We are currently being treated in the leader columns of newspapers, articles by so called opinion formers and in television programmes, to earnest discussions concerning the merits of the proposed regionalisation of the police forces in England, and whether this will provide a better service to the public.

When are these people going to wake up to the realities of the world, as the truth is that this has nothing to do with quality of delivery and everything to do with the regionalisation of England as part of the scheme to divide the nation into the administrative parts laid down by the EU Committee of the Regions.

Already the fire service has been up in arms about increasing regionalisation and now the police service is suffering the same fate. Nothing they say will change matters as the politicians are determined to obey their masters in Brussels and only a break with the European Union can now stop these plans being implemented, something that will not happen if the three main parties have anything to do with it.

The extent of the deception being practised here, and the gullibility of the media in accepting it, would surely make even Dr Goebbels envious. Once again the old saw "None so blind…" perfectly describes the situation.

The acknowledgement by the Treasury that Mr Blair’s so called deal over the EU budget will in fact cost Britain £2 billion, rather than £1 billion, a year probably accounts for his near hysterical display at the European Parliament yesterday when he used the normal Europhile tactic of misrepresenting the position and motives of those who oppose their beloved European Union.

Contrary to Mr Blair’s assertions we in the Eurorealistic movement do not harbour any animosity to our European neighbours. Indeed we have many foreign nationals within the CIB and also co-operate fully with like minded organisations of democrats throughout Europe. It is we who are the true Europeans, as we seek to save the ancient states of Europe from being swallowed up by a monolithic, bureaucratic and soulless single state.

We see the EU for what it is, a construct of the political classes which seeks to ensure politicians power without accountability, to allow bureaucrats to ignore the wishes of the people and to faciliate the ability of big business to achieve their ends via the endemically corrupt structures which are a disgrace to any modern state.

Mr Blair may say this is 2005 but clearly his spiritual home would be 1205, ten years before the power of the elite began to be reined in by Magna Carta. His bluster does not conceal the fact that he has placed an even greater burden on British taxpayers and obtained nothing worthwhile in return.

Today the British governmentt has cravenly surrendered to the demands of the parasites of the EU and handed over even more of British taxpayers' hard earned money in order to protect their own self interest

We are told that the NHS is nearly £700 million in debt and sacrifices must be made. Operations must be cancelled and treatments rationed At the same time the Government agrees to pay an extra £1 billion every year to the European Union!

Everybody must be made to work until they drop because the funds available for pensions are too small. Yet this Government has been taking £5 billion a year out of pension funds since 1997.

Where does that money go? Well over £10 billion a year is paid to the EU every year so that unelected bureaucrats in Brussels may inflict countless useless regulations on every man, woman and child in this country!

Why must this money be paid? So that our politicians can belong to the elite club of the EU, because the only group who benefit from EU membership are the political class. The undemocratic nature of the EU gives them the opportunity to wield power without accountability. The institutions of the EU provide them with a wider stage upon which to strut their little hour and an enhanced careers once they have failed at home.

Just look at how many of them have been effectively rejected by British voters and yet gone on to obscenely well paid sinecures in the European Commission. Do you really need them named?

The only reason they support EU membership is their concern for their own self interest. Why trust them on this when you know just how useless they are and how little you can believe what they say?

Lord Stoddart of Swindon, Chairman of the Campaign for an Independent Britain has issued the following statement:

"The British Government, in its haste to produce an agreement before the end of its EU Presidency, has caved in and opened its cheque-book. Yet again, the British people have been sold down the river. This wasn't a negotiation but the handing over of an early Christmas present to President Chirac of France. Time and again, the Government has promised not to surrender the British rebate unless there was a concrete agreement to re-examine the Common Agricultural Policy. All that has been secured is a 'review', the results of which can be vetoed by President Chirac or his successor. Time and again the Government has failed to stand up to the French and honour this commitment. It is the British taxpayer that is once again going to have to fund this dreadful deal.

The British people are getting sick and tired of lashing out money to build new roads in Czechoslovakia, underground railway systems in Warsaw and many other grandiose schemes, while the infrastructure in our own country is falling apart with roads and motorways rutted and decaying along miles of their length.

We were already the second highest contributors to the EU coffers and simultaneously the lowest recipients of EU funding, (getting some of our own money back). Why on earth should we pay more? This new deal makes the cost of our membership of the EU even more extortionate, without a single demonstrable concession in return.

British membership of the European Union is a grotesque waste of time and money. As a nation, we have an energy crisis, a pensions crisis and many other very pressing concerns upon which our Government should be concentrating. Instead, it wastes a seemingly endless amount of time on fruitless EU negotiations and pours ever more huge amounts of money, into propping up the Brussels bureaucracy and providing handouts for Eastern European countries".

Our politicians have betrayed us yet again - are we ever to stand up to them and force withdrawal from the vile organisation which is detroying our democracy and our nation

The following is a press release from The Bruges Group, which says all one needs to know about the latest extension of the power of Brussels:

Today the ECJ ruled on British tax law. The long awaited judgement from the unaccountable ECJ could cost the British taxpayer billions of Pounds. The fact that the EU has overturned UK tax law shows that Blair’s famous red-line, which he claimed he secured when the EU Constitution was being drafted, was in fact a red-herring. British governments had already surrendered the UK's right to determine about 20% of this country's taxation.

The Bruges Group have been warning the Government for many years as to what might happen. Now Blair and Brown will learn, but this will be a lesson learnt at the taxpayers cost. The decision today shows that the EU has usurped the right to make UK tax laws. The ECJ has struck-out well-established UK rules in pursuing the Brussels goal of tax harmonisation. This will cause uncertainty for business and government funding. The government has known about this risk since at least 1999, and should now act to bring back control of the UK's tax affairs.

Chillingly the ECJ has ruled that, "The Court reiterates, first of all, that although direct taxation is within the competence of the Member States, the latter must exercise that competence with respect for Community law." The treasury has so far refused to reveal the extent of the costs of this judgement.

Other areas of UK tax law under assault from the EU are: overseas dividends, transfer pricing, anti tax-haven legislation (Controlled Foreign Company tax), taxation deducted from savings income (Withholding tax), the rules governing the use of tax losses belonging to one UK company to other companies in the same group (Group relief), rules that prevent overseas owned companies getting UK tax relief for excessive interest payments to their parent, (Thin Capitalisation).

Areas already under the control of the EU are: VAT, where tax is triggered when people seek to move assets offshore and would otherwise be able to dispose of them tax-free, taxation of dividend income received from overseas companies, and those laws that prevent UK subsidiaries of groups based in other EU states obtaining tax relief for artificially large interest payments on loans from their Parent Companies.

Robert Oulds, Director of the Bruges Group says, "It is wrong that the unelected ECJ controls much of British tax law. The American colonies revolted for less, whatever happened to ‘No taxation without representation’. "Gordon Brown must be incensed. The European Court of Justice will cost the British taxpayer an untold sum and force Gordon Brown to raise taxes to fund his budget deficit. "Combining this with other cases due to be considered by the ECJ, most notably the Cadbury Schweppes case, and the potential of Britain loosing the budget rebate means that there will be a serious black hole in the nation’s finances. "The EU destroyed the Conservative’s reputation for economic competence when the Pound fell out of the exchange rate mechanism. It seems that the EU will destroy Labour’s reputation for financial prudence."

How much more proof do the people of this country need that the EU is a disaster for us and that we should just leave

As one can expect of a leading member of the Europhiles Kenneth Clarke has shown once again that loyalty to the idea of a federal Europe takes precedence over any support for the Conservative party.

