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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May 31, 2005 (761 days since war
ended)
Death Toll: 1,657 US - 89 UK - >6,164?
Iraqi - >17,300 civilians - 25 media
June 17, 2005 (779 days since war
ended)
Death Toll: 1,716 US - 89 UK -
>6,164? Iraqi - >17,300? civilians - 25 media
June 26, 2005 (788 days since war
ended)
Death Toll: 1,737 US - 89 UK -
>6,164? Iraqi - >17,300? civilians - 25 media
July 6, 2005 (798 days since war
ended)
Death Toll: 1,751 US - 90 UK -
>6,164? Iraqi - >17,300? civilians - 25 media
August 24, 2005 (847 days since
war ended)
Death Toll: 1,869 US - 93 UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
September
29, 2005 (883 days since war ended)
Death Toll: 1,928 US - 96 UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
October
11, 2005 (895 days since war ended)
Death Toll: 1,956 US - 96UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
October
20, 2005 (904 days since war ended)
Death Toll: 1,986 US - 97UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
October
25, 2005 (909 days since war ended)
Death Toll: 2,001 US - 97UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
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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December
1, 2005 (946 days since Iraq war ended)
Death Toll: 2,114 US - 98UK - >>6,164?
Iraqi - >>17,300? civilians - 25 media
The
Federal Monster
So
you thought the EU constitution was dead? Dream on. In fact, the
past few months have seen a dramatic diminishing of British sovereignty
as Brussels, abetted by our ministers, grabs ever more power
Saturday
Essay by Christopher Booker - Daily Mail, December 10, 2005
The
headlines may be focussed on next week's showdown between Tony
Blair and President Chirac, as they battle over the 'UK budget
rebate'. So clumsily has our Prime Minister played what once looked
a winning hand that it now looks as though he faces humiliation,
being angrily opposed by every country in the EU except tiny Malta.
But the real EU story of recent months, as so often before, has
not been the one played to the mass audience, but one unfolding
largely out of view.
Remember
last summer and all the excitement that followed the rejection
of the EU constitution by the voters of France and Holland? For
two years we had been warned, not least by the Daily Mail, that
the constitution heralded the setting up of a 'European superstate'.
At last, it seemed that vision had suffered a spectacular and
permanent reverse. The relentless drive to European integration
was seemingly ended. Tony Blair proclaimed that the peoples of
Europe had 'blown their trumpets round the city walls', and it
was time the EU's leaders paused to listen.
You
might, therefore, be surprised to learn that, since last summer,
the building of the 'superstate' has, in fact, been powering ahead
regardless, and on many different fronts. In recent months, the
way the EU has continued stealthily to take over so many of the
powers of our Government and Parliament from behind the scenes
- with full permission, even encouragement, from our own ministers
- has reminded me of a popular television science fiction series
from years ago, featuring a scientist called Professor Quatermass.
Our
hero discovered that Britain was threatened by an extra-terrestrial
invasion - but with a vital difference. Instead of arriving in
spaceships as bug-eyed aliens, the invaders had power to take
over human beings from within, so that outwardly they seemed unchanged.
When, desperate to wake up the Government to the threat, Quatermass
went to see all his top-level contacts in Whitehall and Westminster,
he was dismayed by their bland assurances that there was nothing
to worry about.
But
then, in each case, he observed from a telltale mark on their
wrist that these ministers and top civil servants had been 'taken
over'. Britain was already in the hands of the alien power.
It
may seem a lurid parallel, but in recent months I have often been
reminded of the Quatermass story by the way the EU and its allies,
including Mr Blair, have been behaving just as though the peoples
of Europe have never spoken. Far from being some kind of setback,
the rejection of the new constitution has turned out to be a trigger
for one of the EU's biggest power grabs for decades, across a
whole range of policy areas, from defence, immigration and taxation,
to the way we run our police, our courts and our judicial system.
Most
shocking of all is the way most of our politicians at Westminster
seem oblivious to what is happening, while our ministers and civil
servants - along with those of the other 24 countries in the EU
- are actively urging on the drive to integration in all directions.
There are two particular ways in which the building of the 'European
superstate' has been powering ahead since the supposed collapse
of the constitution.
First,
most shamelessly, has been the sight of EU's leaders implementing
that rejected constitution just as though it were already law.
Britain and other EU countries have
already, for instance, been moving to close down many of their
embassies across the world, to be replaced by embassies run by
the EU's own worldwide diplomatic service. This process began
as soon as the constitution was signed, without waiting for it
to be ratified.
Similarly
the EU is moving with astonishing speed towards building up its
own police force. The new 'European Police College', to train
senior officers from all over Europe in 'integrated policing methods',
is already in place at Bramshill in Hampshire. The 43 police forces
of England and Wales are soon to be cut to 12, to match the new
'Euro-regions' around which we are reshaping UK's local government.
