Democracy Movement
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- This article is about a political group in the United Kingdom. For the political movement in China, please see Chinese democracy movement.
The Democracy Movement is a crossparty Eurosceptic pressure group in the UK with around 150 local branches. It grew out of the late James Goldsmith's Referendum Party in 1998. It campaigns against Britain entering Economic and Monetary Union with the Eurozone. This is on the grounds that the British government would lose control over interest rates, exchange rates and spending on public services.
The Democracy Movement campaigns to win a 'NO' vote in any referendum held on the EU Constitution. The movement claims that far from being a 'tidying up exercise' of existing treaties and powers as the government claims, the Constitution represents a fundamental change in the nature of the EU and a significant increase in the centralisation of decision-making power in Brussels.
The Democracy Movement calls for the dismantling of the EU and its replacement with a new flexible and voluntary form of co-operation between European governments, called the 'Europe of Democracies'. Powers will be decentralised from Brussels back to elected national parliaments whose laws will resume legal precedence. Trade will be facilitated between countries within Europe and across the World, and an internationalist outlook will be developed. Billions of pounds from the Brussels budget will be re-distributed to the peoples of Europe.
The DM is funded by donations from grassroots supporters although the Goldsmith family and the Eurosceptic businessman Paul Sykes have made large campaign donations in the past.