Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Tony Benn rejects claims that the Single European Act improves women's rights or environmental standards, calling them lies to consolidate the EEC.
In plain terms
He says the promises about rights and water quality are lies used to push the EEC.
What can you take from it?
Scrutinize claims that international treaties will deliver domestic social benefits.

Where it applies

  • debating treaty benefits
  • evaluating political promises

Putting it to work

  • verify treaty impact claims
  • resist consolidation rhetoric

Questions to consider

  • Do treaties actually improve domestic rights?
  • How do you spot political rhetoric in policy debates?

Another view

Others argue the Single European Act has successfully improved labor and environmental standards.

More from Tony Benn

  1. The general election of 1983 has produced one important result that has passed virtually without comment in the media. It is that, for the first time since 194…

    Permalink to quote #20
  2. It would be inconceivable for the House to adjourn for Easter without recording the fact that last Friday the High Court disallowed an Act which was passed by …

    Permalink to quote #22
  3. Anyone from abroad will tell you that it is the class system that really lies at the root of our problems, economic and industrial. The House of Lords symbolis…

    Permalink to quote #19

Related quotes

  1. [I am against] the Treaty of Rome which entrenches laissez faire as its philosophy and chooses bureaucracy as its administrative method.

    Tony BennTony Benn quote #1
  2. If we want to save our planet earth, we have a duty to put an end to the capitalist system.

    Evo MoralesEvo Morales quote #1
  3. [George W.] Bush explained that he wasn't willing to take the steps outlined in the Kyoto accords - steps that both the scientific world and the international …

    Linda McQuaigLinda McQuaig quote #6