Anti Common Market League - Summer 2001

The suggestion that the European Union has anything to do with democracy has surely been blown out of the water once and for all by its reaction to the Irish "No" vote on the Treaty of Nice.

The Irish economy, unlike the British economy, has benefited from the EU budget. The fact that the Irish Republic should vote against an EU treaty would, one might imagine, give the leaders of "Europe" pause for thought. Rather than accepting the democratic decision of the Irish people, however, the Euro-elite appear to have decided that the Irish must be made to vote again, just as the Danes were in 1993. Disgracefully, the Irish government seems to be keener on appeasing their European masters than on supporting their own people.

If a second Irish referendum were to go ahead, achieving another "No" would be difficult but by no means impossible. Voters may be revolted by the arrogance of the EU leaders rather than being cowed by their power.

EU leaders, aided and abetted by much of the media (notably the BBC), are doing the Irish a disservice by repeatedly asserting that the Nice Treaty is about EU enlargement, and insinuating that the Irish voted to keep other countries out. The fact is that it is quite possible for other countries to join the EU without the Nice Treaty, which is really about transferring even more power to Brussels. Quite why other countries wish to join is another matter; once inside, they may be in for some shocks.

After the first Danish "No"' to Maastricht in 1992, the British government did at least delay its own ratification process until Danish intentions were known. In part, of course, this was to paper over divisions on Maastricht in the Conservative Party. But the present Government now appears intent on forcing the Nice Treaty through the House of Commons as soon as possible - and without a referendum, of course. This smacks of being part of concerted international action designed to put as much pressure on Ireland as possible.

The only position of integrity from a democratic or constitutional point of view would be to say: "The Irish have voted against the Treaty; the Treaty is therefore dead and we should go back to the drawing board". If the Euro-elite did this, they would not only be serving democracy and the rule of law; they would also be opening up the opportunity for some genuine reform in the EU.

Keeping the Pound is a popular, cause. The Conservative Party, for the time being at any rate, is not. The popular cause could not save the unpopular party at the General Election, but remains a popular cause for all that. The electorate evidently felt that they could have their cake and eat it, by re-electing Labour and then voting against the Euro in the referendum, if there is to be one.

After the immediate post-election speculation, the likelihood of Britain entering the Euro in the foreseeable future seems to have receded. But we need to remain on our guard.

It is unlikely that our opponents will be able to win genuine popular support for giving up the Pound. Instead, they may well seek to manipulate public opinion into showing a majority for the Euro for a short period, and to hold a referendum during that period. Something similar happened in 1975.

The sure way to avoid this is to continue spreading the facts, which our opponents will not be able to refute. Making use of the recent pamphlet by Dr. Brian Burkitt, No Pound: No Independence?, and encouraging others to read it, is a good way of doing this.

When I look back over my fifty-one years here, I cannot help but be saddened by the increasing impotence of the House and the decline in the esteem in which this place is held.

So said Sir Edward Heath during his last speech in the House of Commons on 9th May. That he could make such an observation without a touch of irony or self-consciousness must serve as some sort of tribute to the "Man of Integrity".

That the House of Commons has fallen in public esteem in recent years cannot be denied. But Sir Edward is apparently incapable of comprehending that this is principally due to the fact that so many of Parliament's powers have been ceded to Brussels. Parliament has increasingly come to be seen as powerless before successive waves of European Union directives. If Parliament reasserts itself as the sovereign law-making body, the democratic forum of the nation and the guardian of our liberties, its reputation will rise accordingly.

It would be churlish not to wish our old adversary well in his retirement. But we also hold out the hope that Sir Edward may find some enlightenment during his greater hours of leisure in the shade of Salisbury's spire.

It was with great regret that we learned of the recent death of Knud Pedersen, of the Danish People's Movement Against the EU. Knud Pedersen was a long-standing friend of the League, and spoke at one of our House of Commons meetings a little over a year ago, when he expressed cautious - and, in the event, justified - optimism about the then forthcoming Danish referendum on the Euro.

The following tribute, by his friend and colleague Knud Christensen, originally appeared in Fourth World Review, to whom we are grateful for permission to reproduce it. (The term "Third Way" does not in Denmark have the pejorative connotations that it has acquired here.)

The Nestor of the Danish resistance movement against the European Union has passed away. For the last forty years he was the indefatigable opponent of the integration of the European national states into a federal megastate with a centralised and undemocratic rule by a hierarchy of arrogant politicians and un-civil servants at the top.

But his definite No to the European Union was much more than a No. It was a Yes to democracy, to the rule of law, to a Green society, where the welfare and the right of self-determination of people counted infmitely more than unlimited material growth.

