Silent Majority Speaks
Rescuing Democracy in the United Kingdom from our current Elected Dictatorship
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Spin,
not face-to-face confrontations with the voters, is the
Government's chosen method of communication. Ordinary people
are dangerous. Ordinary people might ask a question which
throws a politician 'off message'; the Cabinet member might
reveal himself or herself to be a human being like us, and
not a programmed android. Worse still, he or she might tell
the truth.
Ann Leslie - Daily Mail, September 16, 2004
Blair wants to leave his mark on
history - looks more like a stain to me.
Peter Thorndyke, Diss, Norfolk
- Daily Mail, May 23, 2005
I know I'm me - why do I need an
ID card?
"Sorry, officers, I don't have
an ID card. I never applied for one. It seemed a bit steep
at 300 quid. I do have my free passport, my driving licence
and my London freedom travel pass, each with my photograph.
I have my NHS medical card, with its lengthy number, given
me at birth, my RAF service book with my Armed Forces number,
and a chit authorising me to wear a few gongs -including
a General Service Medal with Malaya bar, for fighting communist
terrorists on behalf of my country, or so they told me.
"I've also got various credit cards and
store cards, all with my signature on the back, generally
good for buying the everyday requrements for life as well
as the odd luxury. If you decide to arrest me, I suppose
I'll have to be photographed and given another number, besides
my PINs.
"I'm afraid I haven't got a pension book;
it was taken away."
"By thieves, sir?"
"No ... well, not exactly. By the Government.
By the way, may I see your warrant cards please, gentlemen?"
Oh dear, they've disappeared. E. Harry Gumer,
Romford, ESSEX - Daily Mail, June 1, 2005
NO means NO
When does NO mean MAYBE?
When it's not the answer the EU wants. With the courageous French
NON resounding in their ears, shabby, undemocratic self-interested
leaders of Europe propose ignoring the part of their precious
constitution that requires ratification by all members and
continuing without one of the biggest founder members to
prevent derailing the gravy train.
As in Ireland, they refuse
to accept any NO votes, ignoring the will of the people,
and re-stage votes until they can engineer the 'correct'
answer. Sadly, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw dances to their
tune like a puppet on a string. With tactics such as these,
how can anyone really believe the EU has our interests at
heart. Letter from Steve Penny, Kingsnorth, Kent - Daily Mail, June1,
2005
Surely the French
result makes the £1million the EU recently spent on
a treaty signing ceremony seem a trifle premature and extravagant.
Letter from Keith Wiseman, Bury, Lancs. - Daily Mail, June1,
2005
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Britain has traditionally
been one of the biggest net contributors to the EU because
we do not get as much money back from Brussels in farm
and regional subsidies as our rivals.
According to Treasury
figures, between 1995-2002, Britain's average contribution
taking the rebate into account, was £2.6billion,
or £43.55 per head of population.
The French - the biggest
recipient of farm subsidies - contributed £1billion
a year or £16.08 per head of their population.
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Tony
Blair should know that respect comes by example - from the
top. If a country's leader has no respect for the rule of
international law and no respect for the truth, how can
he expect anyone to have respect. Letter
from P.J.Atkinson, Ashford, Kent - Daily Mail, January 12,
2006
The
Chancellor's single greatest act of vandalism in almost
nine years in office has been his wanton destruction of
Britain's private retirement industry. By slapping a massive
tax on pension funds, now worth
£7.3billion a year, he has helped to turn
the best private retirement industry in Europe into a basket-case
in perpetual crisis. Together with the adoption of European
accounting rules - which make it much riskier to operate
a company pension scheme - hundreds of firms have shut their
final salary plans to new employees and slashed benefits
to existing staff. From
Allister Heath: "I've seen the future and its grey"
in THE SPECTATOR - April 15, 2006
Nine
years ago the British people were sold a fantasy of clean
and competent government of principle and honesty. Its shiny
wrappings stripped away, the product now reveals its true
nature: Personal greed, arrogance, incompetence, shamelessness,
rash warmongering and an inability to accept - as is clear
to almost everyone else - that it is time to go. Editorial
- The Mail on Sunday, May 28, 2006
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July
18, 2007 (1509days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 3622 US - 159 UK - >1,000,000? civilians - 25 media
August
7, 2007 (1529 days since war ended)
Death
Toll: 3679 US - 165 UK - >1,000,000? civilians - 25 media
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site has had 
visitors
If
Gordon Brown forces this EU treaty on us, you can kiss goodbye
to democracy
by
Christopher Booker - Daily Mail, August 7, 2007
For
more than 60 years,, there has been no more potent symbol of the
central part Britain played in shaping the architecture of the
post-war world than the fact that we are one of only five countries
with a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.
