Speech by Anti Poolamets, Board Member of the Estonian No To The EU Campaign, and Lawyer and Lecturer in the Academy of Public Administration, Tallinn, at the Bruges Group International Conference, King's College, London, on Saturday 2nd November, 2002.
Ladies and gentlemen -
It is an honour for me to deliver a short speech - concerning the federalization of the European Union.
Firstly, I want to mention that Estonians are still thankful to Britain, because the British fleet under the leadership of Admiral Sinclair came to help our state in the year 1918, when Estonians and British together stopped the advance of the Soviet communist army in Estonia. So Estonians gained time - 22 years outside of the federal communist Empire.
On Monday in Cambridge, I met a former Russian dissident and political prisoner, Mr. Vladimir Bukovsky. He spent altogether twelve years in prisons of the federal Soviet Union. He told me honestly, "I don't want to live in a new Soviet Union, therefore I will try to stop this monster under a new name - 'The United States of Europe' or maybe more realistically sounding - 'European Union of Socialist Republics'." I understood his feelings. I and many people from the former Federal Soviet Empire feel the same way.
I think that our own experience is immensely valuable in our lives. This is also extremely important for the life of states and nations. We were rid of the Federal Soviet Union eleven years ago. And Estonia was the first occupied territory or member state who declared that our own legislation was supreme over federal Soviet law. We started that political and legal clash as early as 1988. Other member states followed us. What happened after that - you already know. The Federal Soviet Empire disappeared from the surface of the earth. Thank God.
But the Empire strikes back. I will present some comparisons here for you. Try to find three differences.
The Soviet Union had and the European Union has:
For the Republic of Estonia - there is no such term as accession to the EU. Vice-versa. The EU is coming to Estonia and not as a good friend but as a new owner. After joining the EU we lose our statehood again and we will be among the northern provinces of Federal Europe. Our state will be totally helpless against the juggernaut of the EU.
The European Union is - as the Soviet Union was - a dictatorial power-system, which avoids any kind of democratic control. All real decision-making happens behind closed doors.
Communism, just like Euro-federalism, is based on an anti-democratic understanding that adult citizens are not mature enough for making decisions. This communist-guardianship for people fits Eurocrats well.
The real masters of Europe are the members of the EU Commission, members of the new non-elected Politburo of the Soviet System with their totalitarian power. I can't understand how everywhere passionate democrats give away their power to the euro-communist bureaucrats in Brussels.
The goal of the competition policy in the EU is supremacy of big enterprises. The Europe of giants is near. It is reminiscent of the dominance of the state enterprises in every sphere of life in the Soviet Union. The current development in the EU is leading to total socialization of the economy and to total centralization of economic policy. One important part of the EU activity as in the Soviet Union is distribution of resources via EU foundations. Their goal is to use EU monetary reserves for unifying all member states. The Unification of living standards between poorer and wealthier EU member states. This is typical Soviet redistribution policy. The result of this redistribution will be that the living standards of the wealthy will fall to the level of poorer countries. There will only be "common poverty" after that.
A very important ideological similarity between the EU and the Soviet Union is that both are fully materialistic and atheistic. For example - in an interview the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, said:
"The big vision about a united Europe can change to a bad dream, where any Christian or traditional values are lacking. We are moving towards a concentrated system of power and we don't know who controls that power. The United Europe can prepare the way for the big dictator already described by Hugh Benson and Solovjov."
Many people na‹vely think today that the EU will develop into a certain kind of "United States of Europe" with some kind of new "European freedom-nation." In reality freedom and nation have nothing in common with the EU. The End-station for the EU is namely the Super-Soviet Union. So it will be a very communist dictatorship. There is no understanding of the legitimate demands of European nations for maintaining their cultural identity and traditions.
