Author: TonyGosling
Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2016 11:49 pm (GMT 0)
WHY WE MUST VOTE TO LEAVE THE EU
A BRIEFING NOTE BY PETER MORGAN
1. The Big issues
2. What happens after we leave?
3. The European Empire
4. Why must we leave?
5. However did we get to this state?
PETER MORGAN has worked and played in Europe since 1955.
- In 1955-56 he was a Royal Signals officer stationed in Austria and
Bavaria in a unit responsible for intercepting signals traffic from the
Russian army in Hungary.
- In 1966-69 and again in 1975-80 he was on the staff of IBM
Europe, living and working in Paris with Europe-wide responsibilities.
- From 1989 to 1994 he was Director General of the Institute of
Directors. The IOD was active in the public policy arena and in this
period he worked on the 1992 Single Market programme and was deeply
involved with the ERM, EMU (the euro), the Social Charter and the
Social Chapter. On the morning after the Maastricht Treaty, it was Peter
who featured in the item on the Treaty in the BBC Today programme.
- In 17 of the last 21 years, Peter was a UK delegate to the European
Economic and Social Committee based in Brussels, which he visited
30-40 times a year. The Committee is tri-partite. Peter was an ‘employer’
representative. The role of the Committee is to give its opinion on
upcoming legislation to the Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
This meant a considerable involvement in EU legislation and the
legislative process.
- He was a director and chairman of a mutual life insurance
company (1980-89) and a Member of the Council of Lloyd’s (2000-09).
- In 2005 Peter published a book – Alarming Drum, Britain’s
European Dilemma - in the context of the EU Constitution that was then
being drafted
1. BRITAIN MUST VOTE TO LEAVE THE EU
THE BIG ISSUES
Self Government is the central issue. The British
Empire based its existence on the argument that ‘good’
government was better for the governed than selfgovernment.
The ‘Remain’ case is based on the same
premise – that government by the EU Empire is better
than British self-government. (See part 3 – The European
Empire). In this case ‘good’ government equates to
access to the Single Market and the protection of
workers’ rights. It also includes freedom to move around
the Empire to experience other cultures, other
universities, other holidays and other work places.
Finally, there is a perception that the Empire is a
guarantor of Member State security.
In order to maintain the illusion of ‘good’ EU
government, the present British government and its
acolytes have launched a dishonest campaign to create an
aura of fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) about the selfgovernment
alternative. The extent of the misrepresentation
is staggering.
The basic point is that the EU Empire is not well
governed. It is not at all democratic. Its system is the
absolute opposite of democracy. As the British Empire
disintegrated in the face of freedom movements seeking
self-government, so will the EU Empire. Britain is the
cradle of democracy. (See part 4 – Why must we leave).
Westminster is the mother of parliaments. It is right that
we strike the first blow. The Remain campaign talks
about reform in Europe, but the only likely change will
be to consolidate the Super State in response to the
multiple crises faced by the Union – euro crisis, refugee
crisis, unemployment crisis, economic stagnation and a
political crisis from both the left and the right.
The apparent benefits of EU style ‘good’ government are
more illusory than real. (See part 2 – What happens after
we leave?). Trade will continue, holidays will continue,
security will be maintained, subsidies and subventions
will continue. We are not ‘leaving’ Europe, we are
leaving the European Union. We are not ‘cutting
ourselves off’ from Europe. With some adaptation, things
will carry on as before.
The young in particular need reassurance that they will
not be cut off. You have to be 60 years old to remember
that before joining the EU we travelled all over western
Europe when we were young, Inter-railing, hitch-hiking,
Youth-hostelling, etc. Mediterranean homes were not a
problem. In 1964 Sue and I received an apartment on the
Costa del Sol as a wedding present. This freedom will
continue, with the bonus that today access to Eastern
Europe is also possible.
The real difference will be that we take back control of
our country and our borders. Westminster will legislate
for Britain; the Supreme Court will actually be supreme,
we will still need migrants, but we will decide who they
should be.
Britain has no more reason than America to give up its
independence. Britain is a big and powerful country:
- Permanent member, UN Security Council
- One of 9 nuclear powers
- 5th ranked armed forces in the world
(behind USA, Russia, China and India)
- 5th largest economy in the world
- 4th most traded currency in the world
- All the top universities in Europe
- Ranked number 3 in FT global 500 companies
- Ranked number 1 in FT Europe 5oo companies
-10th largest population amongst G20 countries
- Forecast to be largest population in Europe by 2050
- English is the world’s first language
People who have being listening to Cameron and other
leaders continually talking down British prospects will
be astonished by these statistics. It makes you wonder
how we came to be in the EU in the first place. (See part
5– How did we get into this state?). It is time to leave.