As much as anything, this has allowed Britain to continue playing
a key role at the centre of global politics.
Euro
treaty's threat to Britain, by Labour MP Gisela Stuart
By
James Chapman, Deputy Political Editor, Daily Mail, August
7, 2007
The
revived EU constitution will pave the way for the first
European 'government' with sweeping powers over Britain,
one of its original architects warned yesterday.
The
Prime Minister would be forced to represent the interests
of the union rather than the UK under the terms of the
deal, said former Labour minister Gisela Stuart.
Her
warning came as the Conservatives claimed the agreement
would see the biggest sacrifice of Britain's rights to
block EU proposals in a single treaty - and could even
allow Brussels to seize control of North Sea oil and gas
reserves.
In
a Parliamentary written answer, the Foreign Office listed
50 different areas where member states will lose their
veto if the treaty is agreed. These include transport,
energy, tourism, civil protection, space, research and
common commercial policy.
Eurosceptic
backbencher John Redwood, who tabled the question in the
Commons, said the EU was grasping for power to force the
sharing of North Sea oil and gas in the event of a crisis
in energy supply. "It's easy to envisage circumstances
of scarcity when the rest of the EU says this ought to
be a common resource," he said.
The
Foreign Office insisted the UK would be able to opt out
of majority decisions in 13 areas, including social security
and judicial and police cooperation. But the Tories said
the Government's so-called 'red-lines' were exactly the
same as in the failed 2005 version of the constitution,
on which it did promise a referendum.
Miss
Stuart, the Labour MP for Edgbaston who was a member of
the group which drew up the original blueprint, said it
was clear from the text of the new version that the European
Council would get massively increased powers. The body
was originally set up in 1974 as an informal forum for
heads of EU member states to meet.
But
the treaty will formally incorporate the council into
the EU's structure - and oblige EU leaders to 'promote
its values, advance its objectives, serve its interests'
rather than those of member states.
Miss
Stuart, now a fierce critic of the Government's refusal
to offer a referendum, said: "It used to be that
leaders met in order to coordinate the interest of the
nation states. Under this new structure, that body where
heads of state meet will become subordinated to the union's
interests. They will now have a duty to represent the
interests of the union, not the interests of the member
state. It's a consolidation of the way the union works
into a structure which is much more like government."
She
claims ministers are either being 'deliberately disingenuous
or ill-informed' when they claim the treaty is not substantial
enough to merit a referendum.
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It
is hardly surprising, therefore, that there has been widespread
dismay at the revelation that
Gordon
Brown's highly influential new Foreign Office minister Lord Malloch-Brown
cannot wait to see Britain giving up that permanent seat at the
UN in favour of a delegate representing the European Union.
Lord
Malloch-Brown, until recently the UN's deputy secretary-general,
declares himself a 'big fan' of Britain's seat being handed over
to the EU.
Ploughing
And
this, in itself, is just part of the plan proposed by the new
EU constitutional treaty - that the EU should have its own foreign
minister (or 'High Representative) who will act on the world stage
as foreign minister on behalf of all the EU's 27 member states.
In
fact, the idea that we should give up the power to make out own
foreign policy in favour of an EU foreign minister, with its own
diplomatic service, is not even half of what this new treaty proposes.
Ploughing
though its 145 dense pages, what we see emerging is nothing less
than the grand design whereby Europe is to be given a new form
of supranational government, with far more powers over the lives
of the EU's 480million citizens than will remain with any national
government.
Nothing
reveals this more vividly than the extraordinary new status to
be given at the centre of this new government to a body known
as the European Council. It is this body that has already agreed
the exact wording of the new treaty and which has, in effect,
ordered that it should be rammed through in less than three months
without a word being changed.