The Chairman of CIB Lord Stoddart said: "Having fallen at the first hurdle in the Tory leadership contest, Kenneth Clarke is taking his revenge on the Party by attacking its new leader, David Cameron, for holding true to a commitment he made during the leadership campaign, to withdraw the Conservative MEPs from the EPP Group in the European Parliament".

"This attack comes just as the Conservatives have overtaken Labour in the opinion polls and is typical of the spoiling strategy of Tory europhiles who are always prepared to destroy those who oppose a European superstate, even if that means wrecking their own Party in the process. The deliberate fostering of perpetual splits in the Conservative Party over this issue is cynical and reveals a long term strategy of putting the interests of the European Union ahead of the interests of both country and party".

David Cameron will never have a better time than now to finally break with the Heathites, who represent very, very few within the Conservative party. If he fails to do so when he has so much goodwill available to him then he will be unable to take significant steps later, when his honeymoon period is over. Idiots in the media always talk of a split when the reality is that it would be no more than the shrugging off of a splinter group who still have the mindset of the post war elite and who refuse to recognize that their beloved European project has failed. He should grasp the nettle now

Statement By The Lord Stoddart of Swindon

All too often, those who believe that Britain’s membership of the European Union is inimical to her best interests are criticised for being little Englanders, or even worse. Yet there is much evidence which points to the desirability of Britain withdrawing from the EU altogether, unless the organisation reverts to a simple free trade area – which the British people were led to believe they were joining in the first place.

During the referendum in 1975, improved trade was cited as the great benefit which would be derived by joining the then Common Market and that same argument persists to the present day. However, when the trading figures with the EEC/EU are examined we find that in the period 1973 to 2000 the total adverse balance of trade exceeded £90 billion. Last year alone the adverse balance was some £20billion.

Such large deficits are, in quite large measure, financed by inward direct investment, of which Britain, until now, has been a substantial recipient. However, such good fortune is unlikely to continue and could turn negative as British industry becomes further engulfed in EU regulations and taxation approaches the same proportion of GDP as in other EU countries including France and Germany, leading investors to switch their funds to the tiger economies of Asia and the Americas.

Added to this adverse trading position suffered by Britain are the baleful consequences of the Common Agricultural Policy and the annual contributions to the EU budget. Since joining the CAP, farm incomes have fallen and the number of people engaged in farming is considerably lower. Furthermore, according to Treasury figures, the CAP adds some £18 per week to the family shopping basket and this is bound to put pressure on wage costs with adverse consequences for competitiveness. In spite of this and the damage it does to world trade, it is unlikely to be reformed in the face of bitter opposition from France and other EU countries.

Turning to Britain’s budget contributions, recent figures from Open Europe show that Britain’s net contributions to the EEC/EU between 1973 and 2003 amounted to £75billion and over the next fifteen tears, on present trends, will grow to some £115billion – even if the rebate is retained. This is money which, if spent in Britain for the improvement and modernisation of the infrastructure and moderating tax demands, would assist industrial and commercial expansion and might even help to solve the pensions crisis which appears to face Britain at present.

In the light of these facts, it can hardly be claimed that there is any real economic or financial gain for Britain from continued membership of the European Union. Indeed, as the tiger economies of Asia – China, India and the rest – continue to grow and prosper at a phenomenal rate and the USA retains its economic pre-eminence, there is a danger that Britain, trapped in a protectionist, economically sclerotic Europe Union, run by a centralised, remote bureaucratic cabal, could go into permanent economic decline.

The real opportunities for Britain to flourish as a thrusting, forward looking, prosperous self-governing democratic nation lie outside the European Union. Freed from the political, economic, regulatory and bureaucratic constraints and the pervading ambition to create a European superstate, Britain could defend her own national interest, develop her own relationships with other nations, rejuvenate the Commonwealth and give the world that unique leadership which comes from her great history, experience and achievement.

The European Reform Forum has been set up to investigate how the existing “obsolete” treaties can be replaced by a structure that will have the support of Europe’s people. The forum, including David Heathcoat-Amory, the former Europe minister, Lord Tebbit, the former Tory chairman, and Bernard Jenkin, the former Shadow Defence Secretary, will use the British presidency to highlight the case for European reform.

It is taking evidence in public from politicians, businessmen, economists, lawyers, historians and academics on all sides of the European debate.

Since ID cards were first proposed Eurorealists have been pointing out that they are in fact a result of a demand from the dictators of Brussels, who wish to consolidate their power over the peoples of Europe, and will not tolerate a major country such as the UK being outside one of their major areas of control.

Proof of this was forthcoming yesterday when the European Commission demanded that governments share all information on their citizens to provide pan European databases covering the following:

• fingerprints

• DNA

• general data such as addresses, dates of birth etc.

• all travel documents

If George Orwell was alive today he would be horrified that the combination of computer technology and the fascist intentions of the architects of the single European state are set fair to create an entity which his Inner Party of 1984 would envy for its degree of control over its citizens

A poll conducted across the EU reveals that support for the EU is falling rapidly across the continent and that only one-third of the British people see any benefit in continued membership, the lowest figure recorded in the 25 countries involved.

Trust in the European commission has fallen from 52% to 46% throughout the union and in Britain, is only 31%, it being distrusted by 38%. Not surprisingly the majority of Europeans believe the European Commission's budget should be frozen.

In what is described as the largest opinion poll in the world, the Eurobarometer project conducted face-to-face interviews with 30,000 respondents and found a sharp reversal on the steady build of goodwill towards the EU recorded in recent years. The negative view of the EU revealed by the study is the most pronounced since records began in 1975, according to Taylor Nelson Sofres, the research firm which conducted the survey.

In Britain, a majority, 42% to 40%, believe the UK has not benefited from its 30-year membership and only 36% of those questioned considered membership 'a good thing'.

Only 10 countries say they have a 'positive image' of the EU, with Britain being at the bottom, only 28% regarding Brussels in a positive light. Ireland records the highest satisfaction, with 68%.

All 10 new EU members are shown to be turning against the euro, with a marked drop in those believing it would be good for their countries, the figures falling to 38%, from 44% and interest in the single currency is now a minority issue, at 48%.

In every country there is concern about expansion of the Commission's 121 billion euro(£82 billion) budget. When asked if the EUÝs 'political objectives justify an increase in the union's budget' 50% of Europeans say no and only 32% yes. The European Central Bank has also been affected by the downturn as it had previously been trusted by 51% of Europeans, a majority, but support has now fallen to 46% together with increasing dismay at the performance of the euro.

Leendert de Voogd, the managing director of Taylor Nelson Sofres Opinion & Social, was struck by the sharp drop in trust. 'It's highly unusual to see so sharp a change,' he said. 'Also when we ask if their countries benefit from being in the EU, we see a clear negative trend.'

He felt that some of this could be attributed to the referendum campaigns and the accompanying publicity. 'During the referendum, there were adverts for plumbers coming to our country to steal our jobs. Such images make sense to a majority of people.'

Open Europe, a new Eurosceptic think tank, said the poll confirms the case for reforming the EU. 'It is striking that most people in the UK now think there are no benefits to Britain from EU membership,' said Neil OÝBrien, Open Europe's director. 'Unless the EU transforms itself more and more people will turn against it.'

One thing we can be certain of is that the EU will not transform itself, except into an overt, rather than a covert, fascist state

Yesterday the European Commission published details of what they claim are pan European crimes and for which they are now arrogating to themselves the right to determine punishments, even if the EU state of which the supposed criminal is a citizen does not accept the validity of their decision. They are even dictating the length of prison sentences to be handed down.