Our forefathers went to war for parliamentary democracy.
We must mobilise to get it back.
2. BRITAIN MUST VOTE TO LEAVE THE EU
WHAT HAPPENS AFTER WE LEAVE?
Machiavelli told his Prince that he needed to plan carefully
when introducing any major change because those who think
that they may be adversely affected will protest vigorously
while those who may benefit will keep their heads down and
wait to see what happens. Most of the concerns about Brexit are
illusory, but the disgraceful government campaign to create fear,
uncertainty and doubt (FUD), has the single purpose of
frightening the general public into rejecting change. But the
long-term goal, a democratic Britain in control of its borders and
its future, is a prize worth fighting for.
The main point is that treaties between sovereign states – the
UK and the EU – will replace our present subordinate status vis
a vis the EU. The most obvious example of what a Treaty can
achieve is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – NATO – that
has underpinned our security since the end of the Second World
War. Over that period NATO has done as much, if not more than
the EU, to keep the peace in Europe
Security.
NATO will still underpin British security when we leave the
EU. We will continue to be a Member of Interpol, because it is
an international organization. We will continue to be a member
of Five Eyes, the world’s most important intelligence alliance
comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United
Kingdom and the United States. The multilateral UKUSA
Agreement binds these countries in a treaty for joint
cooperation in signals intelligence. GCHQ in Cheltenham is the
most powerful intelligence organisation in Europe. The EU will
need a treaty for intelligence cooperation with the UK involving
GCHQ, MI5 and MI6. Further aspects of security cooperation
would involve the British voice at the Security Council, the
armed forces and the British nuclear deterrent. A modified
European Arrest Warrant should be agreed to apply to cases of
terrorism and serious criminality. When applied, the existing
blanket warrant removes habeas corpus and trial by jury, the
corner stones of British Liberties.
Education and Science
UK universities lead Europe and there can be no doubt that the
EU will seek cooperation in Education and Science. Shanghai
University publishes the most authoritative ranking of world
universities. Overall, the UK has 3 in the top 20, Switzerland 1,
EU 0; in the next 20: EU has 2, UK 1. In the top 100, UK has 9
and the rest of the EU has 18.It is implausible to suppose that
there will not be a free academic interchange between the UK
and the EU.
UK ranks equally well in the science and technology disciplines.
In Science top 20: UK 2, Eu 1, Switzerland 1; in the next 20:
UK 3, EU 2, Switzerland 1. In Engineering top 20: UK 2,
Switzerland 1, EU 0; in the next 20: UK 0, EU 2, Switzerland 1.
In Life Sciences top 20: UK 3, EU 0; in the next 20, UK 1, EU
3, Switzerland 1. In the medical top 20: UK 3, EU 1; in the next
20: UK 2, EU 4, Switzerland 1. These skills underpin the future
wealth of an independent Britain. They should also be the basis
for academic interchange with the EU and the rest of the world.
Note that these comparisons are between one country, Britain,
and all the other 27 EU countries.
TRADE
The share of world output accounted for by the 28 current
members of the EU has fallen from 30% to 17% between 1980
and 2015. It is not that EU output has fallen much; it has just not
kept up with the growth in world trade. Four fifths of world
trade now takes place outside Europe. The UK share of world
trade has also fallen. The shortfall is in Asia and it is there,
rather than in the EU that the UK needs to concentrate.
Although we must leave the Single Market after Brexit, trade
with the EU will continue to flow – that’s what trade does.
Which politician will tell French farmers or Bavarian 1Motor
Werkers that they have decided to put barriers in the way of
trade with Britain? Scotch whisky manufacturers are big
Remainers because the EU is a big market. But do they think
that Italy, Spain and Portugal will no longer sell us wine; or that
France will no longer sell us wine, champagne and cognac? The
UK is the next biggest market for champagne after France itself.
The trade scare stories are the most despicable of the
government’s FUD tactics. They should be working to facilitate
trade, not alarming our trading partners. There will be no change
until the 2-year transition is over, by when it will have been in
the mutual interest of both parties to organize bi-lateral market
access. Fears about spiteful retaliation should be discounted
because the trade will have to flow. As Mrs. Thatcher famously
said, “You can’t buck the market”.
Not being involved in EU market regulation will not be an issue.
After all, America, Japan and China adapt to EU requirements;
so will the UK.