During my short speech, I couldn't speak about many questions but I wanted to stress some important similarities. Yet I can also say that this topic wasn't only theoretical. Mr. Vladimir Bukovsky has discovered materials about the plans of the Soviet Leadership for creation of the Federal Europe. The Leaders of the United States and Germany considered their plans very seriously. But a mistake was made - the Eastern European nations couldn't wait anymore - they rushed out from the communist block. One plan for a federal socialist Empire has failed. The new plan is being implemented now. Look out!
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Britain has now been a member of the European Economic Community/ European Community/ European Union for thirty years. In contrast to the overblown "Fanfare for Europe" extravaganzas held by the Government in January 1973 to mark British entry - including a concert conducted by Prime Minister Edward Heath, no less - there seems to have been no attempt by the authorities to celebrate this anniversary. Any such attempt would certainly have become the object of public ridicule.
Opinion polls regularly show that, far from accepting or resigning themselves to Brussels rule after a generation of membership, a large proportion of the British people would prefer to leave this superstate in the making. Even among those who favour continued British membership, many want to see such fundamental reforms as to make the organisation a simple forum to facilitate free trade and international co-operation. Most of all, a substantial majority is resolutely opposed to giving up the Pound.
The primary weapon of the EU-philes is fear: bogus threats of isolation and loss of jobs. The people were taken in by this in 1975 but are unwilling to be fooled again - as our Danish friends showed in two out of three of their recent referendums. We can take encouragement from this as we continue our campaign.
The "transitional phase" of the Common Fisheries Policy ended on 31st December. From now on, "equal access" applies, which means that even more of the catch in British fishing waters will go to foreign fleets, and that British fishing will decline even further - perhaps even terminally.
The authorities are attempting to conceal this within reduced catch allocations, which are being introduced supposedly for the sake of conservation of fish stocks. The hypocrisy of this is breathtaking. The depletion of fish stocks is due principally to overfishing by non-British fleets, which has been encouraged or tacitly tolerated under the CFP. Had Britain retained control over her own fishing waters - up to the two-hundred mile limit (or the median line if less) - she could have taken adequate steps over all these years to conserve stocks, and to operate a fair and effective system of licensing for British and foreign fleets alike. Norway, Iceland and Greenland, who have control of their own waters, have been able to do this, and have maintained the level of their fish stocks. Had they been subject to the CFP, their stocks also would assuredly have been destroyed.
Fishing all around the coast of England, Scotland and Wales will suffer, in towns large and small; and the importance of fishing in Northern Ireland should not be forgotten. The Scottish fishermen are among the most conservation-minded of all and, left to their own devices, would have conserved on a permanent basis as well as anyone. It is therefore particularly galling to anticipate the further suffering which will now be inflicted on Scottish fishing towns such as Peterhead in the name of the Common Fisheries Policy. It is also difficult to see how the Scottish National Party, with their oxymoronic aim of Independence within the European Union, can credibly claim to be the champion of Scottish fishing.
It would be helpful if Sir Edward Heath, who willingly swallowed the Common Fisheries Policy hook, line and sinker in his desperation to take us into the EEC under just about any terms, could at last come clean as to his real reasons for so doing.
We have recently had a further lesson in what EU-style democracy is all about.
In 2001 the Irish people voted NO in a referendum on the Nice Treaty. Far from accepting the democratic decision of their people, the Irish government, in obedience to their masters in Brussels, made the people vote again. Just to make sure this time, they abolished the long-standing rule that in an Irish referendum there should be equal funding between the two sides. This meant that the YES side was able to outspend the NO side several times over, just as has happened here and in Denmark. Accordingly a YES majority was obtained the second time around, but leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. Democracy is allowed in the European Union, but only so long as it produces the result the central authority wants. If it doesn't, the people are made to vote again. Where will this end? We saw totalitarianism at its most brutal in the Soviet Union; are we beginning to see it at its most subtle in the European Union?
In our last issue we reflected on last Autumn's floods in Central and Eastern Europe, and on how we can tackle such problems through international co-operation rather than supranational authority. This question continues to occupy us as the European Union seeks to expand to the East, taking in eight countries in Central and Eastern Europe recently escaped from Communism, plus Cyprus and Malta.
