Robin Willow recently visited China, and gives insight from a new angle about how British independence is being steadily eroded by the EU.
The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said that Britain would lose influence outside the EU. But back in August last year, and again on China Central TV on 29th February, during the Dialogue Show, Klaus Eberman, the EU Ambassador (so-called) demonstrated how much Britain has lost influence by being part of the EU. An Ambassador of the British Government was not present to be interviewed on Chinese TV. Instead, Klaus Eberman, the EU Ambassador, was being interviewed about matters of finance, foreign affairs, trade, military policy, social policy, standardisation and immigration. The talk considered the import-export deals between China and the EU, not between China and Britain.
The matter of military hardware was discussed. China wants the arms sales embargo to be removed. This is where the EU will dictate the sales of British Weaponry to a foreign power. The EU will override or overrule our control of such matters.
China also wants access to Western technology. Here the EU Ambassador was talking about various deals. It should be noted that he presented himself well. He seemed courteous, moderate and most reasonable. Yet the methodology of the EU is well-known from our experience. It starts always with a friendly and gentle dialogue about co-operation, before eventually moving to obligations, requirements and orders which must be obeyed.
Klaus Eberman spoke of environmental protection restrictions, which the interviewer said were obstructing China from selling to Britain and displacing British products. This may be referring to the many dangerous products which have been forbidden entry to Britain. Here the EU appears to interfere in matters of our safety and security.
Also mentioned was the standardisation of products and EU regulation. You may recall the EU standardisation which has criminalised honest English traders for selling goods by the pound and ounce, foot and inch. So the EU again orders Britain to standardise to the systems of France, Germany and Belgium. It should be noted that Klaus Eberman seemed a bit uncomfortable with using English as the standard language of international trade.
The next topic was free trade versus fair trade in relation to globalisation. He pointed out that the two ideas are not the same. In terms of fair competition he said that monetary incomes are low in China. Yes indeed, the incomes are low, but so also are the capital costs and the running costs. It is about the cost of cookers and the price of eggs, or the basic living costs in relation to personal income. When I am buying breakfast in the canteen of the Beijing Language and Culture University, I pay only 3.5 Yuan (about 20p) for two boiled eggs, two pieces of eggfriedbread and a cup of hot milk. In the street that would buy three buns and fried eggs. I also looked at the capital costs. Prices of electric cookers range from £13 to £43, microwaves from £48 to £55, rice cookers from £7 to £14 and irons from £7 to £13. Incomes and labour costs in China can be low because the living costs are low.
Mr. Eberman also spoke of labour standards in China and the sweatshops producing very low-cost products. This is really not fair trade. It is not just about liberalisation of the market place. He pointed out that bilateral agreements will not address these issues. He identified product dumping and pillaging of poor countries as particular problems. Possibly he was here referring to the pillaging of British fishing grounds by the EU, or perhaps not!
He then went on to matters of social policies in the west. The interviewer pointed to this as a limitation of western competitiveness. Mr. Eberman spoke of the "EU model". He also spoke of the liberalisation of public transport causing problems. I am not sure if this is referring to the selling of transport systems to private companies or the setting up of congestion charging systems with the associated intrusive monitoring of individual movement using modern technology. This latter also uses specially set-up private companies. Image recognition software is used to identify and track the movement of vehicles and people. The London Mayor, Ken Livingstone, and also the police, use these methods.
The discussion next moved on to matters of illegal immigration and EU policy. Mr. Eberman spoke of the intention to prevent terrorism and international crime. He specifically named the "snake heads". At this point the sound and picture fell out of synchronisation; it is uncertain what was actually said during those moments. He spoke of sending back to China those immigrants identified as Chinese. He referred to British law about this matter.
There is, however, a new travel agreement which will allow Chinese visitors to go to the EU and Britain. Here again, EU foreign policy appears likely to override or overrule British interest. He pointed out that 1.5 million EU visitors come to China, but only 0.5 million Chinese visit the EU. Notice how Britain has ceased to exist as a separate entity or sovereign state. The intention is to simplify procedures so that Chinese people can visit up to twelve countries with a single visa. Mr. Eberman spoke of EU visa policy and an EU agency managing frontiers. He referred to the inclusion of biometric data onto EU passports and a mandate to bring this in. Indeed we know that despite the objections of Parliament and most British people to the principle of biometric digital data (DNA details, iris scans and finger prints) being included in our current driving licences and passports, the British Government, and Home Secretary David Blunkett in particular, are determined to proceed in imposing this change. Now, from Mr. Eberman, we have some information about the source of this imposed change to our way of life. Mr. Blunkett stated recently that if we don't like this change we do not have to drive a car or travel abroad. We can then see how far this moderation of Mr. Klaus Eberman extends.