How many of those gullible people who voted yes in the 1975 referendum realised that they would face, thirty years later, the take over of their criminal justice system by foreign bureaucrats? Didn't that nice man Roy Jenkins say is was just a matter of being able to buy cheap wine?

The bureaucrats claim that these powers relate to matters such as fraud but, as is always the case with the EU, this is just the start. They are already talking about crimes relating to incitement to racial hatred. This may seem reasonable until you realise that they count opposing the EU as xenophobia, if not even, as the more lunatic of them believe, blasphemy. This could lead to the EU ordering the imprisoning of any Eurorealist who dares to suggest that the UK would be better off free from this destructive succubus of an organisation.

In a ritual that would be funny if it were not so serious we yet again see the European Court of Auditors refusing to sign off the EU's accounts. The incompetence and corruption of the EU is almost beyond parody

These are some typical responses from those who still believe in clean and efficient government

CIB - THE EU ACCOUNTS: "A CATALOGUE OF DECEIT"

The revelation that the European Court of Auditors, for the eleventh year in succession, has refused to sign off the EU's accounts, has provoked a strong reaction from the cross-party Campaign for an Independent Britain, which has described the 2004 accounts as a 'catalogue of deceit'.

Stuart Gulleford, spokesman for the Campaign said; "The EU's accounts are a catalogue of deceit about which the European Commission, most British Members of the European Parliament and British Government Ministers should hang their heads in shame.

"This is not some esoteric EU problem of interest only to European Commissioners and their staff. This is British taxpayers' money we are talking about. The European Court of Auditors is suggesting that no less than 90 per cent of the EU's £68 billion 2004 budget cannot be properly accounted for. How much longer is the British Government going to tolerate this appalling state of affairs? British Ministers simply cannot go on pouring money into the EU's bottomless pit of fraud and corruption.

Endless promises have been made about reform of the EU's accounting practices but nothing is ever delivered. Any British company finance director who submitted accounts like these would probably end up behind bars, but the Government keeps on tamely signing the cheques".

Cllr Steve Radford - President of The Liberal Party

No one should be surprised to read that for the eleventh year running, the European Union's annual accounts have failed to gain a seal of approval from the EU's own auditors. The European Court of Auditors said the amount of spending they could verify rose to 35% in 2004 from a mere 6% in 2003. The improvement was mainly due to a new system of control over the payment of agricultural subsidies to farmers. Over 400 bank accounts managed outside of Brussels with local signatories are totally unaudited

But the auditors said the vast majority of spending was still affected by "errors of legality and regularity".

Whilst we welcome the Conservative Party has highlighted this gross lack of accountability we must beg the question why Britain should continue to fund this endemic fraud. Only the threat of withdraw from the EU may bring about the fundamental change we have a right to demand

When will this farce be ended!

As we celebrate Trafalgar day there are a number of stories in connection with the European Union which prove how mad we are to remain a member of this vile organisation and make one think of what Lord Nelson would say if he were still with us.

The Euro

The euro has been one of the weakest-performing currencies in the world in 2005, for as Financial Times Deutschland reports, when comparing the performance of 58 of the world's main currencies, the euro only ranks at number 50, having, within the last year, slipped back not only against the dollar, the pound and the yen, but also against the Turkish lira and the Brazilian Real.

The structural reasons behind the euro's weakness were already present in 2004, when the euro hit a record value against the US dollar but the euro's poor performance became clear when the American federal reserve bank in 2005 started to increase its interest rates, while the ECB continued to keep its rates down. In addition the EU's political deadlock following the French and Dutch rejection of the EU constitution also damaged the euro's rating.

Five leading German economic institutes have called upon the ECB to increase interest rates by 0.5 percent in 2006 saying that data on money supply indicated that inflation was on the rise. "If the ECB did not react, it would be hard to explain, particularly if eurozone economic growth strengthens", the institutes said. Leading European politicians have regularly demanded that the ECB cut rather than increase interest rates, in order to reduce borrowing costs and boost the economy.

The EU constitution

The Czech president Vaclav Klaus has openly criticised the draft EU constitution saying "I may be alone among the heads of states and heads of governments in Europe. But I am definitively not alone among Europeans", says Mr Klaus.

"Some sort of reflection has started in Europe. When I compare the atmosphere this year with that of last year, there is now a much more relaxed discussion. There is a shift in thinking, as in the past, I was almost alone criticising the EU, but now I have discovered that it's fashionable to criticise one aspect of EU politics after the other.

The pause for reflection is a pause for inertia. We should do something", he demands adding "Time will not wait and the opportunity we have now will not repeat itself any time soon. The EU needs a change. To be satisfied with recognition of the status quo and with an eventual slowing down in further unification, is not sufficient".

He calls for a revision of the whole EU project even if it goes against some powerful vested interests, arguing that the State of Europe should be forgotten and stating that a "higher European-wide democracy is an illusion. We should try to create something like an Organization of European States(OES), whose members will be individual European states rather than the citizens of these states directly, as suggested by the European constitution. We should not Europeanise issues but fight for the preservation of basic civil, political and economic liberties. The alternative is a non-state, post-democracy and administered society."

He is certain the EU constitution will eventually be put back on the political agenda, perhaps by a new generation of political leaders on the European scene but for the moment the EU will progress by a creeping centralisation.

"Definitely, the europhiles will try to come back with the constitution. But what I fear now, in the short term, is not the fight about the constitution. The real problem is that europhiles probably decided now that it is unnecessary to fight for the constitution. They can achieve their aims and goals without. They'll simply continue with the creeping unification and every day increase the centralisation, harmonisation, standardisation. They can do it by small, incremental changes of existing treaties, hundreds of ways. The EU is at a crossroads. There is a huge gap between real and political Europe. The democratic deficit created by the shift in decision-making from state to supranational level is one of my long-term worries. This shift weakens the traditional democratic mechanisms which are inseparable from the existence of the nation state". Asked how he would counter this, Mr Klaus says it would be difficult. "It is more difficult than just to say no in a referendum about the constitution. So therefore I consider it a more dangerous moment just now. We must bring other politicians to the top positions. The reality of the EU today is that agreement on any new fundamental policy initiatives is most unlikely. We are in between an immovable rock and an irresistible force situation with Blair cast in the unlikely role of the rock!".

The budget - compromise or is it appeasement

José Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commission, put forward an expensive compromise yesterday between the French and British positions but his proposed fund to soften the impact of globalisation is a recipe for making Europe less likely to survive the assaults of globalisation.

Only four months ago, Tony Blair delivered a searing lecture on the need for urgent economic reform to the European Parliament. Since then, stalemate, hence Senhor Barroso's offering. The core of his plan is the creation of a multibillion-euro fund to soften the social impact of globalisation on certain regions and industrial sectors.

In reality it is merely a response to a charge by President Chirac of France that Brussels has done nothing to help French workers threatened with job cuts by Hewlett Packard, the US computer giant and one Western European official said the plan would be greeted with scepticism by anyone of a free-market mindset. It will be seen as a reward for failure to reform, undermining Europe's ability to compete even further.

It is also unclear where the money would come from as Britain and Germany are among those countries fiercely opposed to any increase in the 100 billion annual budget.

Officials say that Senhor Barroso wants to broker a compromise between the British and French camps within the EU. His plans yesterday included some sops to the British side. He is calling for a profound review of all EU spending during the budget period, but that is unlikely to be enough to reassure Britain. It wants to see a shift from farm spending, now about 40 per cent of the total, to technology and innovation. As Mr Blair told the European Parliament, Europe cannot compete against China, India, and other emerging economies if it keeps spending so much of its budget on farms.