Two issues ago we carried an article by our President, Sir Richard Body, on the high-budget propaganda campaign which the EU is conducting - with our money - in Estonia. The same thing is being replicated in the other countries, where EU officials are being told to "sell" the EU in a £100 million "information campaign".
Each country will hold a referendum on the question of joining the EU but it is plain that, as in Britain, Denmark and - on the most recent occasion - Ireland, the referendums will be slanted in favour of the EU side rather than being level playing fields. And the referendums will not be held simultaneously. The first referendums will be held in countries such as Hungary, where a YES result is likely, with the aim of putting pressure on the other countries and setting up a domino effect.
Our contacts with fellow campaigners in Denmark, Estonia and elsewhere strengthen our conviction that co-operation between self-governing countries - going with the grain of the spirit of freedom and democracy - is the only way in which these countries can truly be brought within "the European family of nations". Absorption into the EU empire will only lead to tensions in years to come, as people come to realise the reality of what they have joined.
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The League held a successful party in late October, at the Hoop & Toy public house in South Kensington. Around thirty people attended, including Lord Stoddart of Swindon, Chairman of the Campaign for an Independent Britain.
Also among our special guests were Mr. Anti Poolamets of the Estonian NO To The EU Campaign, and Mr. Vello Leito of the Estonian Independence Party, who were on a week-long visit to London and who also attended the Congress for Democracy and spoke at the Bruges Group Conference. It was at once humbling and inspiring to hear of their brave campaign, fought with very little funds and in the face of seemingly impossible odds, as it was to witness their strong and sincere appreciation of British help to Estonia in 1918 - mentioned by Mr. Poolamets in his Bruges Group speech, which we reproduce in this issue.
Whenever we meet allies from campaigns in other countries, we glimpse what true co-operation between free and independent European countries could be like, freed from the Brussels nightmare.
Thanks are due to the League's Chairman, Mr. Peter Dul, for his initiative in helping to arrange the Estonian visit to London.
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The League established this prize in 1999 in memory of the late Reg Simmerson, a long-standing anti-EU campaigner who was particularly known as a prolific letter-writer to the press. The prize, of £25, is awarded to the writer of the letter which, in the opinion of the Editor of Britain has done most to further our cause. The prize for 2002 has been awarded to Mr. Colin Bullen of Tonbridge, Kent.
Mr. Bullen also organises public meetings for the Campaign for an Independent Britain (to which the League is affiliated) and helps the Campaign in many other ways. During 2002 he had four letters published in The Times, and we now reprint one of them, published on 20th March.
Sir,
You report that "roughly two-thirds of Britain's trade is with other EU countries", when it is, in fact, about fifty per cent. Little of this would be lost if we withdrew from the EU, as we are a net importer from the Continent, and World Trade Organisation rules would make the imposition of hefty tariffs by EU nations both illegal and self-defeating.
The money received from the EU in regional development grants is derived from the fees we pay to be members, so it is merely some of our own money returned to us which, outside the EU, we would have available to spend as we wished.
It would take a simple vote in Parliament to repeal the Act which first took us into the EU, and the problem of law derived from EU directives could be solved by the expedient used at the time of the Restoration, which returned the situation to the status quo ante. This may seem drastic, but not when one considers that the survival of the nation is at stake.
Should Scotland and Wales truly wish to remain within the EU then they could be allowed to do so, although it is highly unlikely that those outside the political elite would support so doing.
At the moment the other members would be unable to prevent the UK leaving the EU, but this might no longer be true once common armed forces and police services had replaced those of the nation-states.
Now is therefore the time to break free, liberating both the UK from an unwanted entanglement and the EU from a perennially reluctant partner.
Yours faithfully,
COLIN BULLEN
National Executive Committee,
Campaign for an Independent Britain.
Entries for the 2003 prize (whether your own letter or someone else's) can be submitted to the Editor at any time during the year.