On the following morning there was an item of news about EU retaliatory tariffs being levied against the USA to reflect their tax breaks for their USA companies. Britain once again has no control of this action, nor any control over the products affected. The question arises concerning the effect of this EU action on British trade with the USA. How does this action reflect the attitude of France towards America?
The important principle to bear in mind in all of this is the EU's aquis communautaire. All of those matters that the EU starts to take control of become matters that Britain loses control of thereafter. All of the matters I have identified from the dialogue between EU Ambassador Klaus Eberman and the CCTV interviewer are therefore no longer controlled by the British Government or the British People.
Finally, it should be noted that in these matters China has "recognised" the EU Federal State and the subordination of Britain, especially of England, to this new sovereign Federal European State. This is similar in import and implication to China not wanting Britain in the recent past to "recognise" or accept and approve of the existence of Taiwan; it affects the continued existence of the relevant country. So China is really saying that, as far as she is concerned, Britain, especially England, no longer exists as a country or Sovereign State. This is a very serious matter indeed!
* * * * * *
The salient feature of the recent British elections to the European Parliament was the dramatic advance of the United Kingdom Independence Party, which won 12 seats and received 16 per cent of the popular vote, giving it third place, ahead of the Liberal Democrats. For a party which would have been virtually unknown to much of the electorate just a few weeks before polling day, this represents a remarkable achievement, which demonstrates the strong desire of the British people to govern themselves rather than being governed by a centralised Eurostate. The Conservatives, who oppose the EU constitution, also polled fairly strongly, despite losing a lot of votes to UKIP.
Instead of recognising these democratic expressions of opinion, our Prime Minister, Mr. Blair, went off to Brussels a few days later and agreed to the EU constitution, which will transfer even more powers (or "competences" in Eurospeak) from the Member States to Brussels and which will go a long way to making the EU a state in its own right, with its member states being mere provinces. Mr. Blair will now seek to delay holding the referendum on the constitution for a year or more, in the hope that opposition will fizzle out or that the public will become bored with the subject. This would be to hold the democratic will in contempt; the referendum should be held as soon as practicably possible, while the arguments are alive in people's minds.
Mr. Blair's cynical manoeuvring may yet backfire on him; if the next General Election is held before the referendum, the people will have the opportunity to elect a Parliament which will reject the constitution in any event.
* * *
On 1st May we witnessed the accession of ten new countries to EU membership, including seven countries formerly in the Soviet bloc. One can understand some of the reasons why these countries joined. Some of their peoples will see the EU as a quick route to prosperity. Others will have an atavistic fear of Russia and will see the EU as a bulwark against the Bear; although Russia is also a European country, and a European construction which excludes Russia may well be storing up long-term trouble for itself. Yet more will feel themselves to be part of Europe's artistic and cultural heritage generally, and will have been encouraged by propaganda to see the EU as a tangible link with this. Also to be borne in mind, of course, are the grossly one-sided referendum campaigns that were conducted in these countries.
But as the peoples of these countries come to realise the reality of what they have joined their views are likely to change, and many Poles, Czechs and Estonians, for example, could well become our allies in the struggle against Brussels, along with our existing allies in Denmark, Sweden, Ireland and other countries. Hints of this have already been shown in the European Parliament election results.
* * *
Exports from many Eurozone countries have been suffering from the recent high exchange rate levels of the Euro with the US Dollar - as high as $1.29 to the Euro at one stage. As with Britain during our Exchange Rate Mechanism period, individual countries cannot exercise their own exchange rate and interest rate policies to counter this. In March the European business group Unice polled businesses in various Eurozone countries to ascertain what they considered would be an acceptable exchange rate between the Euro and the US Dollar. About $1.10 to the Euro, said the French firms. About $1.20 said the Greeks and the Germans. Around $1.30 was quite alright for them, said businesses in some other countries.
This bears out what we have always said: that an exchange rate which suits one country will be quite likely not to suit another country; and likewise with the interest rate. The wisdom of Britain in keeping the Pound will become even more apparent as the Eurozone begins to suffer greater tensions in the coming years.
* * *
According to a Government reply in the House of Lords recently, the cost of the Common Agricultural Policy to the British economy in the year 2002, including higher prices compared with world market prices, was £3.3 billion.
This is just one example of how the British economy could save money by escaping from the straitjacket of the European Union.
* * * * * *
Mr. Christopher Gill, Chairman of the Freedom Association and sometime Conservative Member of Parliament for Ludlow, spoke on this question at the League's latest public meeting, held at the Clarence public house, Whitehall, on Tuesday 30th March.