Defeat after defeat could not break Knud's spirits. He was as great in defeat as he was magnanimous in victory, and he always possessed a unique ability to change both into new inspiration. And constantly he kept fighting for a Third Way in politics, a new way of thinking and acting so that a new synthesis - or perhaps rather a new complementarity - of freedom and solidarity one day would replace the out-of-date ideologies and class struggles of the former centuries.

Quoting the old bard:

Sample copies of Fourth World Review are available at £2 from FWR at The Close, 26 High Street, Purton, Wiltshire, SN5 4AE

Both Sir Edward Heath and Shirley, Baroness Williams have recently bemoaned the reduced esteem in which Parliament is held.

Has it not occurred to them that the British people have noticed that in many areas Parliament no longer makes the laws? Legislation covering transport, environment, trade and social policy is largely drawn up by the EU. Trade, agriculture and fisheries are Brussels' fiefs. Mr. Javier Solana, the High Representative of the EU, represents Britain at international meetings of real importance, and 'If the Nice Treaty goes through (despite the fact that the success of the NO vote in the Irish referendum rendered it a nullity!) large elements of our sadly depleted armed forces will fall under 'European' command and control.

A training and education strategy for all three armed services will begin in 2010. What were once British training programmes will be geared to the new European armed forces. Officers from other member states will attend courses to further closer integration and British officers will carry out part of their training in other EU countries. The aim is that the UK's armed forces will be answerable to the EU, and gone will be the close co-operation which has existed between our forces and those of the USA and the Commonwealth.

Oath of Allegiance

The oath of allegiance sworn by members of the armed forces to the Queen may turn out to be of real importance. If the Queen in Parliament passed legal notice to withdraw from the EU, and the Courts (including the European Court of Justice) tried to declare this unlawful, there would be, theoretically, a stand-off. Would the armed forces breach their oath of loyalty to the Queen backed by Parliament, or indeed the Police, who still swear a similar oath of loyalty? Any such action by the judges would be a gross contempt of Parliament and those responsible could be arrested by warrant of the Speaker and gaoled.

Parliament has retained its power to proceed by Bill of Attainder, whereby a bill can be presented in Parliament to bring rebels and traitors before the High Court of Parliament without the Courts having any jurisdiction, and to impose any punishment Parliament may decree including execution. Of course somebody would have had to make such an application to the Courts that Parliament's Act was invalid. Those doing so and their legal advisers could immediately be dealt with by warrant of the Speaker without the judges even having the opportunity to be heard. One must strongly suspect, however, that the running down of the armed forces by this Government and their enmeshing them into a European army is a deliberate attempt to forestall such independent action.

Europol

Suggestions have already been made that British Police should no longer swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen, and that a national police force be created. The absence of a national or central police force has meant that political influence is low with reference to the police, and police officers are not above the law. With regard to a national police force, Mr. David Hodges, a former Superintendent in the Thames Valley Police stated in an interview in The Times (14.7.99) .. ..... I really fear that, I think it would be highly politicized, in a way that Chief Constables are spared at the moment, and .... it would erode individual liberties. But we are increasingly becoming part of Europe and all European police forces are national."

Europol officers have diplomatic immunity. A British Statutory Instrument (No. 2973) giving effect to a Brussels regulation says, " Such persons shall enjoy immunity from suit and legal process in respect of acts, including words written or spoken, done by them in the exercise of their official functions, except in respect of civil liability in the case of damage arising from a road traffic accident caused by them." In other words there will be no redress in respect of wrongful arrest and damage to homes and property.

We should not be surprised, since the truth is that the philosophies intertwined in contempt for the nation-state, contempt for democracy, belief in supranationalism, belief in bigness, belief in the planned economy, hatred of Anglo-Saxon "chaos" (i.e. liberalism) are shared by and central to Fascism, Nazism and Communism. These philosophies are the intellectual mainsprings of the idea of a federal Europe.

It is nonsense to suggest no state is powerful enough to be sovereign in the global economy. Sovereignty is the expression of exclusive political authority, not power. A sovereign state possesses authority so long as it is not legally subordinate to another. To destroy the differences between authority and power is to destroy the distinction between lawful and unlawful behaviour, and to reduce all relationships to power relationships.

We can hardly be surprised, therefore that the Europhiles consider the idea of European integration to be above the law. When it was revealed that Herr Kohl and M. Mitterrand had advanced their cause and that of the Euro by using illicit donations and secret slush funds the reaction of the Eurocrats and Europhiles was that it was somehow OK because it was not done for personal enrichment. The end justified the means!