France is rapidly becoming isolated in its defence of its farmers as even new members in Central Europe say they recognise that Europe must change but it does, however, have the support of every EU member (except Britain) in its attack on Britain's annual rebate. Nevertheless Britain has received help this month from President Bush, who has committed the US to scrapping key farm subsidies if Europe does the same, putting pressure on the EU to commit itself to farm reforms before the next Doha Round of trade talks in Hong Kong in December. This has given Britain another lever with which to attack farm support and France's attacks this week on Peter Mandelson, the Trade Commissioner, suggest that it did not see this one coming.

Senhor BarrosoÝs plans are a testament to his belief in the goal of compromise, but they may well fail in their immediate aim of bridging the French and British positions. Beyond that, by rewarding failure, they could also undermine EuropeÝs ability to fight back against the challenge of globalisation.

Remember Nelson

200 years ago this morning, the people of Britain woke with the long-familiar threat of an invasion from France hanging over them. Napoleon had built a vast fleet of barges to carry his Grande Armée of more than 100,000 battle-hardened troops over the Channel from Boulogne and all that stood in his way was that strip of water and a couple of dozen ships of the Royal Navy.

Lord Nelson's crushing victory inflicted over Villeneuve's combined French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar established Britannia as the undisputed ruler of the waves freeing the seas for the greatest trading empire that the world has ever known.

What would have happened if Nelson had lost Trafalgar, and Napoleon had been able to launch his invasion of England?

The French invasion would have succeeded, with the Royal Navy out of the way. Britain was ill prepared to meet the threat posed by the Grande Armée, the most efficient fighting machine in the world at the time, and within a matter of weeks, Napoleon would have established himself in power, perhaps crowning himself or one of his relations as King of England.

One of the new regime's first acts, apart from sending any organisers of resistance to the guillotine, would have been to sweep away the Common Law, and to establish in its place the Napoleonic Code. Napoleon believed in universal laws, applicable to all mankind. From a dictator's point of view, the trouble with Britain's common law is that it is an organic growth, based not on first principles, but on human nature and accumulated experience. He would have also imposed on Britain his uniform system of decimal weights and measures - his absurd metres and centimetres, based on mathematical calculations, which have since been shown to be wildly inaccurate, of the dimensions of the earth as well as imposing a single currency on Britain and the rest of his European empire.

On this bicentenary of Trafalgar, the similarities between Napoleon's vision of Europe and the regime now being imposed upon Britain from Brussels are simply glaring

Like Napoleon, the champions of the European Union believe that one law, one currency, one system of weights and measures, one centralised authority should be imposed upon all the peoples of Europe, whether they like it or not. Like him, they see no place for the nation state in the modern world. They insist that European law should always take precedence over the laws of national parliaments and to the principle that people should be allowed to choose for themselves how they are governed should be abandoned.

One of the great triumphs of the Europhiles has been to plant the thought in so many people's minds that Europe is the future, and that anyone who suggests withdrawing from the European Union is seeking to "put the clock back". Somehow they have made it the received wisdom that pulling out now would be an extremely complicated matter and ruinous to the British economy.

These are lies as nothing could be easier than withdrawal. Parliament could achieve it in a single afternoon's business, simply by repealing sections two and three of the European Communities Act, 1972, while there is no reason to believe that the British economy would suffer. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe that our economy would prosper, freed from the daily increasing burden of European regulation. Europe is the only continent on earth, after all, with which Britain runs a trade deficit. The other nations of Europe need our markets more even than we need theirs.

If Nelson had lost at Trafalgar, Britain would have been locked into a centralised, protectionist Europe. Instead, his victory opened up the markets of the whole wide world to British enterprise. Two hundred years on we could do with another Nelson.

The Rebate

European leaders have raised the stakes over the issue of EU financing, increasing the likelihood of a row over Britain's budget rebate. A week before Tony Blair hosts a one-day gathering of heads of government in Hampton Court, the European Commission president, Jose Manuel Barroso, said discussion of EU funding was "unavoidable" in any debate on modernising Europe's economy. And Germany's outgoing Chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, has made a thinly veiled attack on the UK for blocking a deal on EU funding four months ago.

However Mr Blair wants to focus next week on the economic threat to the EU by globalisation, code for the growth of China and India, which led this summer to the row over protectionism against Chinese cotton exports. "Next week is not about the budget," said the official. In a formal letter to fellow EU leaders, Mr Blair said he hoped to avoid detailed talks on the budget until December, and wants to discuss global conomic challenges to the EU.

Nevertheless Mr Schroeder has reopened the wounds dating from June when he and Mr Blair clashed openly. The outgoing Chancellor said it was "almost negligence to let the negotiations on the Financial Perspective in June fail" and, in an implicit criticism of Mr Blair, he added:, "Germany went, in these negotiations, to the very limit of what is possible and might have gone a little further. Others remained on their positions without moving one millimetre."

Mr Blair has promised to put the UK rebate on the table, if the Common Agricultural Policy is reformed but everyone knows that France will never agree.

All the above proves is that Britain has no place in the European Union and her people can only hope to prosper in freedom if we leave. There can be no doubt that were they still with us all the British heroes of the past would be on the side of those who reject the single European state. It is only the self interest of the spivs who run both the British state and its big businesses which prevents us breaking free. Nelson would have known how to deal with them.

Leading medical professionals have stated that the imposition of new European restrictions on the use of MRI will affect about 300,000 procedures a year, including heart treatment and brain surgery. This legislation seeks to restrict workers' exposure to electromagnetic fields, but experts claim there is no evidence that such exposure is harmful.

A group of twelve academics and professional representatives have written to Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, stating that the new regulations would stop surgeons carrying out interventional procedures, where they use scans while they are operating, and will severely limit opportunities for diagnosing serious conditions in children

Britain has been at the forefront of developing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology and these regulations will particularly restrict use of the most modern equipment that produces the clearest images because it emits at the highest frequency.

Professor Ian Young, OBE, who pioneered the world's first MRI scan of the head in 1978, said the new rules would endanger patients by denying them the most accurate diagnoses and effective treatments. "If you start introducing arbitrary and stupid regulations such as this, you will force doctors to use less effective equipment or X-rays, which for children are a contraindication [exposure to X-ray radiation has been proven to carry health risks for children]."

The bureaucratic bumblers behind this latest EU directive acknowledge that "there is no conclusive scientific evidence establishing a causal relationship" between exposure to electro magnetic fields and long-term health problems" but that "Europe-wide legislation is necessary to create a level playing fieldand ensure that countries with stricter health and safety rules do not lose out."

The directive will affect the use of MRI equipment because the frequency ranges of the electromagnetic fields emitted by the machinery, both when simply running and when in actual operation, will exceed the limits for exposure set by the new regulations.

A spokeswoman for the Society of Radiographers, which represents more than 90 per cent of the diagnostic and therapeutic radiographers in the UK, said: "Providing all the policies are adhered to, there is no evidence at all that people using this equipment are at risk."

Once again, the mania of Brussels bureaucrats to harmonise everything produces a nonsense, and this time one which endangers peoples' lives. How much more evidence is needed before the peoples of Europe reach the obvious conclusion that we shall all be better off once the EU has collapsed and we are free of interference by these arrogant and incompetent functionaries.

The results of the German election make it is obvious that membership of an organisation dominated by an economically stagnant, politically paralysed Germany and a protectionist France, ruled by an immovable elite, is folly, yet the Liberal Democrats continue to ignore reality as is shown by their debate yesterday, when MEPs were accused of giving Brussels a blank cheque as they threw out an attempt to back curbs on European Union spending. At the conference in Blackpool, delegates defeated the leadership, overturning a reference to a cap on European Commission spending until reforms were in force. The debate was over the party's support for the Government's commitment to a ceiling on the EU's budget of one per cent of Europe's GDP "until radical reforms have been achieved."