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Britain's Trade Figures with the EU and Net Cost of EU Membership by Ian Dallison £1.50 inc. p&p from C.A.E.F., 57 Green Lane, Merseyside, CH45 8JQ
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Mr. Iain Duncan Smith came to the Conservative Party leadership with a strongly Eurosceptic reputation, earned through his active role in the Parliamentary opposition to the Maastricht Treaty. Since then, some have questioned his continued commitment to this as, apparently for tactical reasons, he has given little emphasis to European issues in his speeches and pronouncements. Perhaps a reliable indication of his thinking on the European Union appeared in an interview in The Daily Telegraph on 8th October, 2002. The relevant section read:
That said, he is implacably opposed to a federal superstate. "If the EU wants to go in that direction," he said, "then count us out. Co-operation and trade, fine. If you ask me whether, at heart, I am a withdrawer, it depends on who is withdrawing from what. If the EU carries on with its headlong dash towards centralisation, then they are withdrawing from common sense.
"I think that the whole European project will fail. In fact, it's failing already. All those ten-year plans, pledges to become competitive but no sign of it happening, that huge bureaucracy - the EU is on a slippery slope. Their grandiose ambitions are nonsense.
"In my view, the powers possessed by the EU should be re-examined and, where necessary, handed back to nation states. Fisheries is a good example; and the Common Agricultural Policy needs radical reform."
What, though, about the European Court? "All the European institutions need to be looked at," replied Duncan Smith, "and if they say you can't re-open the treaties, my answer is that every year you have an intergovernmental conference that re-opens the treaties. So what is wrong with re-opening them in a different direction?"
There is, of course, a big difference between saying these things in a newspaper interview and putting them into practice in policies and manifesto commitments. The fine words now need to be followed up by action. But let us hope that anti-Marketeers currently criticising Mr. Duncan Smith will soon be given reason to reconsider.
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England, Our England Dr. Vernon Coleman
Dr. Vernon Coleman, author of such medical self-help books as How To Stop Your Doctor Killing You and Food For Thought, has turned his attention to the EU and the way it threatens our country with extinction. There is food for thought a-plenty in its cogently explained, numbered sections: why it is no exaggeration to say that the EU poses the greatest threat to democracy, and to our freedom and privacy, that there has ever been.
George Orwell's 1984 was a work of fiction; tragically the catalogue of deceit and treachery perpetrated on the people of this country by her "leaders" in the name of, and to create, an overweening, bureaucratic, Kafkaesque nightmare called the European Union, is not.
As the author points out, the time left in which to prevent the dissolution of our country, our democracy and our liberties is very short, and the continuing cost and economic damage to our country is truly mind-boggling. Why not treat it as a form of samizdat (information distributed by Soviet dissidents - a means of disseminating information which the main parties, TV, and radio keep you in the dark about)? Help the process of enlightenment; buy one for a friend, and urge they do the same.
Available from: Publishing House (to whom cheques should be payable), Trinity Place, Barnstaple, Devon, EX32 9HJ. 1 copy £7.99; 5 copies £15.00; 10 copies £25.00; 25 copies £50.00.
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This pamphlet, written by Dr. Brian Burkitt and commissioned by the Anti-Common Market League, continues to be available. It provides a powerful case against giving up the Pound for the Euro, for both economic and political reasons.
Available at the special price of £3.00 (inc.p.&p.) from the Anti-Common Market League 28 Highdown, Worcester Park, Surrey, KT4 7HZ Bulk orders are also welcomed: £10.00 for four copies; £12.00 for six copies. Buy a few for your friends!
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Mr. Peter Dul, Chairman of the Anti-Common Market League, spoke in a debate at Trinity College, Dublin, organised by the University Philosophical Society, on the motion "This House believes that the European Union is a threat to democracy". The debate was held on 17th October 2002, two days before the second Irish referendum on the Nice Treaty. Needless to say, Mr. Dul spoke in favour of the motion, and his speech now follows.