We are also told that trade agreements will be problematical but
the facts suggest otherwise. Obama may say that Britain would
go to the back of the queue, but his opponents disagree and the
facts are that Britain and the USA are the largest direct investors
1 The % of BMW sales by country is as follows: China 21%, USA 18%, Germany
13%, UK 10%. UK sales are bigger than the next 3 markets – France, Italy and Japan
combined, soothe UK clearly has plenty of leverage to make trade deals
in each other’s countries while an EU deal with the USA seems
impossible for as long as France has a say. With compatible
Anglo-Saxon views on markets and a shared basis of language,
common law and commercial law, a trade deal should be a shoein.
In this context the CBI (which is on the Brussels payroll) is its
usual short term, unprincipled (in respect of British democracy),
pragmatic self and, as usual, because it is blinkered, it is wrong,
as it was wrong about both ERM and EMU. I know – I was
there. The largest CBI members are multinational companies
with polyglot boards of directors with no stake in British
democracy and British liberties.
Economics and the City
It was not the City, nor the Treasury, nor the Bank of England
that kept the UK out of the euro. It was, in effect Jimmy
Goldsmith, whose promise of a referendum on the euro during
the 1997 general election campaign caused Blair to make a
similar promise. This meant that Britain did not join the euro
because the vote could not be won. Let us hope that the
government, with the Bank, the Treasury, the City and the CBI
pimping out the FUD, will be thwarted once again by the
commonsense of the people.
The euro crisis is unresolved. In the language of the economists,
the troika (Commission, IMF, ECB - to which you can add
Germany) is kicking the can down the road. When they finally
grasp the nettle, they only have two options: either to eject the
over- indebted Member States from the Union or mutualize the
debt and create an integrated European state. The former option
could create chaos. The latter option will create an EU of which
the UK cannot form a part. Either way, we are better off out of
both the EU and the euro, with sterling managed by the Bank of
England.
Part of the FUD generated by the UK troika – Bank, Treasury,
City – is that the fifth largest economy in the world is somehow
going to become a basket case overnight while the crisis ridden
EU is a paragon of stability and some sort of haven. The troika
should be realistic about the opportunities presented by Brexit.
Much of the financial services industry will be unaffected,
except that the regulators can take the opportunity to adapt the
Brussels regulations to the realities of London markets, instead
of being forced to live with French-inspired regulations that
seemed designed to undermine the City. Modification of the
AIFM directive should bring back the Hedge funds. The spectre
of FTT (Financial Transaction Tax) will be removed and HSBC
can shelve its plans to move to Hong Kong. Investment banks
are clearly concerned which is why Goldman Sachs has given a
substantial six-figure sum to the Remain campaign. As one of
the architects of the banking crisis, Goldman Sachs’ views
should probably be ignored. After all, if these bankers are clever
enough to earn their astronomical paychecks, they should be
clever enough to establish a role for London in global financial
markets.
A crass example of the FUD coming out of the Treasury is the
warning that London house prices could fall by 10%. Isn’t that
good news? Have not lower London house prices been the goal
of policy makers for decades?
Social
The social dimension of the EU is not concerned with social
security and minimum wages, or at least not yet – the EU yearns
to get involved in such matters. At present the EU focus is on
workers’ rights – Social Charter, Social Chapter in the Treaties,
Working Time Directive, etc. After the Thatcher government
brought order into trade union affairs, the unions sought refuge
in the Workers Rights activities if the EU. As the Thatcher
administration proved, labour relations in Britain are best dealt
with in Westminster. The leader of the Labour party has said that
Britain should remain in the EU because Westminster cannot be
trusted with labour legislation. In other words, the British people
are not to be trusted. This is to be expected from Labour, but
how is it that Cameron agreed publicly with the TUC assertion
that trades unions need the protection of the EU. What a betrayal
of British democracy!
Migration
Migration is a pivotal issue in this referendum. People are
concerned about the social impact of uncontrolled migration
from the EU even though they know that they benefit from the
skills the migrants bring and the positive economic impact they
make. It would be wrong to halt migration from Europe but we
must have control over it. We also need to ensure that we create
room for skilled migrants from outside Europe, especially from
India and China that are now being turned away because the EU
influx is out of control.
We should assume that for British workers seeking jobs in the
EU, the EU would replicate controls put on migrants from the
EU to Britain. Since our controls will make sense, we should
expect that EU controls would be equally rational.
Immigrants are vital for the economy but we must have control
of the flow. A Slovakian hospital nurse said to me recently that
if we did not get control of migration, we would lose our
Britishness!
Holidays in the EU
What happens to holidays? The answer is the same as that for
trade. Vacation traffic will not stop. We will not be cut off.
