Clarification

Often recently I have heard it said via media that Gordon Brown's late signature upon the Treaty of Lisbon last December was somehow symbolic of his reluctance to agree to the new treaty. We are led to believe that he is not in fact too keen on the whole debacle, thus he signed later than the other 26 countries representatives.

This nonsense can easily be disproved by reference to Mr Brown's comments only yesterday when he attended a news conference after meeting EU President Jose Manuel Barraso in Brussels. From the BBC:

"UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said economic reform within the European Union "must accelerate" if the 27-nation organisation is to prosper.

He has also described the EU as being "essential to the success of Britain, and a Britain fully engaged in Europe is essential to the success of the EU".

Mr Brown spent three hours meeting European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso in Brussels.

He said the EU must "stand together" to be "a force for stability and justice".

'Sustainable world'

Mr Brown told a news conference in the Belgian capital: "We must focus on the issues that really matter to our citizens - prosperity and jobs, security and climate change."

Again we see the focus on climate change - it was only last week I wrote about Prince Charles' speech to Europe on the same matter.

Gordon's 27th signature in Lisbon was indeed symbolic.

We are being misled entirely

cheers

BBC report is here.

My posting on the symbolic properties of the Treaty of Lisbon is here.