BRITISH Tory Euro sceptic, Mr Bill Cash, has strongly criticised the democratic deficit of the European Parliament.
In his speech to the conference on voting rights, the Conservative MP, who has led a strident campaign in Britain for a referendum on Europe, described the European Parliament as "a joke".
Europe was moving towards being one country but most people living in countries such as Sweden and Denmark did not favour a centralised power.
Mr Cash said: "The fact is that people go in secret into polling booths in a general election and cast a vote freely. It is our democracy. I fear that if you look at the European system, that will not be the way it will work. You have a 35 per cent turnout in many countries such as the UK and Holland and most elections turn on national issues.
"We must have proper debate in individual national parliaments about Europe, but most states don't have any scrutiny of these issues whatsoever. The democratic deficit is massive.
"The countries like Ireland which have a proper system of scrutiny will find they are outvoted by people from countries which have no such system at all, which is a very serious state of affairs."
Mr Cash also criticised its remoteness from voters and the serious delays in its decision making. "This is a joke. The bigger it gets, the worse it gets. I am in favour of a European Parliament. It is the functions it is given, not its existence, which I am against. It is labyrinthine in the extreme. Does anyone in this room have the faintest idea what is going on at any given time? It is literally Byzantine, in the worst sense of the old Roman, word.
"The European Parliament actually votes on issues to keep in with the Commission, rather than to make it accountable."
The Maastricht treaty had an inherent problem and had deprived many European citizens of jobs. The treaty would not be passed by France if Maastricht was held now, said Mr Cash.
During his lobbying in the House of Commons for a referendum, he found at least 150 MPs wanted to vote for the bill but could not for party reasons. Five former cabinet ministers voted for a referendum, he said.
Answering a contribution from the floor in which he was accused of being a Euro sceptic, he replied: "Am I a Euro sceptic? No, I am a Euro realist." He added: "If we lose the next general election, it will be because of the ERM and its effects.