Spain , Portugal, Italy, G 2 reece and Ireland all need our holidaymaker
pounds because the euro has crippled their economies.
There is no question of visas being needed. Since we are not in
Schengen, we already show our passports. What will be needed
are a reciprocal air transport protocol and a revised E111
medical scheme. Both should be straightforward because they
are mutually beneficial. The 27 are in our debt on medical
expenses.
EU Subsidies and Subventions.
Many organizations and many individuals receive more or less
financial support from the EU. NGOs are notorious clients of
the EU. These are the Machiavellian beneficiaries of the EU,
throwing their support behind the Remain campaign. They
worry about the money being cut off. They forget that it is our
money and that for every £100 we send to the EU, we only get
£50 back. When we leave the EU, the other £50 will be
available for new subsidies while existing subsidies and
contributions can be maintained until needs have changed. If the
government were honest, it would give the necessary
undertakings instead of spreading FUD over the issue. Senior
politicians in the Leave team should be making pledges to
farmers, fishermen, remote islanders, scientists, NGOs and
others that they will be looked after. This is a gap in
understanding the LEAVE programme must close.
2 The ranking of British holidaymakers in the main EU destination countries is Spain
1, France 2, Italy 4, Greece 2, Portugal 2, Ireland 1, Germany 3, Austria 5
The Celtic Fringe
The Celts seem to prefer EU government to Westminster
government. All 3 nations are hooked on EU regional aid,
discounting the scale of support they receive from Westminster
under the Barnett formula. Residents of the Highlands and
Islands, sheep and dairy farmers all need reassurance that
Westminster after Brexit will compensate them as necessary to
mitigate their geographical disadvantages.
As the Irish home-rule campaigners proved, while the
Westminster Parliament works well for the government of
Britain, it does not necessarily serve the specific interests of the
Celtic nations. A more federal structure, including home rule for
England, is clearly needed. It is ironic that while pressing for
independence in the United Kingdom, the Celts seem less keen
on independence from Brussels, even though their clout in the
United Kingdom is some orders of magnitude greater than it
could ever be in Brussels. This is a measure of the distrust of
Westminster. A federal solution must be on the agenda after
Brexit.
3. BRITAIN MUST VOTE TO LEAVE THE EU
THE EUROPEAN EMPIRE
Britain must leave the EU in order to become self-governing
again. This section of the paper explains the characteristics of
the EU that define it as an Empire.
Membership
The European Union is a Super State made up, for the moment,
of 28 subordinate Member States. It is most probable that 10
more states will be added in the coming years. Britain has
nothing in common with any of them.
There are five recognized candidates for membership: Turkey
(applied in 1987), Macedonia (applied in 2004), Montenegro
(applied in 2008), Albania (applied in 2009) and Serbia (applied
in 2009). All candidate countries except Albania and Macedonia
have started accession negotiations. Bosnia-Herzegovina and
Kosovo, whose independence is not recognised by five EU
Member States, are recognised as potential candidates for
membership by the EU. Bosnia-Herzegovina has formally
submitted an application for membership, while Kosovo has a
Stabilization and Association Agreement with the EU, which
generally precedes the lodging of membership application.
According to its Eastern Partnership strategy, the EU is unlikely
to invite any more of its post-Soviet neighbours to join the bloc
before 2020. However, in 2014 the EU signed Association
Agreements with Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine and the
European Parliament passed a resolution recognizing the
“European perspective” of all three post-Soviet countries.
This means that another 10 countries are in line to become
Member States of the European Union, bringing alien
perspectives and further diminishing the British presence in the
Union. If an independent Scotland were to join the EU in this
time frame, it would have strange bedfellows!
Fundamentals
The Four Freedoms of the EU are the free movement of goods,
workers, capital and services. They also include the right to
establish a business (if you can cope with the local
bureaucracy). These freedoms are fundamental to the creation of
the Union. They are sacred. If, like the British, you had not
planned to be part of the Super State, and find yourself unable to
control migrant flows, whatever their economic contribution,
these freedoms seem less sacred. It should not be forgotten that
freedom for the young to explore Europe existed long before we
joined the EU.
Following the Schengen Treaty there are no border controls,
because Member States now form a Super State that has no
internal borders. Britain and Ireland did not sign the treaty.
Events in Syria and elsewhere have shown that the Schengen
concept was fundamentally flawed. Signatories are opting out. A
Union without internal borders will not be possible until the
Union is more tightly integrated with a strong border force.