The result of the debate provoked furious reactions among the MPs, who must be aware of the views of the electorate, but this meant nothing to the sandal wearing brigade who are the heart and soul of this ridiculous party.

Sarah Teather, spokesman on communities, told a fringe meeting: "It seems to me to be a prime example of where we demonstrate a lack of responsibility, and I am particularly angry with European colleagues on this. Giving the EU a blank cheque is no way to show responsibility or credibility. Frankly, it is no way to demonstrate a commitment to reform. Sticking to our principles is one thing; being self-indulgent is quite another."

Opposition to the platform was led by Chris Davies, leader of the 12 Liberal Democrat MEPs "I see an attempt here to move the party in a more Eurosceptic direction. I want your help to resist it," Mr Davies told the conference, to loud applause. "This is not a party of xenophobes and Little Englanders. It is a party of principle and internationalism."

Three other MEPs, Fiona Hall, Elspeth Attwooll and Andrew Duff, gave warning that their group would split from the Westminster party unless the leadershipÝs position was overturned.

Nick Clegg, the party's European spokesman, told the conference that being pro-European and pressing for reforms were perfectly compatible. "Pushing for reform of a budget which even the most ardent pro-European would admit is sometimes managed in a somewhat irrational manner can hardly be said to be lurching in one political direction or another". Nevertheless delegates voted on a show of hands for an amendment deleting any reference to the one per cent cap and putting no figure on the EU's budget.

It is no surprise that the MEPs, who after all have taken the EU's shilling and are therefore beholden to that organisation for their very generous income, should support the EU come what may. It is however indicative of the stupidity of the party delegates that they are unable to see that the whole thing is nothing more than a confidence trick on the peoples of Europe. Unfortunately for the Liberal Democrats the British people have awoken to the truth so the effects on their support should be totally negative.

No one should allow the Liberal Democrats to pretend when it suits them that they are anything but mad Europhiles. Their voters in the West Country, where the fishing industry has been destroyed by the Common Fisheries Policy, should remember this debate when next asked to vote.

The Eurorealist movement lost a one of its stalwarts when Pam Barden of Cheltenham died on Tuesday. Pam was the highly successful organiser of several major protest marches in London and the leading light in Save Our Sovereignty.

Pam was a great supporter of CIB and also the UKIP. The latter's MEP Nigel Farage MEP said: "Mrs Barden was a stalwart for British freedom and democracy. She will be remembered fondly and her endless energy and enthusiasm for the cause of British independence will be sorely missed.

She will also be remembered with respect and admiration for her reliable and relentless work as a speaker, with whom I had the honour to share a platform on several occasions. Pam's regular and impressive Save Our Sovereignty Newsletter will be much missed, as will her organisational ability. Pam Barden will be missed not only by her own family and friends but also by the larger family that is proud to call itself British".

David Wilkinson of These Tides says

I think we are all stunned by the unexpected news that Pam is no longer with us. I have confirmed that it is true.

She was without doubt a hero of our cause.

That this news is so unexpected has doubled our sense of loss but should also be our comfort and I hope a comfort for the people who are closest to her. For until she died she lived. She lived with a passion and intensity that we all admired. Her energetic commitment to our cause was well known.

She was also admired simply as a person. When we devote ourselves to any cause that we believe to be right then a certain toughness must sustain our commitment. Then it can be difficult to remain a good person. Sometimes we are too robust in the way we deal with others. Pam was an example because of her kindness, her generosity of spirit shown even to those with whom she disagreed.

The loss we suffer is not just of a friend, nor just the loss of her work with SOS but more of an example.

I believe that the ancient Greeks thought a man most fortunate if he could die in the moment after his most noble achievement. Pam will miss being part of what happens next in our movement but I think Pam has done something very close.

Mrs BardenÝs funeral will be at Cheltenham Crematorium on Tuesday 20th Sept at 2.30pm.

The European Court of Justice, which is no more a court of law than Juke Box Jury, but exists only to enforce greater and greater federalism on the peoples of Europe, has now given its accomplice, the European Commission, the right to compel British courts to fine or imprison British citizens for breaking EU laws, even if our government and parliament are opposed.

This decision merely confirms the validity of the warnings given by those of us opposed to UK membership of the EU. It was certain, from the time that the creation of a common legal area was put forward under Corpus Juris that the European Commission would arrogate to itself the right to impose criminal sanctions without the need to consult national governments.

That this should be so is no surprise given that the logic and intent of the EU is to create a single European state, within which the individual member states will be provinces, not nations. The imposition of a common legal area is clearly part of this process. The only way to turn back the tide of dictatorship by unelected bureaucrats is for this nation to leave the EU entirely.

The reaction of the European political class and of the Eurocrats of Brussels to the people’s verdict on the EU constitution has opened the eyes of all but the most willfully blinkered of Europhiles to the real nature of the European Union This misbegotten product of the privileged European elite was placed before the electorates of Europe and two of the founding nations of the EU threw it out with contempt. Yet what was the reaction of those who claim to believe in democracy?

Jacques Chirac, the President of France, with the support of Gerhard Schroder, the Chancellor of Germany, tried to force those nations yet to hold their referendum to continue with the process, ignoring the fact that, under their own rules, the rejection by the French and Dutch people meant the constitution was dead. In order to distract attention from this defeat of the architects of the European project the French President sought to pick a fight with Britain over the latter’s rebate.

The paid civil servants of Brussels showed their arrogant contempt for democracy by making political speeches in favour of ignoring the people’s will while implying that the voters were too stupid, or too ill informed, or just too contrary to be trusted with deciding such matters.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, and the President of the EU at the time, said that any country which voted "no" would have to vote again until it gave the "right answer". This man is so divorced from reality that he declared, when the less than half a million inhabitants of his country produced a small majority in favour of the constitution, then the project must be restarted saying "As Luxembourg has said yes the process can go ahead. There is a way for the European constitution to be adopted"

Karel de Gucht, the Belgian Foreign Minister, said that France and Holland must be made to vote again. "We can create a climate in which the treaty could finally be adopted in France and the Netherlands. We have to proceed with a second vote"

The truth is that is that the supporters of the single European state will tell any lie, blacken any reputation, promote any deception, in order to achieve their goals. If we want to live in freedom and prosperity we must ignore the blandishments of the politicians, who want power without accountability, the bureaucrats, who want to avoid the need to ask elected representatives for approval of their mad schemes and multinationals, who want to lobby easily corrupted officials rather than abide by democratic decisions.

The arrogance of these people in disregarding the wishes of the people shows in what contempt the architects of the European Union hold democracy. They are condemned from out of their own mouths.

The European Union is institutionally corrupt, anti democratic in both its structures and its intent and is nothing more than a vehicle for the European elites to run Europe in their own interests, without the need to be accountable to the people.

The disgusting reactions of these elites to the clearly expressed wishes of the people in the referenda shows just how liberty and freedom in Europe is threatened by the existence of this bureaucratic monster centred in Brussels.

We in Britain, and all democrats across Europe, must resolve to make clear to our so called leaders that we will never accept the surrender of our liberties to the centralised, single Europe state and will continue to reject their plans, however many times they present them.

The democratic will of the people must prevail over the schemes of the politicians to surrender our rights to bureaucrats and bankers

Once again one of the Eurorealist movement's greatest allies has exposed the truth about the EU. Romano Prodi, the former European Commission President, rounded on Tony Blair, accusing him of being all talk and no action on Europe.