Parliamentary democracy, established and developed in Britain, is based on the sovereignty of the people, who, by exercising their vote, lend their sovereign powers to Members of Parliament to use on behalf of the people for the duration of a single Parliament.
These powers are returned intact to the electorate, to whom they belong, to lend again to the MPs they elect at each subsequent General Election.
Five basic democratic rights emerge from this process, all fundamentally damaged by British membership of the European Union.
Firstly, instead of the consent of the House of Commons being necessary before a law or tax can be imposed, unelected EU institutions, which the electorate cannot dismiss, now impose laws upon us all.
Secondly, parliamentary democracy means that MPs, who derive their power directly from the people, can change laws by majority vote; EU laws cannot be altered or repealed by Parliament. The "one-way street" principle of acquis communautaire means that once a competence has been transferred to the EU, there is no mechanism for it to be restored.
Thirdly, British courts must now uphold and enforce EU laws which have not been passed by Parliament, even if they conflict with laws already passed by a democratically elected British Parliament.
Fourthly, parliamentary democracy means that all Government ministers, and civil servants under their control, are accountable to Parliament for all their public actions and, through Parliament, to the people. By contrast, duties and constraints are imposed on British governments as a result of EU membership and, in discharging those duties, ministers are not accountable to Parliament, or to the people who elect them.
Fifthly and finally, democracy, because it entrenches the right of people to elect and to dismiss MPs, ensures continuing accountability to the people. MPs must listen to the views of the people between as well as during General Elections; EU institutions not directly elected by the people do not really care what the opinions of the people may be; they cannot be dismissed by the people, and cannot be compelled to remedy the people's grievances.
A recent example is the Herbal Medicines Directive, to be imposed upon us despite massive public opposition. It deliberately overturns a principle of Common Law so that, under the Directive, sale of various herbal remedies will only be allowed when specifically authorised. (In all other cases sale will be forbidden.) The power of the ballot box has been truly emasculated.
The stable government which we have enjoyed does not rest on force, but on ingrained observance of the law, the Common Law. The system prospered through managing change by gradual evolution, ensuring the greatest number consenting to reform; now we have change wrought by administrative fiat. How else can it be described when seventy per cent of the laws now being imposed on us come from the EU, with our own elected representatives unable to change them or prevent their imposition?
In what way is democracy served by Economic and Monetary Union? Embracing EMU means permanent and irrevocable loss of self-governance. It's not just the currency; it's clear that control over taxation will go to Brussels too. This has been made clear by many people, such as Hans Tietmeyer, formerly President of the Bundesbank:
What is at stake is nothing less than the loss of national democratic self-determination.
It is significant that a previous British Labour Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, said in 1950:
We are not prepared to accept the principle that the most vital economic forces of this country should be handed over to an authority that is utterly un-democratic and accountable to no one.
Or as John Maynard Keynes said:
He who controls the currency controls the Government.
EMU is, of course, a giant leap towards full-blown political integration, transferring power from accountable national institutions to bureaucratic EU-wide institutions.
And so to Nice - and I must declare an interest; it affects my country too.
I understand this Treaty entails major additional centralising changes, almost total abolition of national vetos, and the creation of a "legal personality" for the European Union. This would enable the EU to take over its Member States' seats at international bodies such as the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund, and to assume a direct role in Member States' defence policy. Europol could become fully operational: its operatives armed, and with full diplomatic immunity, i.e. above the law.
The Advocate-General of the European Court of Justice has described criticism of the EU as akin to blasphemy and has said that, therefore, punishing someone for this could not be an infringement of free speech.
In Common Law countries there has always been a strong presumption that the state exists for the benefit of its citizens; the continental Roman Law system has it the other way around. Under the "harmonisation" of the so-called Corpus Juris, the days are numbered for the presumption of innocence, trial by jury and Habeas Corpus, and the rule against double jeopardy.