Britain has no interest in giving up control of its borders to such
a force. After Brexit, the borders between Britain and Ireland
will remain open.
The Euro is the Union currency. There were 3 main reasons for
the introduction of the Euro, known formally as EMU -
Economic and Monetary Union – which formed part of the
Maastricht Treaty in 1992.
1) To fulfill a French goal to wrest control of European
monetary policy from the Bundesbank whose Deutschmark
dominated Europe. As it turns out, this was a big mistake.
France is floundering in the wake of Germany while the Euro
has enabled Germany to grow even richer so that it now calls the
shots in the Eurozone.
2) For the architects of the EU Super State, the common
currency had been the Holy Grail. It would be the route to full
integration. After all, you cannot have a currency without a
country to back it. It would also stimulate wealth creation,
making Europe rich and uniting its people. The outcome has
been misery, unemployment, economic decline, political
extremism and a north south divide whereby Germany prospers
and southern Europe is in despair. This is not necessarily bad
news for the integrationists because if the Union is not to fall
apart completely, it will have to be more tightly integrated so
that the impossible debt levels of so many impoverished
Member States can be assumed by the Union as a whole. This
cannot happen without more political integration. When that
happens, non-Euro members like Britain and Denmark will be
marginalized, with Euroland deciding for Euroland, with little
consideration for anyone outside. There are only two possible
scenarios for the Eurozone: disintegration or integration. Britain
should use the June 23 referendum distance itself from both
scenarios that would be equally bad for Britain.
3) To appease the EU’s visceral dislike of the Anglo-Saxon
world by challenging the supremacy of the US dollar. In this
they have had some success, with the Euro achieving the status
of a reserve currency. All around the world, nations hold a
proportion of their reserves in Euros. Therefore, if the Eurozone
implodes, there will be a crisis. This is why the world’s major
finanical institutions –World Bank, IMF, US Federal Reserve,
etc. – are so anxious and why the Greek crisis has been allowed
to fester for six years because Brussels thinks that if a country
leaves the Eurozone, it will undermine confidence in the euro
even though it the Eurozone would actually be more stable
without Greece. Even though Britain is not a member of the
Eurozone, a Brexit could be seen as a vote of no confidence in
the EU and, by extension, the Eurozone. This is why all the
firepower of these institutions deployed by Obama and others, is
aimed at putting the fear of God into the British people. It is a
naked attempt to subvert the democratic choice of the British
people to prop up the misconceived and misbegotten euro.
British democrats should stand firm against this intimidation.
Our long-term future is at stake and should not be traded off
against a financial crisis not of our making.
So much for the EU fundamentals –Free movement, Schengen,
Eurozone. They are not well conceived but they are fundamental
building blocks for the imperial Super State.
EU POWERS
The EU now makes all the important laws for the UK. There is a
dispute about how much UK legislation comes out of Brussels.
It is certainly more than half but rather than argue numbers, it is
more important to consider the extent of powers enjoyed by the
EU.
Eu powers are called ‘competencies ‘. They have been increased
progressively since the Treaty of Rome in 1957. There has been
a whole series of treaties in which power was transferred to
Brussels but the key milestones have been the 1976 Single
Europe Act that turned the Common Market into the Single
Market, the 1992 Maastricht Treaty that turned the European
Community into the European Union and the 2006 TFEU
(Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union), otherwise
known as the Lisbon Treaty. The T-EU was, in fact, a
repackaging of the EU Constitution, which France and the
Netherlands had blocked by referendum. As the competencies of
Brussels have been increased, so has each Member State been
stripped of its right to veto legislation that may be detrimental to
its interests. Each state is subject to the tyranny of the majority.
The UK has lost more votes in Brussels than any other Member
States.
There are four levels of EU Competency:
- Exclusive Competence, which means that only the EU can act.
- Shared Competence, which means that Member States can act,
until the EU acts, in which case the EU overrides Member
States. In effect, these are also EU powers.
- Competence to support, coordinate or supplement actions of
Member States, in other words, supervision of national acts.
- Competence to provide arrangements within which Member
States must coordinate policy, in other words, requiring Member
States to act.
Exclusive Competencies
Customs union (elimination of tariff barriers in the internal
market), competition policy, monetary policy (for the
Eurozone), common agricultural policy (CAP), common
fisheries policy (CFP) and common commercial policy such as
negotiating WTO agreements
Shared Competencies
Internal market, which means everything to do with all industry
sectors from steel to banking to information technology, social
policy, which covers all the work place legislation, economic,
social and territorial cohesion, which means regional aid,
environment, which means everything from greenhouse gases to
dustbins, consumer protection, transport –road, rail, air and sea,
energy – fossil fuels, renewables, etc., Trans-European networks
(TEN), whether, road, telephones electricity grids or any other
inter-European networks, Justice and Home Affairs - an area of
freedom, security and Justice, Public Health, Research,
technological development and aero-pace, humanitarian aid and
development coordination.