Sovereignty

Sovereignty is a concept necessary for, and the basis of, civil society. The ethos of the EU is undemocratic and carries with it a technocratic belief that politics is the administration of the economy and society, and that it should be achieved by a cosy consensus amongst the unaccountable, unremovable political elite. That is the opposite of the adversarial Anglo-Saxon politics which have a far superior record as far as delivering good government is concerned.

An independent (sovereign) state acts under its own authority, not requiring authorisation from any superior state. If a state is constitutionally independent it is sovereign. You cannot 'pool' sovereignty - either you have it or you do not. Power can be pooled (as Britain has done as a member of NATO), but authority cannot.

Although the UK remains sovereign in that it still has the right to denounce the Treaty of Rome as amended and repeal the statutes, continuing delegation of jurisdictional and legislative authority to the EU over wide areas will eventually, over time, result in a situation where Britain will be a subordinate part of a federal EU. British sovereignty will have been transferred to the EU.

Clothing the EU with such transferred political authority is an inherently unstable undertaking for, in order that it works, the approval and agreement of its citizens are required. There are no pan-European political parties, no shared customs, language or traditions. There is no feeling of belonging to one single European nation, and therefore no genuine political community. It is as artificial, undemocratic and brittle as the Soviet Union was and will ultimately collapse amidst bitterness, ill-feeling and much recrimination.

A Federal EU

Romano Prodi has just presented his plan for reform of the EU. He wishes to turn the Commission into a genuine European executive, answerable to a strengthened Federal Parliament and Supreme Court. If adopted, it would concentrate even more power in the hands of EU institutions than would the Nice Treaty, and a single representative from the EU would represent its members on the IMF and World Bank. Regional 'governments' would have enhanced powers and would deal directly with Brussels, thus by-passing the institutions of the nation state.

It is in fact a blueprint for a Federal state.

The Alternative

The only alternative is to return to Parliamentary Democracy by pulling out of the EU, and thereby restore the sovereignty of the people, who by exercising their vote lend their sovereign powers to MPs, to use on their behalf for the duration of a parliament (a maximum of five years).

People identify with their nation state - they do not think of themselves as a European person. In the absence of a European demos (people), democracy cannot work in the EU.

Membership of the EU has severely diminished British Parliamentary Democracy. Laws are made and taxes imposed by EU institutions which the British people cannot remove through the ballot box, and which cannot be changed, far less repealed, by the British Parliament. British Courts must uphold EU laws, which have not been passed by Parliament.

By contrast the ability to elect and dismiss MPs secures their continuing accountability to the electorate,, ensuring they have to listen to the views of the electorate and not just at General Election time.

Transferring legislative and fmancial powers to EU institutions means British voters cannot dismiss them. Since, therefore, British voters' opinions carry no weight with them, there is no compulsion felt to remedy the grievances of the British voters.

Only withdrawal from the EU can restore democratic accountability. As Thomas Jefferson said, "A nation which seeks to trade its political independence for economic advantage deserves to lose both."

If Ken Clarke becomes leader of the Conservative Party and takes the Tories out of a referendum on the Euro, he would deny the anti-Euro campaign £5 million, under the "unfair" spending rules.

May we remind readers of this new publication, commissioned by the League? Written by Dr. Brian Burkitt of the University of Bradford, it continues to be available to readers of Britain at the reduced price of £3.00 inc. postage.

Orders should be sent to the Anti-Common Market League at 28 Highdown, Worcester Park, Surrey KT4 7HZ. We strongly recommend this pamphlet as an informative and highly readable critique of EMU and the Euro.

CAN'T is organizing a mass lobby of Parliament on Wednesday 17th October, 2001 against the Third Reading of the Treaty Bill. Member organizations of CAN"T include the Anti-Maastricht Alliance (AMA), Campaign for an Independent Britain (CIB), the Democracy Movement, Labour Euro-Safeguards Campaign, Conservatives Against a Federal Europe (CAFE) and the Federation of Small Businesses.

Coach subsidies will be available by prior agreement - coach organizers must pay the first £250 and the subsidy will cover everything above that. To apply for a subsidy please contact Mr. Russell Walters, Director, CAN"T, 2 Beaufort Mews, London SW6 IPF. Tel: 020 7610 0865, Fax: 020 7381 2062, Email: mail@democracymovement.org.uk Details of local alliances can be obtained from Mr. Lionel Bell, Secretary, AMA, Tyrells, High Street, Limpsfield, Surrey, RHS ODR. Tel: 01883 716337. Fax: 01883 722439.