We are moving with equal speed towards the 'harmonising' of our
judicial system, as the EU sets up a 'European Public Prosecutor',
with power to direct court actions in every single country in
the EU.
Our
ministers have recently agreed to a new 'European Evidence Warrant',
empowering foreign courts to seize documents and search premises,
even just on the suspicion of an offence which is not necessarily
a crime under British law.
Other
examples of jumping the gun on the as yet nonexistent constitution
are even more blatant. Two weeks ago in Brussels, for instance,
EU ministers met for what was called the first 'European Space
Council', to draw up a 'European space programme'. This is a hugely
ambitious attempt to set up the EU in rivalry to the U.S., as
a fully-fledged space power, complete with its own ring of satellites,
Galileo (which has already cost UK taxpayers £400million).
But
as yet the EU has no legal right to set up its own space programme.
This would only be given it by Article 254 of the constitution,
once it was legally ratified. One reason why the EU wants its
own satellites, independent of those run by the U.S. is that they
are designed to play a key role in the future operations of Europe's
own defence forces. Significantly, 20%
of the ownership and running of Galileo has been bought by China,
as America's most obvious potential enemy.
In
recent months, integration of the EU's armed forces has also been
charging ahead, coordinated by a Brussels-based body known as
the European Defence Agency, set up last January under a former
senior civil servant from Britain's Ministry of Defence. Again,
the authorisation for this was to be Article 41 of the constitution,
which is not yet law. Legally, therefore, the European Defence
Agency should not exist.
Yet
already, in support of the integration the agency represents,
the MoD has been pouring billions of pounds of UK taxpayers' money
into a series of massive defence contracts for everything from
missiles and trucks to aircraft and ships. These are going to
European rather than British or U.S. defence firms, often for
equipment which is inferior and much more expensive.
Other
examples can be seen in all directions. At least some are beginning
to attract public attention. But another
process whereby the EU is taking over powers wholesale from national
governments has gone almost wholly unnoticed. This is the way
in which Brussels is setting up its very own all-powerful agencies
to rule over one important area of activity after another, by
acting through national agencies which, if effect, become just
its local branch offices.
When,
for instance, the Labour Government set up its Food Standards
Agency to supervise Britain's food and hygiene laws, how many
people realised that it would merely be acting as a branch office
for the EU's new European Food Safety Authority, based in Italy?
How
many realise Britain's largest quango, the Environment Agency,
merely exists to enforce laws on pollution and waste deriving
wholly from Brussels. Everything related to aviation in the UK,
from deciding which airlines are permitted to use our airports
to the certifying of aircraft as fit to fly, used to be the responsibility
of Britain's Civil Aviation Authority, respected all over the
world.
But
today we no longer have any of those powers, because they have
been handed over to the European Aviation Safety Agency, based
in Cologne, under a policy known as 'the Single European Sky'.
All issues relation to railway safety are about to be handed over
to the EU's Railway Agency, based in France.
The
EU's ports and ships are about to come under the regulatory control
of the European Maritime Agency, based in Portugal. Our chemicals
industry, Europe's largest, will shortly be subjected to a draconian
regulatory regime run by the European Chemicals Agency, based
in Finland.
Even
the enforcement of rules in British fishing waters is to be run
by European Fisheries Agency in Vigo, a Spanish port famously
known as 'the world capital of illegal fishing'.
The
chief reason why this massive takeover of national powers has
not been more widely noticed is that the EU exercises its control
from behind the scenes, so carefully disguised that even many
of those directly affected still think that their own national
ministers and agencies are still in charge.
But
herein lies what is perhaps the cleverest of all strategies whereby
our new 'European' system of government has managed to take ever
greater power over our national life. It is the reason par
excellence why people have not noticed the extent to which
the running of our country has been handed over to this new 'supranational'
system.
Instead
of sweeping away all existing national institutions in each country,
these have all been left standing while being hollowed from within.
Our familiar landscape of monarchy, Parliament, Civil Service
and courts is all still in place, as if nothing had happened.
But their significance and power is being gradually being sucked
out, to be handed over to this mysterious new system of government
which not even most of our elected politicians begin to understand.
We
have become the victims of a 'slow-motion coup d'etat'.
Watch
the dead eyes of our ministers as they reassure us with their
jargon-ridden platitudes that everything is fine, and one has
a chilling glimpse of what Professor Quatermass felt when, in
that science fiction series of long ago, he tried to awaken his
fellow citizens to the terrible danger which was taking their
country away from them.
Today,
in many respects, the true capital of our country is no longer
London. It is Brussels. We are ruled, far more than most people
yet realise, by a system of government which is not elected and
which therefore we cannot hold to account or dismiss.
In
effect, we are thus increasingly coming to live in what amounts
to a one-party state. The fact that come of our fellow-European
citizens last summer tried to say 'NO' to further European integration
now begins to look tragically irrelevant. Our one-party state
marches on, it hopes, for ever.
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