Supervision
Human Health, industry, culture, tourism, education, vocational
training, youth, civil protection, and sport
Policy Coordination
Economic policy, Employment, Social policies - following the
euro crisis Member State budgets are reviewed and approved by
Brussels and countries in the Eurozone are sanctioned when
they are out of line. Employment and social policies are
included in these reviews.
Member States are not Self-Governing
These powers clearly put Brussels at the centre of an Empire,
even if we ignore associated developments like the European
army. With this range of powers in Brussels, it is not possible to
describe Member States as self-governing. Most important
legislation originates in Brussels, while national parliaments are
progressively losing more authority and power. To restore selfgovernment
to Britain, we mist leave the EU.
4. BRITAIN MUST VOTE TO LEAVE THE EU
WHY WE MUST LEAVE
To restore self-government, the UK must leave the European
Union. For the Remain campaigners who urge us to stay with
the ‘good’ government of the EU, it is time for them to accept
just how bad the governance of the EU really is.
The Westminster system of law making is simple, reliable and
has worked for 750 years. It is the model for most
Commonwealth parliaments and for the US Congress. In
essence, constituencies select candidates with different views,
then elect the candidate with views most acceptable to the
constituents, then the elected member represents his constituents
in parliament, accounts for his or her actions in meetings with
constituents and, if the constituents are satisfied, he or she will
be put forward again as a candidate in the next election. The
House of Commons drives the legislation, the House of Lords is
a revising Chamber. Legislation is initiated by Ministers, who
are also MPs, and also accountable to their constituents. This
process links legislation to the concerns of the electorate and the
will of the people. At each election, the people, the electorate,
pass judgement on the government’s record by the election of
MPs. This is democratic government tried and tested in the
‘Mother of Parliaments’.
Now consider what passes for democracy in the European
Union. We have seen the range of EU competencies. Laws in
these competencies affect the wealth and welfare of every
British citizen, but British citizens have virtually no control over
the outcomes.
European Commission
Elected representatives of the people do not initiate legislation.
The right of initiative rests with the European Commission. This
is a highly paid civil service with a Commissioner in charge of
each department. There are 28 Commissioners, one appointed
by each Member State. They are un-elected and their quality and
competence is variable. Much of the Commission’s programme
is ideological in origin and somewhat detached from the
concerns of the European citizens. This is another reason why
Brussels is distrusted. .
The two most recent British Commissioners have been Lord Hill
3and. Baroness Ashton.
3 Lord Hill was appointed as an EU Commissioner in 2014. Hill worked
in the Conservative Research Department (1985–86), before becoming a
Special Adviser to Kenneth Clarke at the Department of Employment,
Department of Trade and Industry and Department of Health until 1989.
After working for Lowe Bell Communications (1989–91), he joined the
Number 10 Policy Unit (1991–92) and served as Political Secretary to
PM John Major and Head of the Prime Minister's Political Office (1992–
94) during the Maastricht Treaty negotiations.
Subsequently, Hill worked at Bell Pottinger Group from 1994 until 1998
as a senior consultant, before leaving to become a founding director of
Quiller Consultants.
In May 2010, he was created a Life Peer, taking office as Parliamentary
Under-Secretary of State for Schools in the Department for Education.
Lord Hill succeeded Lord Strathclyde as Leader of the House of Lords,
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Leader of the Conservative
Party in the House of Lords in January 2013.
The choice of Lord Hill as a EU Commissioner was controversial. It had
been expected that a better-known politician would have been nominated
to follow Ashton.
Both are unknown t 4 o the general public and neither has won an
election to represent the people
Legislative Acts initiated by the Commission are generally
subject to a process of co-decision by the Council of Ministers
and the European Parliament. Both institutions need to approve
legislation. It would be wrong to confuse these two bodies with
the two Chambers at Westminster, because neither can respond
to the will of the British people.
Council of Ministers
The Council of Ministers is a blanket term for councils of
national government ministers responsible for the main domains
of Brussels power such as the environment, together with a top
council of prime ministers. The 28 countries have weighted
votes according to population. When the Commission initiates
4 Baroness Ashton replaced Peter Mandelson as the European
Commissioner for Trade in 2008. Between 1977 and 1983, Ashton
worked for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) as an
administrator and in 1982 was elected as its national treasurer and
subsequently as one of its vice-chairs. From 1979 to 1981 she was
business manager of the Coverdale Organisation, a management
consultancy. From 1983-89 she was director of Business in the
Community.