This
in itself is wholly without precedent. All the previous treaties
which built up the powers of the EU resulted from months of negotiation
between national governments. But on this treaty, governments
are given no choice. They are simply to accept what they were
told to accept by the European Council in June.
When
we see how important is the new role given by the treaty to the
Council itself, it is obvious why the Council wants this new treaty
railroaded through without further discussion. What is this mysterious
body, the European Council? It has, in fact, been taking shape
and waxing in importance for more than 30 years. Its meetings
are normally described by the media as 'summits'.
It
was as long ago as 1974 that Jean Monnet, French mastermind behind
the whole of the 'European project' since it began in 1950, first
proposed that there should be regular, informal get-togethers
between the prime ministers or heads of government of all the
countries making up what was then just the 'European Community'
- hence 'summits' - and that their purpose should be to guide
the 'project' on its way to ever further political integration.
Monnet's
idea for these 'European Councils' was that they should be regarded
as 'the provisional government of Europe'. And, over the past
three decades, they have regularly made headlines as the scene
of such noteworthy events as those rows in which Margaret Thatcher
battled over her budget rebate.
But
however important the European Council has been in all those years,
it has never been formally part of the EU's governmental structure.
It has always remained as inter-governmental get-together between
prime ministers and presidents, each representing his or her own
country's national interests as they sat round the table.
Now,
suddenly, all this is changing. Under the new treaty, the European
Council is for the first time to be formally included, alongside
the European Commission and the European Parliament, as an 'institution
of the Union'. And when we look at all those different parts of
the treaty which help to define its new powers and duties, we
can see that the Council's role is to act as Cabinet of the
new 'government of Europe'.
For
a start, presiding over its meetings will be a new permanent President
of Europe, serving for up to five years (who may also be president
of the European Commission). Alongside him, acting as the Union's
foreign minister, will be that High Representative Lord Malloch-Brown
is so keen on: the official who will in effect be foreign secretary
for all the EU's 27 members, including Britain.
Loyalty
Bur
there is another highly significant change in the role of the
European Council, which can only be grasped by looking at the
treaty's small print. Until now, when prime ministers attended
a meeting of the Council, the spoke on behalf of their own country.
However,
when the Council becomes a 'Union institution', its members will
no longer be allowed to do this. Like the members of all other
Union institutions, their first loyalty must now be to the Union.
Their first aim will be to 'promote its values, advance its objectives,
serve its interests', and these take priority over any national
loyalty.
If
we look at the part of the treaty which sets out those 'objectives
of the Union', we can see how this has now actually been extended
since that draft constitution thrown out two years ago by French
and Dutch voters.
In
fact, it is now drawn so widely that there is virtually nothing
which cannot be regarded as an EU 'objective'. In future, when
Mr Brown or any other British prime minister attends a Council,
his over-riding duty will not be to represent British interests
but to promote those objectives.
And
as the new treaty makes clear, the Union will now have the power
to decide policy 0n almost every conceivable issue, from foreign
and defence policy to how national economies should be run.
Bombshell
Furthermore,
if the Union wants to take any powers which are not specifically
authorised by the treaty, it will be able to do so under another
new article in the treaty which amounts virtually to a blank cheque.
The EU will be allowed to take new powers over anything it wants,
in accordance with those new all-embracing 'objectives of the
Union'.
One
of the biggest potential bombshells of all is hidden away in Article
262. This says that, by decision of the European Council, the
EU 'may establish new categories of own resources', which is Euro-speak
for it being given the power to impose its own taxes.
What
all this amounts to is that the EU finally wishes to set itself
up as the supreme government of Britain and 26 other countries,
with virtually unlimited powers over every aspect of our lives.
This is nothing less than an astonishing coup d'etat.
Can
it be true that our new prime minister wishes to see this imposed
on us without allowing us the referendum he and the Labour Party
promised us when they were elected in 2005? If there is one thing
on which every citizen of this country should be resolved, it
is that Gordon Brown cannot be allowed to get away with this unless
our wishes are consulted.
Britain
is still, after all, supposed to be a democracy. If this treaty
goes through, we shall certainly not be one any more.
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