Signor Prodi said that the Prime Minister had professed commitment to a lofty European vision but in reality had "always had an Anglo-Saxon idea of Europe in which (Brussels) institutions had a fundamentally marginal role. He enthusiastically supported measures to relaunch the economy, but when it came to putting them into practice he wanted decisions to be made on a national level."

Signor Prodi thus does us a favour by making clear the real view of the European elite about the nature of the EU. If it was just an organisation aiming at the liberalisation of trade then it would not require supranational bodies such as the European Commission and the European Parliament but could be organised as nothing more than a local branch of the WTO. The reality is as Signor Prodi states it to be. The EU is first and foremost a device for suppressing the nation states of Europe and giving power to the unelected and unaccountable political and bureaucratic elites who seek to escape from the need to respond to the will of the people and instead to feather their own nests at our expense.

It is ironic that Mr Blair, a leading member of the Europhile elite, has found himself the target for numerous attacks by European politicians who are smarting at the failure of their scheme to foist the EU constitution on an unwilling population. He may find it painful but for the rest of us it is a breath of fresh air to see the truth about the ambitions of this corrupt and undemocratic organisation finally becoming clear to the British people. Well done Signor Prodi.

06/07/2005

Some interesting dates:

• Latin monetary union - created 1865 - collapsed 1926

• Scandinavian monetary union - created 1873 - collapsed 1920

• Austo-Hungarian monetary union - created 1867 - collapsed 1914

• Euro - created 1999 - collapsed ???

As Italian ministers and German bankers discuss the options for leaving the single currency how much longer can this latest effort survive. When will we learn that here today, gone tomorrow, politicians have no understanding of the economic facts of life. Eurorealists warned that the Euro was doomed from the start and it is a tragedy that the arrogant European elite chose to ignore us and go ahead with a project which will have cost the people of Europe dear before it is finally abandoned.

13/06/2005

INTERVENTION BY LORD STODDART OF SWINDON DURING A HOUSE OF LORDS DEBATE ON THE GOVERNMENT'S STATEMENT ON THE EU CONSITUTIONAL TREATY - 6.6.05

Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, it seems, having listened to the debate so far, that we want to change the rules mid-stream.

What this Statement should have said was that the constitutional treaty requires ratification by every one of the member states, now 25, before it can come into force. In the last week, however, as the House and country are well aware, in referenda the electors in France voted "No" by 55 per cent to 45 per cent and in the Netherlands by 62 per cent to 38 per cent. The treaty is therefore dead. It is dead.

The European Union Bill will be withdrawn and will not be reintroduced. That is what the Statement should have said under the existing rules and the law of the European Union. Since it has not said that, could I ask the Government whether they will now seek the opinion of the British people by immediately introducing a simple Bill to have a referendum, certainly by October, so that the views of the British people can be tested and they can give their opinion, which will help the Government in their further negotiations.

As one might expect, the government refused

10/06/2005

As the EU teeters on the brink of imploding and all the warnings from the Eurorealist movement of arrogance at the heart of this putative superstate are being vindicated by the reactions of the political class, Lord Stoddart, who has fought for our democracy over decades, has issued the following statement:

Can anyone any longer be in any doubt that the European Union is a corrupt authoritarian entity powered by and run by self interested crooked politicians and bureaucrats who preach democracy but who practice the reverse? The mindsets of Chirac and Schroder are, at best, oligarchic but their hysterical response to referenda in France and The Netherlands show them up in an even more sinister light, which could be seen as quasi fascism.

The fact that every one of the twenty five Member States has to ratify the Constitutional Treaty before it can have effect has been used by the French and Netherlands Governments during the recent referenda to persuade their electorates to vote Yes to the Constitution otherwise it would be dead. But the people in both countries delivered a resounding No which has shocked the elites in those and other countries to the core and they, clearly, do not intend that the people's voice should be final. Chirac, Schroder and the Commission are already insisting that the European superstate construction must go on, regardless of the wishes of the people. So much for their democratic credentials and their political honesty and probity.

What must now be crystal clear to everyone is that the United Kingdom is not part of a democratic organisation of co-operating nation states, as our own British political elite has been pretending for so many years, but, instead, a junior partner in a burgeoning European empire which knows no bounds and is run by a narrow, self perpetuating authoritarian clique through centralised institutions unresponsive to the people's will. Furthermore, it is a European construction which is collapsing under the weight of its own bureaucratic centralist procedures and its increasing interference in every nook and cranny of national decision making which affects the day to day lives of ordinary citizens.

The European currency is now under threat as a number of countries find themselves beset by economic problems which they are unable to solve because they are debarred from taking corrective measures on a national basis. Some countries are seriously discussing the possibility of complete withdrawal from the currency as the only possible way of solving the economic crises arising from their membership of the Eurozone. Those of us who warned against Britain scrapping the pound in favour of the euro and were sneered at and described as Little Englanders, economic illiterates, nutters, unpatriotic etc. by the Europhiles have been vindicated by events. Even industry, commerce and the British Government have come round to our point of view.

Britain's way of life, its freedoms and institutions have already been adversely affected by our thirty year membership of the EEC/EU and the costs to taxpayers and industry have been heavy indeed. But the opportunity now exists to change course and to tell the EU and those driving it forward to statehood and empire that Britain no longer wishes to be part of it.

The first step must be a decisive rejection of the European Constitution by the British people in a referendum and the Government should immediately introduce a short bill to hold such a referendum before Parliament rises for the Summer Recess on 21st July. A resounding No vote would give notice to the Government that the British people wanted no part in further European integration leading to a country called Europe and a re-assessment of Britain's future relationship with Europe itself. Given the growing antipathy of the British people to the encroachment of the EU into every aspect of the country and their own lives that re-assessment must, surely, not be delayed any longer.

Any attempt by the government to introduce any part of the failed constitution by 'back door' methods must be fought, as it would be a total negation of democracy for the politicians to force through measures which require the approval of the electorate in a referendum.

Lord Stoddart speaks for everyone who values democracy and accountable government and it is essential his words are heeded, before the dictators of Brussels have a chance to ride roughshod over the clearly expressed wishes of the peoples of Europe

06/06/2005

The 'great and the good' are being asked for their opinion on the mess in which the EU now finds itself and it is interesting to quote a couple of responses from this morning's edition of the Times:

Luke Johnson, the chairman of Channel 4 said "There is a huge flaw in the question, 'What now for Europe?'. It should be 'What now for the EU?'. The EU has abused the language in its attempts to interchange EU and Europe. The EU is an artificial construct. It is an anti-democratic machine, a bureaucratic nightmare. I am pro-Europe, but opposed to the EU, which is not Europe. It is very difficult to predict what will happen to the constitution now. The economic problems of the eurozone countries are a major issue and will continue to weigh heavily on the 'eurozone project' and many of the issues that these countries are encountering, including whether or not to break away from the Euro, will now be open for debate. Overall, I believe that the events of this week were wonderful news. It was a true show of democracy by the people of France and the Netherlands"

Clearly Mr Johnson is an extremely intelligent person and even if he is not a member of CIB he certainly shares our view of the EU

Sir Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman said "When the dust has settled there will still be a European Union of 25 countries with a constitutional framework based on the five existing treaties: Rome, the Single European Act, Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice. To retreat from a union to a free trade area, as some are now arguing, would be foolish.

As presently constituted the Union has become a bulwark of stability and a beacon of democracy. The future of the Warsaw Pact countries has been assured by their membership of NATO and of the EU.