For most of the 1990s, she was a freelance policy adviser. She chaired
the Health Authority in Hertfordshire from 1998 to 2001 and she became
a vice-president of the National Council for One-Parent Families
She was created a Labour Life Peer in 1999. In 2001 she was appointed
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Education
and Skills. In June 2007, Prime Minister Gordon Brown appointed
Ashton to HM Cabinet as Leader of the House of Lords and Lord
President of the Council. As Government Leader in the House of Lords,
she was responsible for steering the Lisbon Treaty through the Upper
House.
an act like many of the recent financial services acts, which
Britain opposes, Britain cannot stop approval if it is in a losing
minority, because it has no veto.
A recent study has shown that the UK government was on the
losing side a far higher proportion of times than any other EU
government in the 2009-15 period: jumping from being on the
minority (losing) side only 2.6% of the time in 2004-09 to being
on the minority (losing) side 12.3% of the time in the 2009-15
period. Also, the next most frequent “losing” governments,
Germany and Austria, were only on the minority side 5.4% of
the time in this period.
Britain should not be in a position of having laws forced upon it
by countries with many of which it has little in common. Britain
should restore its democrat legislature and have accountable
lawmakers to make its own laws. There is no practicable way to
hold to account British ministers who acquiesce in legislation in
Brussels that harms British interests.
European Parliament
The European Parliament compounds the EU democratic deficit.
It it is part of the problem, not part of the solution Take, for
example, the South East England constituency comprising the
counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire East Sussex,
Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey and
West Sussex. The population of the constituency is 8.5 million.
There are 10 MEPs which males 1 member per 850,000 of the
population (pop). Membership of the EP favours the smallest
countries that generally have a per pop ratio around 4-500,000,
while the smaller are at about 250,000 and the three smallest
constituencies at about 70,000. Clearly, the distribution of seats
is unfair, but the whole system is nonsense.
4 UKIP, 3 Conservative, 1 Labour, 1 Liberal and 1 Green MEP
represent the constituency. How can they relate to 8.5 million
people and get around 9 counties? The answer is that they don’t
and so the voters do not know who they are. Party conclaves
establish candidate lists. Manifestoes are immaterial. Most
people do not vote. Many that do vote support UKIP to protest
about the whole rotten system. In Brussels, the MEPs join one
of the 7 parliamentary parties. Few British people are aware of
these parties and what they stand for. The parties are partly
driven by ideology and partly by lobbying from non
governmental organizations (NGOs) and partly by large
corporations that have spent a great deal of money to secure
legislation adapted to their interests. The people who have no
influence are the constituents. At the end of the day, MEPs do
not account to the electorate for their actions. They are
unaccountable and even if our 10 MEPs wanted to do something
for their constituents, even if they had the support of all 73
British MEPs, their voices would still be lost in a parliament of
751 members.
The only possible reason why the British people accept EU
government, with so much power exercised in the democratic
black hole of Brussels is that they do not understand what is
going on. It is laughable that the USA and Canada urge us to
stick with it. They both have the democracy that we used to
have, and there is no way that they would give it up. We should
get our democracy back.
****
5. BRITAIN MUST VOTE TO LEAVE THE EU
HOW DID WE GET INTO THIS STATE?
The British are so used to being governed reasonably well that
many now take it for granted and are indifferent to the form that
that government takes. In particular, the undemocratic natures of
European Union government, and the erosion of British
democracy are not generally understood. This is because we
have been spared the horror of living with Schengen and the
Euro, and because it is in the self-interest of MPs to conceal the
true scale of Brussels control of Westminster legislation.
The progressive submission of Westminster to Brussels has been
hidden from the people. How did it happen?
Misunderstanding the British Economic Malaise
British government paranoia in the 1960s and early 1970s was
based on the idea that the Common Market was the reason why
the economies of the countries in the European Community
were performing well while Britain was performing badly.
Disastrous Heath Negotiations
Edward Heath would do anything to join the Market. He broke
up the sterling area, renounced the Dominions, gave up the
fisheries and accepted an unfair financial settlement. Of course,
his analysis was quite wrong. Continental economies were being
hugely stimulated by the vast scale of post war reconstruction
coupled with delayed entry of many regions into the 20th century
with installation of electricity and inside toilets for the first time.
This phase would pass, as would the economic outperformance.