In his immediate reaction to the question, Mr. Gill said that "implicitly" was not the word that immediately sprang to his mind! After thirty years of membership, he said, the Conservative Party was still not telling the truth about the European Union. He contrasted the Party's policy of withdrawing from the Common Fisheries Policy with party leader Michael Howard's support, in a letter to The Sunday Times also signed by nine others, some of them Europhiles, for policies which would sweep away most of the remaining British fishing fleet, to make room for the fleets of the countries joining the EU this year.
He also referred to the party's opposition to the EU constitution, but compared this with Mr. Howard's response to the question of what he would do if the constitution was adopted and the Conservatives subsequently won a General Election. Would he commit the party to repeal of the constitution? Mr. Howard was reluctant to be tied down on this. Mr. Gill drew parallels between this and the Labour Party's ambiguous attitude to EEC membership during 1972-5.
Mr. Gill said that trust in politicians was a two-way business; politicians ask us to trust them, but first they need to act in such a way that people can be confident in trusting them.
Mr. Howard, he said, wants a looser arrangement in Europe, but he forced Conservative MEPs to reverse their decision to leave the European Peoples Party Group in the European Parliament. Mr. Gill had met EPP members while he was a Parliamentary delegate to the Council of Europe, and he found them unashamedly federalist; in his experience, there were no continental parties which in any way replicated the British Conservative Party. In contrast to Mr. Howard, Iain Duncan Smith, while Leader, had wanted to form a new group following EU enlargement, along with parties from Poland, the Czech Republic and other countries; this new group might have held the balance of power in the European Parliament.
Mr. Gill also called to mind the incident early this year when Lord Moran, a Crossbencher, called on the House of Lords to set up a committee to examine a cost-benefit analysis of EU membership. Mr. Gill sent an e-mail to the Conservative Whips' Office in the House of Lords, urging the whips to instruct Conservative Peers to support Lord Moran's motion. In the event Lord Moran's motion was lost, but not only was no advice issued to Conservative Peers as to how they should vote, but 22 of them actually voted against the motion.
Mr. Gill said that the only thing that would bring the Conservative Party to its senses was "another bloody nose at the polls", and on 10th June, at the Euro-elections, there would be an opportunity to vote for a party which stood unequivocally for British withdrawal from the European Union. As long as he had had the vote, Mr. Gill continued, he had never voted anything but Conservative, and he would find it difficult and strange to do anything else, but he said that every vote for the Conservative Party was a vote for the policies of the Conservative Party, which included, in the words of Michael Howard: "to remain a positive and influential member of the European Union". "Let us put our country before other allegiances", was Mr. Gill's riposte to this.
Mr. Gill's speech was followed by a lively question-and-answer session in which various views were expressed. Some questioners agreed with Mr. Gill's analysis, while others felt that the Conservative Party was following a step-by-step approach which would bear dividends. When asked whether the other party to which he was alluding was the UK Independence Party, Mr. Gill employed the famous reply: "you may say that; I couldn't possibly comment"!
* * * * * *
On 2nd March 2004, Mr. Alex Salmond, Scottish National Party Member of Parliament for Banff and Buchan, and SNP Leader at Westminster, successfully introduced a ten-minute rule Bill, the Fisheries Jurisdiction Bill, in the House of Commons. Although this Bill stands virtually no chance of becoming law, it makes a strong case against the Common Fisheries Policy.
Although the SNP was originally strongly anti-EEC, it has more recently campaigned under the self-contradictory aim of Independence in the European Union. However, if the SNP start examining the European Union question more closely, they will surely come to see that this aim is not only illogical but also unachievable. Meanwhile, some extracts from Mr. Salmond's speech now follow.
It is not just that the Common Fisheries Policy does not work; it cannot work. Common ownership of a resource means no ownership of that resource. For marine resources, that leads to disaster. It means that stock management decisions are made as part of a political bargain. European Commission civil servants attempt to micromanage individual fisheries, with disastrous results. In the short term, the countries with the biggest fisheries muscle - countries that prioritise fishing - get the best deal. In the long term, there is decline for everybody. The UK fishing industry gets the worst of both the long and the short term, because fishermen are a low priority, expendable in the wider European context.