We must not allow an admitted reverse to undermine the achievements of the last 50 years. In particular, we should be increasing co-operation in foreign affairs so that Europe can speak with a single voice when its members agree to do so. What is needed now is a period of calm reflection and not an outbreak of collective hysteria"

When someone can describe the corrupt, bureaucratic dictatorship centred in Brussels as a beacon of democracy one must question which planet he is on. What is certain is that Sir Menzies is without doubt a Liberal Democrat, with all that implies for the ability to reflect upon the reality of the European Union

03/06/2005

A report by CNN today reveals just how fast the plans of the EU are unravelling. At this rate the whole thing may collapse faster than the Soviet Union

ROME, Italy Italy's labour minister has called for a referendum to see if Italians want to temporarily bring back the lira after widespread popular discontent over high prices that many blame on the introduction of the Euro.

"I say not to discard this hypothesis because it isn't at all far-fetched," Labour Minister Roberto Maroni was quoted as saying in an interview published Friday in La Repubblica.

"Wouldn't it be better perhaps to return, temporarily, at least to a system of double circulation" of the Euro and the lira, Maroni said.

Maroni is a leading minister but his views are not believed to be shared by those controlling Italy's economic policy, such as Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi or Economy Minister Domenico Siniscalco.

When the Euro came into circulation, many merchants steeply raised their prices, by dropping off the zeros from the old prices in lira.

The changeover rate from lira to Euro was a little under 2,000 lire for every Euro. With the adoption of the Euro, Italian consumers found themselves paying much more for goods and services ranging from fruit and vegetables to plumbing repairs and dining out.

With elections due next spring and the nation in recession, Italy's politicians are becoming increasingly sensitive to public anger over economic difficulties and likely to be worried about any anti-European backlash in the wake of "no" votes from France and the Netherlands over the new European Union constitution.

Maroni is a leader of the Northern League, a party whose base is largely built on owners of small and medium-sized businesses in northern Italy. The party is one of PM Berlusconi's main coalition partners.

"I have no nostalgia for the lira. But from the citizens a cry for help is reaching our ears," Maroni said. "The Euro is the legitimate child of the European model which, with worry, we're watching fail," he was quoted as saying.

"As a member of the political class, I just give an answer to citizens, to my social base, which is made up on small businessmen, merchants, workers," Maroni said.

He lamented that under the rules governing membership for countries using the Euro, Italy can no longer adopt certain measures, such as devaluation of currency, to make exports more attractive.

Maroni's call seemed to be gaining momentum among fellow party leaders. Industry Undersecretary Roberto Cota, from the League, insisted on Sky TV24 news that going back to the lira was technically possible.

It certainly looks as if the Euro is in big trouble

03/06/2005

After the result of the French and Dutch referenda the EU constitution is as dead as Monty Python's famous parrot but the European political elite refuse to recognize the fact. It is no more, it is deceased, it is dead but these arrogant dictators can't bring themselves to accept that the people have spoken. Now they face more trouble as reports surface that survival of the Euro is in doubt.

The single currency plunged to eight-month lows yesterday after Germany's Stern magazine reported that top German officials had examined the possible collapse of the single currency at a secret meeting in Berlin.

Stern said it was time to break the taboo about criticising the Euro by admitting that Germany had been gravely damaged by giving up the Deutchmark six years ago. Entitled "Der Euro macht uns Kaputt" - the Euro is destroying us - the article called monetary union "one of the worst economic blunders made by Germany since 1945". According to a recent poll 56 per cent of Germans now want a return of the mark, as critics say the eurozone system has had the perverse effect of tightening both fiscal and monetary conditions in the midst of the downturn, driving Germany deeper into slump.

The idiocy of attempting to run a one size fits all financial policy was pointed up by an internal finance ministry document warning of "brutal divergences" in the eurozone's growth, credit and price levels, saying that lower interest rates had brought "enormous" advantages to Portugal, Greece, Spain and Italy but now higher inflation was gradually destroying their competitiveness. The document states that "It is not clear that these problems are going to fade away in the foreseeable future. On the contrary: the gap risks getting wider, increasing the danger of an adjustment crisis." The document also suggested that Germany's slump of recent years was directly linked to the euro, which had fatally distorted "real" interest rates (after inflation) across the eurozone.

Hans Eichel, the finance minister, called a secret meeting in Berlin last Thursday, also attended by Axel Weber, the Bundesbank chief.

Joachim Fels, Morgan Stanley's eurozone economist, briefed the group on the developing crisis in southern Europe, notably Italy, and made the following points:

• a "meltdown" risk could break up the eurozone

• high-debt states were unlikely to leave the eurozone by choice since the price would be too high. But a hard core led by Germany might reap some benefit from breaking away

• Europe was now "on a slippery slope toward disintegration and instability

• The risk of a euro wreckage has risen significantly.''

Financial markets are starting to think this is actually a possibility as the bitter truth about the euro project is it lacks democratic institutions behind it and there is no central government with a mandate for the structural adjustments and transfer payments required to make the eurozone work like any other currency zone.

Italy urgently needs to restructure its economy, and while it does so it needs to borrow more, and to devalue. But a devaluation is the last thing faster-growing euro members, like Spain and Ireland, need now. The market is beginning to charge higher interest to the Italian government than it does the Germans because it thinks Italy is more at risk.

Of course none of this comes as surprise to Eurorealists, who predicted the inevitable failure of the single currency from the start. It is just a great pity that so many innocent people will have to suffer because of the nemesis engendered by the hubris of the incompetents who masquerade as the European elite.

02/06/2005

As the European political class struggles in the wake of the resounding French No to their beloved constitution the very arrogance which has led them to this is all too visible. Peter Mandelson talks about half the countries in the EU supporting the document, ignoring the fact that only the Spanish people have actually voted, the other decisions being taken by self interested politicians, while Jean-Claude Juncker, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg and current EU President, said "The process of ratification must continue in the other countries", despite the fact that a treaty not supported by all 25 members falls.

Nevertheless there are straws in the wind that many erstwhile supporters of the EU, particularly in the UK, are waking up to the reality, as they acknowledge that even the dictators of Brussels cannot insist that a dead treaty is actually alive.

Perhaps we have reached a watershed in the story of the European experiment, when the onward march of the federalists is halted and those who value freedom and democracy begin to set the agenda. Churchill said that before the battle of El Alamein we never had a victory, and after it we never had a defeat, a precedent that would in the present case led to the ending of this absurd concept of a single European state, dreamed up by politicians who saw only the advantages to themselves and who ignored the fact that they were sacrificing both the prosperity and the democracy of their peoples for their own personal profit.

On the night of Pearl Harbour Churchill said of his American guests that, although obviously concerned about the losses to their Navy they appeared to have "been delivered of a long pain" and in the same way the relief that will be felt at the ending of the European experiment will be profound, particularly in the UK. At a stroke we shall be free to make our own laws, catch our own fish, decide our own foreign policy and trade with whomsoever we will, without the dead hand of an arrogant bureaucracy bearing down on us constantly.

We are not there yet but perhaps we can now see the light at the end of the tunnel.

01/06/2005

Today Mark Steyn has produced a superb article about the French referendum in the Daily Telegraph called Europe is an indulgence we can't afford.

Obviously for copyright reasons it is not possible to reproduce it here but the following quotations give its flavour and should encourage all Eurorealists to find a copy:

On balance, Jean-Claude Juncker, the "president" of "Europe", seems closer to the mark in his now famous dismissal of the will of the people: "If it's a Yes, we will say 'on we go', and if it's a No we will say 'we continue'." And if it's a Neither of the Above, he will say "we move forward". You get the idea. Confronted by the voice of the people, "President" Juncker covers his ears and says: "Nya, nya, nya, can't hear you!" There are several lessons worth learning from the French vote. The first is that the Junckers are a big part of the problem.