Even more sinister, the leaders of the four main political groupings in the EU Parliament made clear in a recent letter to Romano Prodi that any political party which does not share their consensus about the promotion of the European Project may be rated as "undemocratic", and thus be liable for legal and financial penalties, including exclusion from the political process. Article 8, it seems, would cover this; the ECJ could declare the party illegal. Some democratic instincts!
Waiting in the wings to become "justiciable" is the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights under Article 51:
Any and all rights must be limited by the competent legislative authority, that is, the EU voting by majority, if it is deemed necessary in pursuit of objectives of general interest pursued by the Union.
In other words, any criticism of any policy the EU has decided to adopt can be made unlawful: so much for the principle of Liberty under the Law.
It is, in fact, a formula for the creation of a lawless tyranny. We should do well to remember the words of John Locke:
A ruler who violates the Law is illegitimate. He has no right to be obeyed. His commands are mere force and coercion. Rulers who act lawlessly, whose laws are unlawful, are mere criminals.
Lastly, I should like to point out the similarities between the Soviet Union and the European Union.
The Soviet Union was ruled by fifteen unelected people; they elected themselves and couldn't be removed. With the EU it's the same, except that there are twenty-four of them! The EU is governed (as the USSR was governed) by a self-serving, systemically corrupt Nomenklatura with, for example, their own special shops, just as in the USSR. (Does that remind you of Animal Farm ?)
Lenin said:
All nation states are artificial and temporary.
Former German President Herzog said:
Our aim is the end of the nation state.
The NSDAP (Nazi Party) thought the nation state to be an artificial liberal construct.
The Soviets liked to boast that they had solved the nationalities' problem, and look what happened when Soviet power apparently evaporated!
A Brussels official was reported as saying:
We have built Europe; now we have to create the European.
(sounds more like Dr. Goebbels, don't you think).
Anyway, you can't create a sense of identity by Brussels initiatives, be they a flag, an anthem, a passport or a driving licence. Without a European Demos, this is all pie in the sky, and dangerous anti-democratic pie in the sky at that.
The word "democracy" comes from the Greek: "demos", meaning people; and "cratos", meaning power. Since there is no single European people or nation, there can be no European democracy.
As more and more areas of competence are transferred to the undemocratic EU institutions, national democracy, the only democracy possible, becomes more and more of a sham.
To return to being a self-governing genuine democracy, with a Constitution of Liberty under the Law, we must leave the European Union.
Mexico, for example, has a free trade agreement with the EU but without the drawbacks. So can we. However, it may soon be too late. Proposals for the 2004 Convention have included a prohibition on secession; with the European Army coming into being, they will be able to enforce such a prohibition.
As Thomas Jefferson put it:
A nation which seeks to trade its political independence for economic advantage deserves to lose both.
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A 27-minute video, The Euro - The Facts has recently been released, explaining what will happen if the Pound is abolished and Britain taken into Euroland.
It has been produced by the same team who made the video Britain and The EU - The Facts, released a year ago. Like its predecessor, it was independently researched and produced, and presents an entirely factual and neutral account of the subject, leaving viewers able to make up their own minds. Truly the facts speak for themselves.
Britain and The EU - The Facts has already had a strong impact, and its successor is expected to do likewise.
The League has a supply of both videos, available at £6 each from our Worcester Park address.
After arming yourself with the facts, you may wish to spread the word by showing the video(s) to friends and neighbours.
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14th September 2003 is Estonia's day of destiny. Will it remain independent or not? The European Commission is pouring money into Estonia. The "NO" side has the people but not the money. Your contribution will make the difference. Between £6,000 and £10,000 will allow every household in Estonia to be reached.
Please give generously. A donation form is available from the League's membership secretary at the address below.
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Malta won the George Cross fighting with us in the Second World War. Can you sacrifice some of your time and pay for your air fare to Malta to help with their literature distribution ahead of their EU Referendum on 8th March, 2003?
Once you get to Malta your accommodation will be provided free of charge. If you are able to assist, please contact: Jill Clark Tel: 01903 885573 or email:- ukipse@ukip.org (This is the office of Nigel Farage, MEP)