Some people say that although the Common Fisheries Policy is a disaster, we cannot just withdraw from it. However, we say that that must be done, and that it is a question of political will. The Leader of the Opposition says that we should negotiate, but I think that we should pass this measure, or one like it, and then negotiate. The Prime Minister says that we cannot opt out of the Common Fisheries Policy and remain in the European Union, but the same Prime Minister continues to opt out of the single currency. The single currency is central to the European ideal, whereas the Common Fisheries Policy is an albatross round the neck of the European cause.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer says that taxation must be a red-line issue in the proposed European constitution, and he would have a dicky fit if the Commission got one pound or one dollar of the oil revenues. Yet under the European Common Fisheries Policy, an entire resource industry has been given over.
Why cannot fishing be a red-line issue? Why can it not be a priority? Why can we not delete the exclusive competence over fisheries claimed in the constitution when it moves back on to the agenda later this year? This is a question of political will and political priority. It is a question of whether this Chamber thinks that the fishing industry is expendable or not.
If we were to withdraw from the Common Fisheries Policy, we would assume the rights established for foreign countries under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea: the 12-mile territorial limit, the 200-mile exclusive economic zone and the jurisdiction of our own vessels on the high seas beyond that. We would assume responsibility for managing our fishery, which the Bill divests to the home nations. Could the home nations manage that? If the Faroese can make a fair stab at managing a successful fishery, I suspect that the home nations probably could.
Would that fishery be perfect? Probably not, but at least we could start with a few governing principles, such as those that the United Fishing Industry Alliance laid down yesterday. First, there should be no industrial fishing. The real obscenity of the sea, to which the ten past Secretaries of State for the Environment were oblivious, is the fishing of 600,000 tonnes of small fish and sand eels every year from the North Sea under the Common Fisheries Policy. Secondly, there should be no discarding of dead fish into the sea, which is the key immorality at the heart of the Common Fisheries Policy. Thirdly - and crucially - there should be a management regime that puts the fishing industry and other stakeholders at the heart of policy formulation, rather than locking them out behind the door of the key meetings. Those principles would be a good start for a sensible management regime.
In my Banffshire constituency, there is a small village called Whitehills. It has a beautiful harbour, but only one white fish boat left in the port. That small boat, the Budding Rose, catches fish for one dedicated processor, who is also based in the village. High-quality fish are sold straight to the market. One could search the world and find it difficult to find a more environmentally sustainable fishery than that. Yet that boat's livelihood - the last boat in the village - is now threatened by the ridiculous regulations imposed by the Common Fisheries Policy and implemented by the Scottish fisheries department. Unless we end this madness, we shall have many more broken boats, broken businesses and broken communities.
I said at the outset that this Bill is supported by Members of Parliament of all eight political parties represented in this Chamber. Obviously, there is also opposition. That opposition is not as vocal as it used to be, but we hear it in speeches and we see it in the reality of Government policy. If that is the opinion of honourable Members, let them force this issue to a vote now. Fishing communities would like to see who is on their side in this matter. We are told by no less a body than the Prime Minister's strategy unit that fishing is small in economic terms. That reflects a vast misunderstanding of the importance of the fishing industry both in the supply industries, which depend on a viable sector, and the processing sector that markets the product. The fishing industry is not small in Scotland. It is not small around the coastline of many areas of England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Above all, the industry is not small in the hearts of the people, who want there to be a fishing industry, and who want this House to live up to its responsibilities to make sure that we continue to have one.
* * * * * *
In the Winter 2003/04 issue of Britain we carried extracts from a question on this subject asked by Lord Stoddart of Swindon in the House of Lords on 14th July 2003. We now print further extracts from Lord Stoddart's speech, together with extracts from ensuing comments by Lord Pearson of Rannoch.
I turn now to the universities, where the Commission is setting out to extend its influence, and to the promotion of integration through so-called research and development projects and the establishment of university departments of EU integration. In this connection, the Jean Monnet project of establishing chairs devoted entirely to European integration is a major problem in itself.
However, a host of other research and scholarly organisations are assisted through EU funding and, indeed, by the United Kingdom Government - through matching funds over which they have no real control - with the object of promoting the European project and integration, and creating networks to assist in this process. Again, the research, all paid for with taxpayers' money, is often one-sided, although it is represented as being impartial. This ploy has certainly been used in relation to the highly political issue of scrapping the pound in favour of the euro when articles by academics in receipt of EU funding have been represented as coming from impartial sources.
The tentacles of the Commission do not stop at schools and universities. They embrace public libraries, the press and the sound and vision media, especially the BBC. A one-sided, Goebbelsesque picture is therefore being presented to British society and I ask the Government to take some remedial action. For example, they could require the European Commission to adopt guidelines similar to those of the United Kingdom, to include a commitment to impartiality and objectivity, and to prevent taxpayers' money being used to promote only one side of politically contentious issues.