Wilson and Referendum
The Wilson government which followed Heath finally gave the
British people a say on Europe, but the conduct of the
referendum was dishonest and in many ways a precursor for the
present campaign. Wilson claimed to have renegotiated the
terms, but nothing substantial had been achieved. The
referendum question was to stay in or leave the Common
Market. The comparison with the present referendum is obvious
– Remain concentrates on the market and avoids any recognition
of the Brussels Super State. The government document sent to
every household can now be seen to have been a pack of lies. At
that referendum, most British people were led to believe that
they were joining a free trade area while in reality we were
joining the EC, the European Community, with a Court of
Justice which could and would begin to undermine the will of
the Westminster Parliament.
Thatcher Government Reforms
The basic British economic problem was the persistence of a
neo-socialist post war settlement that culminated in an IMF
rescue - the sort of thing that happens these days to Greece and
Argentina. The situation was resolved and Britain’s standing
was restored after the Thatcher government had re-established
the market economy. That government also negotiated a rebate
to mitigate the unfair terms of our annual payments to the EU.
Maastricht and Major
In 1992 the Maastricht Treaty turned the European Community
into the European Union. This gave Brussels a swathe of new
powers that Westminster would lose and increased the power of
the European Court. The conduct of the Major government was
reprehensible on two counts. First, the legislation allowing the
Prime Minister to sign the Treaty actually failed to get a
majority in parliament. On a vote of confidence, the
government won by a majority of 3 votes. To use a vote of
confidence for such a profound constitutional decision was
clearly an abuse of power, bit the failure to call a referendum
was a more profound abuse of parliament’s omnipotence. In the
Wilson referendum the British people had voted to join a
Common Market and had found themselves in the European
Community. Now the decision was much bigger and parliament
was deeply divided, yet the people were not consulted.
Blair and the Euro
The power of the referendum, or the threat of it, was the reason
why the Blair government did not take Britain into the Euro.
The significance of that episode is that the establishment, many
politicians, the CBI and the foreign bankers all wanted Britain in
the Euro and said that our world would fall apart if Britain did
not join. They were wrong; it is the Euro that has fallen apart,
not Britain. The same cast of short term oriented self interested
players are behaving in the same way in this campaign. They are
not to be relied on.
Brown and the Constitution
In this saga of government duplicity and democratic denial, the
last two acts are the most shameful. The penultimate act that
brought shame on all of the so-called democracies of the
European Union was the proposal to extend the powers of the
EU even further by a constitutional treaty. This was such a big
step that many governments, including the UK, decided to call
referendums. After France and the Netherlands said ‘No’, and
before the UK could vote, Brussels took the treaty off the table.
In its determination to subvert national democratic will, Brussels
had previously caused a number of Member States to rerun
referendums until they got the results they wanted. Brussels now
needed to do the same thing, but on a grander scale. Step one
was to redraft the constitution as a treaty – The Lisbon Treaty –
keeping all the key provisions of the constitution, but dressing
them up differently. The second step was to arm-twist Member
States to accept that this treaty had nothing in it that warranted a
referendum. This was not true and the acquiescence of Member
States in this fraud is in a large way responsible for the universal
distrust of Brussels and national parliaments that is manifest
across the EU today. It is because Gordon Brown reneged on his
commitment to a referendum in Britain that pressure from UKIP
and others forced Cameron to accept that a referendum was
unavoidable. Now that we have it, let’s use it to restore selfgovernment.
The Cameron Referendum- An orgy of FUD
The final act in the saga is the behaviour of the government and
its misconduct of the referendum. Once again, there has been a
meaningless renegotiation. The government talks about a
reformed Europe, but there is no reform. A one-sided document
has gone to every household at taxpayers’ expense, and barely a
day goes by without a distorted representation of post Brexit
Britain from either the Cabinet Office or the Treasury. In a
campaign to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) they are
determined to prevent the restoration of democratic government
in Britain.
June 23d – A Defining Moment.
When history comes to be written, Cameron’s referendum
campaign, belittling Britain, creating post Brexit panic, denying
his people their democratic heritage, is likely to be judged as
infamous, inglorious and ignominious.
Our forefathers went to war for parliamentary democracy.
We must mobilise to get it back.
*****
_________________
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www.stj911.org
www.l911t.com
www.v911t.org
www.thisweek.org.uk
www.abolishwar.org.uk
www.elementary.org.uk
www.radio4all.net/index.php/contributor/2149
http://utangente.free.fr/2003/media2003.pdf
"The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic poison which alienates the possessor from the community" Carl Jung
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