.

I am absolutely sick of watching the process of voting for a new American President and wonder if ANYTHING will do as long as no one mention's The Lisbon Treaty. Blimy, its a re-run of "don't mention the war".

I can understand the reluctance of MP's to talk about the complications of ratifying such a treacherous Treaty. It is not the kind of Treaty that anyone whose loyal and true allegiance is to their Queen (Crown) and country would want to ratify, is it?
I mean, how could they even contemplate transferring the Royal Prerogative of Treaty Making Powers to a foreign Government that owes no allegiance to the Monarch and is not accountable to the people of this Country? Ah yes, of course, we tend to forget, ALL MP's are accountable to the people of this Country.. We pay them out of our taxes and we vote for them don't we? Will we still do so if ever the Treaty is ratified?
Have MP's any idea of the anger brewing up in the people?

Some of the members of both assemblies are now considering holding full referendums on the treaty within Northern Ireland & Scotland respectively. Is this the way forward?

Certainly, I think so. It would be hard for a UK government to disregard a Northern Irish vote, & near impossible to disregard a Scottish one. And if the government did so, not only would this be potentially electorally catastrophic for Labour, it also would be excellent material for lawyers with the government probably losing some at least (& hopefully all) of the related court cases. Meanwhile the totally artificial EU timetable of having everything signed, sealed, & delivered by the end of 2008 would slip by, & the government's self-proclaimed competence would become even less convincing than it is now.

If the Tory party genuinely wants to defend our ancient & very hard-won liberties, then I recommend most strongly that the Tory party gives all its support to those in Northern Ireland & Scotland, & Wales too if they start thinking the same way, who want a full-scale referendums on the Lisbon Treaty within their regions – independently of Westminster if the government fails to provide them with one.

Democracy demands nothing less!

Agincourt

Reply: I agree.

In fact, I'd like to see the whole affair conducted in the manner of a farcical show trial, to mirror the status and flavour of the current proceedings; all the while with the prosecution conducting itself in the quiet, calm, reasonable, thespian, lying manner of a Jim Murphy, David Milibland or Douglas Alexander, to be followed by the inevitable unspeakable acts of vengeance against these traitors.

Much as I appreciate your efforts (and I do thank you) and the efforts of likeminded members of your party I will now never vote for the Conservative Party again until it rids itself of its europhiliac infestation

I think it is loopy for us to sign the thing before we ratify it, but there is something rather Soviet about the way we do these things these days.

Check out the 6th one down above from Nation of Shopkeepers- an excellent analogy between the EU and dodgy double glazing salesmen.