In the United Kingdom, consideration should also be given to the appointment of a watchdog to monitor the European Commission's propaganda activities. In any event, the Commission should be told that its methods are unacceptable in any democratic society.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: There appears to be a wide, complex and well-funded network of EU propaganda at work in the education systems of all EU countries, and this country is no exception. I am aware, of course, that some noble Lords, and perhaps even the Minister herself, may take exception to my use of the word "propaganda", but I fear, as we start examining what is going on, that the word may come to be seen as justified.
I was the Honorary Treasurer of the Council for National Academic Awards between 1987 and 1992, and this experience gave me an unusual insight into the funding of higher education in general, and into the attitudes of academics to such funding. I learnt a good deal about academic freedom which, when properly pursued, is such a priceless asset in the culture of any free nation.
I learnt too that academic freedom carries with it the great responsibility to allow a genuine diversity of views to be expressed, especially at university level. Academic freedom does not grant a licence to present only one side of a political argument. Academic freedom can survive only in the absence of bias.
Another cherished feature of academic freedom when I was in the CNAA was that universities and polytechnics possessed the sole and unfettered right to appoint their professors and lecturers. The funding of the system was entirely separated from those appointments. The Jean Monnet programme appears to fail the test of academic freedom on both counts. The courses it funds appear to be largely, or even wholly, biased in favour of the European project and all its works, and the Jean Monnet professors have to be approved by the European Commission. If they are not approved, they do not get appointed. So in effect the Commission has the power of appointment.
It seems fairly clear that one of the central tenets of British academic freedom, if I have understood it correctly, is being breached by the Jean Monnet programme because the Commission appoints the professors or, through the power of veto, can whittle any number of professors down to the one it wants.
Looking beyond these shores, there is no doubt that the Jean Monnet project is a substantial weapon in the EU's attempt to create a European demos, to persuade the peoples of Europe of the benefits of integration under Brussels. I understand that there are now at least 1,500 professors teaching the benefits of European integration to more than 250,000 students across Europe.
In conclusion, I note that the Question asks what sums are being spent by the Government and the EU on "information about the EU". The trouble is, as far as I can see, that all so-called "information" put out by the Government and the EU about the EU exclusively extols the EU's virtues - which some of us find very hard to identify - and never puts the alternative view. That alternative view is, of course, that the United Kingdom would be very much better off outside the European Union altogether, a view which is clearly held by a large proportion of the British electorate.
* * * * * *
As if further evidence was needed, it has now been demonstrated yet again that European Union Directives can override our own Law almost at will.
On Thursday 18th December, last year, the House of Lords rejected the argument put forward by Asda, the supermarket chain, that a legal blunder in 1973 had made the EU laws unenforceable. Greengrocers have now been ordered to obey every EU horticultural regulation passed over the last thirty years. These include EU Directive 2257/94 which states that bananas must be at least 5.5ins long and 1.06ins round and do not have an abnormal degree of curvature. An EU Commission spokesman stated the ban was necessary to prevent them being mistaken for a "bicycle wheel". Also, amongst many other absurd regulations, red apples will be illegal if less than 25 per cent of the surface is red. Neil Herron, Metric Martyrs Campaign Director, said:
What was debunked as a Euromyth by Britain in Europe has now been exposed most embarrassingly for them in the House of Lords. In their literature, Britain in Europe state "these 'Euromyths' range from invented European regulations about the curvature of bananas..."
Hardly invented. Laws made by unaccountable officials. Now we see, yet again, how our daily lives are being affected by a corrupt, profligate bureaucracy outside our democratic control. Maybe we should now embark on a prison-building programme to house all the serial offenders, including those who also dare sell produce by the pound. Perhaps the re-introduction of the death penalty for anyone who was deranged enough to sell two pounds of bent bananas, some MacIntosh reds and a bag of small peaches.
However, it is not the EU we must blame. Don't buy a dog and complain when it barks. The ones who must be held responsible, and they will be, are our own democratically elected representatives in Westminster who have allowed this to happen.
In this connection, the League was greatly saddened by the sudden death in March of Steven Thoburn, at the early age of 39.
Steven Thoburn, a Sunderland market trader, became well known in the year 2000 when he was prosecuted for selling "a pound of bananas" from his market stall.
The Metric Martyrs case, which involved six other retailers from across the country, made legal history following appeals in the High Court and subsequently the House of Lords. Recently an application to the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg against Steven Thoburn's conviction was rejected.
Steven Thoburn's great achievement was to focus public opinion on the issue of compulsory metrication, to the extent that to date only a very few number of prosecutions have been instigated by local authorities throughout the country.