Britain frogmarched into the EU era.

Byline: PETER TROY

THIS week we remember that our forefathers fought and died for our freedom, and indeed the current generation of young men and women are fighting and dying in Afghanistan for the same cause: freedom from terrorism.

However, it is increasingly indisputable that those freedoms for which they fought and are still fighting have been steadily eroded, to the point where the United Kingdom is no longer an independent nation in control of its own national destiny.

Last Sunday was the last Remembrance Day before the Lisbon Treaty comes into force. Next year, we will be remembering not only the lives that were expended in the cause of our freedom, but the salient fact that we have lost that freedom.

On December 1 the treaty comes into force; it is, in all but name, a constitution for Europe. The European Union will become officially the supreme government of the UK. It will be unelected, unaccountable and, as its own polls show, even less popular with those it rules over than ever before.

The UK has not been a proper independent, self-governing nation since it joined what was then called the Common Market back in 1973. In a few weeks' time, we will be officially ruled by the EU with Westminster reduced, in effect, to the roll of a provincial government.

The EU has achieved the goal that it has worked stealthily towards for so long: a supra-national government ruling over its 27 member states in what has to be one of the most complex, bureaucratic and least understood systems of government ever devised.

The UK has without doubt been frogmarched into a miserable new era of meddling Brussels rule after the final remaining resistance to the Lisbon Treaty collapsed. With a stroke of a pen, Czech president Vaclav Klaus recently ensured a tidal wave of new EU regulations and interference for Britain by signing up to the deal.

Following the second vote in the Republic of Ireland, the Czech President was the last objection to the formal adoption by the EU member states of the Lisbon Treaty. It is a measure of how much the democratic system has deteriorated in our country when the decisions of central European politicians dictate who governs Britain.

His signature means that the EU will now get a new rule book creating the role of president for the European Council - possibly Tony Blair - and stripping Britain of powers to control our own borders. The most worrying thing is that this treaty gives the EU the power to amend itself so it can take even more powers.

It has to be a matter of deep regret that our politicians have allowed such a huge shift in the governance of our country without a referendum on what is the most important issue to face our country: who governs us.

It would now be far more honest if our ministries and official buildings would cease to fly the Union Flag and hoist instead what is officially known in Brussels as "the Union flag", that same ring of stars which from December 1 will symbolise the true government we all live under.

Since the EU is to become a government with a "legal personality" in its own right, how long will it be before its president, under the constitution, is accorded international precedence over the Queen as our head of state? Our rulers in Brussels will start by denying that they are even thinking of such a thing, but now that they have their constitution in place, it can't be long before that becomes an actuality

and the European Union flag flies over Buckingham Place Peter Troy is chairman of the Sedgefield-based business Peter Troy The Publicist Ltd (website: www.the-publicist.co.uk).