The British, who've written more constitutions for more real nations than anybody in history and therefore can't plead the same ignorance as President Juncker, should be especially ashamed of going along with this farrago of a travesty of a charade.

For decades, some of us have argued that "Europe" is too diverse to form a single polity, that the British and French are in fact foreign to each other. Sir Edward Heath and his ilk scoff at such crude language: why, today's young cosmopolitan Britons are perfectly comfortable drinking Beaujolais and eating croissants and flaunting their wedding tackle on the C“te d'Azur. True, and irrelevant. The alleged incompatibility of our dissatisfactions makes the point: all politics is local; despite the assiduous promotion of the term, electorally speaking there is no such thing as a "European".

Instead, Europe's "consensus" politics has ruled more and more topics unfit for discussion, leaving voters with a choice between Eurodee and Eurodum, a left-of-right-of-left-of-centre party and a right-of-left-of-right-of-left-of-centre party. So voters, naturally, are turning elsewhere, and in five years' time the entire Continent could end up with the same flight from the centre as we've seen in Ulster.

The EU, critically admired (at least by the Guardian and Le Monde) but not making any money, and clinging to the theory that if you merge enough weak economies they add up to one global superpower. The big story of the past three decades is that the more it's mired itself in the creation of a centralised pseudo-state, the more "Europe" has fallen behind America in every important long-term indicator, from economic growth to demographics. "Europe" is an indulgence the real Europe can't afford. The followers recognise that, even if the leaders don't.

Mr Steyn says it all really - the sooner we leave this misbegotten creation of the political class the better

In Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice Elizabeth Bennett has trouble refusing the offer of marriage by Mr Collins as he insists on regarding her No as really meaning Yes. The same convoluted reasoning, or lack of it seems to be being applied by the European political class as they face the reality of the French 'Non'.

As one who has spent the Bank Holiday weekend in Paris I have been able to see at first hand just why the French people have ignored the pleas of their political elite and have rejected the EU constitution.

In interviews before the vote several of the students of the schools which produce the vast majority of the French ruling class made clear their arrogant disdain for the ordinary people, but were then eclipsed by the reaction of Chirac and other Europhile leaders to the actual result. These lofty patricians implied that the French were either too ill informed or too contrary to be trusted with such a decision and refused to accept that the large majority for the No side had killed the constitution.

However anyone who joined the crowds in the Place de la Bastille on Sunday evening was in no doubt that the ordinary French people feel that they have struck a blow against their oligarchical rulers and could feel the true spirit of France revive.

The reaction of the rest of the European political class can only be described as disgustingly unbelievable, were it not the way they have reacted to every expression of the people's will for decades. To listen to them one would think that the French have voted No for any reason under the sun except the real one and their insistence that ratification should proceed flies directly in the face of their own rules which says that if even one country refuses to ratify the treaty is dead.

Of course, as stated endlessly in these pages, the political class, with a few honourable exceptions, are motivated by self interest and for them the EU is a good thing, offering them better career prospects than their limited abilities could earn them in domestic politics. They are without honour and will strain every sinew to ensure that the decisions taken by the people are ignored if they conflict with the interests of the bureaucrats and politicians.

One can be in no doubt that General de Gaulle would have applauded the decision of the French, nor that Churchill would stand four square with those in this country who are fighting the machinations of the EU. If we emulate the brave French people when our turn comes we may yet be able to say, as Churchill once did 'Vive la France, God save the Queen'.

31/05/2005

As the French referendum approaches some Europhile commentators are putting forward the argument that, as the French consider the EU constitution too favourable to British views, it must therefore be a good thing and that we should therefore vote in favour in our own referendum.These siren voices must be ignored as, in reality, this document, produced by a group of committed federalists, is intended to be the final birth certificate of the single European state which has been gestating for several decades and to view it as having a liberalising or democratising effect is perverse in the extreme.

Should the constitution be ratified it would transfer what remains of the national sovereignty of the member states to an unaccountable bureaucracy in Brussels, give the European Union a separate legal personality, with all that implies for representation in international bodies and impose upon every individual the legal requirement to be a loyal citizen of the new state.

Only those who wish to see control over, inter alia, foreign policy, the legal system, trade and economic affairs transferred from our Parliament to Brussels should support this constitution. For those who believe in accountable, democratic, parliamentary government the rejection of this misbegotten document should be the first essential step on the road back to national independence.

25/05/2005

As one might expect the government takes its orders from Brussels very seriously and has reintroduced the bill to impose ID cards on the British people as a priority in the new session. If this becomes law, and worse, if they can somehow fiddle the referendum on the EU constitution, then the shadows of the prison house will really darken our skies. The arrogance of these apparatchiks of Brussels knows no bounds and they are determined that we shall bow the knee to them and their bureaucratic controllers in the EU.

17/05/2005

Now that the charade of a General Election is over we can see just what a total farce it was. 'New' Labour runs under the Labour name but that is the only relation it has to the party of which Attlee was once Prime Minister, as the current leadership loathes socialism, treats the unions with contempt and spends most of its time appeasing big business. As anyone who has ever had the misfortune to campaign against them knows the Liberal Democrats are neither liberal nor democratic, preferring to be all things to all men, provided they can win a few more votes, and ever anxious to hand this country over to bureaucratic dictatorship from Brussels. The Conservatives, despite their name, seem incapable of even seeking to conserve the nation, let alone anything else.

The reality is that the great bulk of the political class actually have more in common with each other than with the electorate and their only dispute is which set will get the perks of ministerial office. The old principles which animated past generations are all but extinguished and self interest is their main, if not only, motive. Of course this explains the great enthusiam they have for the European Union as it is nothing more than a job creation scam for politicians and bureaucrats. This election was just a game of musical chairs among members of what is really one party.

The only election which will really count is the promised referendum on the EU constitution and all Eurorealists must strain every sinew to ensure that the political class do not win. If they can find some way of deceiving the people into voting yes then the fight will effectively be over and Britain will be finished.

10/05/2005

The decline in support for the 'No' side in the French referendum on the European Constitution points up how foolish we in the UK would be to rely upon others to save our democracy from the dictators of Brussels.

Unless the constitution is rejected by the French by a wide margin, something that looks increasingly unlikely, the consequences, or even the acknowledgement of a 'No' vote will be ignored. Should the Dutch stick to their guns and vote 'No' they will be treated by the architects of the single European state with the contempt they reserve for small nations and told to knuckle down and obey.

Those who have sought to create this bureaucratic single state are not going to give up when final victory is in sight. The only way we in the UK can escape is to decisively reject the constitution, then reject the Euro and finally to withdraw from the vile organisation entirely. Anything less and our own fifth columnists of the political class will find a way to achieve their aims, whatever the people may wish.

29/04/2005

For anyone with any knowledge of political realities the general election continues to resemble something out of Alice in Wonderland. The Conservatives emphasize the issue of immigration, yet the rules of the European Union prevent them for makes any changes to the current position. New Labour rushes to show concern for the workers at MG Rover, yet know that the European Commission would prevent them from doing anything meaningful to save jobs at Longbridge. The Liberal Democrats claim to oppose ID cards yet know that the whole impetus for them comes from the European Union.

The politicians of the three main parties, with a few honourable exceptions, know that they are not standing for election as a government but as the puppets of the bureaucrats in Brussels, yet they pretend to be so concerned about the rights of the electorate. Was ever a nation so betrayed as it is being by these fifth columnists for an alien dictatorship? Their only real concern is to feather their own nests and to hell with the country.

26/04/2005

The rally hosted jointly by TEAM, the Democracy Movement and CAEF on Saturday 9th April was well attended and produced many good speeches. A DVD of the entire proceedings is available but these were the main highlights