Monday 3 September 2007

EU to Seize Control of UK Passport Format

The Empire continues to advance its control over our lives. Any who doubt what the ultimate purpose of the Constitutional Treaty Mark II is should read this article from one of the world’s great newspapers, The Yorkshire Post (HERE) and also EU Referendum’s entirely apposite comment thereon (HERE)

One thing which sticks out is the refusal of the Quislings in the Foreign and Commonwealth office even to obfuscate on this occasion instead of resorting to the usual whoppers. They know full well how this will play: very badly. People of a certain age still smart at the removal of their handsome Blue Passports and their replacement by the red ersatz version which tells each and everyone of us that we are now ‘EU Citizens’, a status that we have neither sought nor want and permission for which no Government has ever nor will ever have the courage to seek.

When we awake on the morning of 1st. January 2009 to discover that the EuroNabobery has been and stolen our country from us, aided and abetted by the Brown Junta, one wonders how the formerly free people of these islands will react.

Perhaps they will need more than some mere railings outside No. 10 to resist the righteous anger of the British people whose birthright is so casually being stolen.

I now fully understand, I think, those who have fought for the liberation of their lands from the rule of outsiders, however benign the governance, and their willingness to resort, when all else has failed to the weapons of last resort, such as civil disobedience and the taking up of arms against the oppressor.

In our case it would be unlawful to take up arms against the UK Government (but not, I think, against the EU) but civil disobedience is quite another matter. When people wake up to what has happened I believe there will be very considerable anger and who knows how that anger will express itself.

Meanwhile certain defeatists are forecasting that we will fail to get the referendum. In addition some believe that, as the issue is one on which the Tories cannot lose (if there is a referendum, this would be a massive U-Turn by Brown and a victory for the Tories; if there is no referendum the opprobrium attaches entirely to this dishonourable P.M.), the Conservative leadership is not pushing as hard as it might actually to secure a vote on the Treaty.

If so, that may be the point at which 150 years of Toryism in my family comes to an end.

EuroCrat Highwaymen at Work

According to the Bruges Group, the UK hands over £114,000 every minute of every hour of every day to the EU for it to spend on keeping Greek Goat farmers in business and Lady Mandelson in Fat Cat perks.

Or put another way, every 8 hours and 47 minutes every man woman and child in the UK hands over £1 to the EU for it to fritter away.

How long will it be before the Conservative party pledges itself to sign up to an annual cost/benefit analysis of the EU as has been proposed in a bill going through the Lords at present?

I am not holding my breath.

The inevitable result of such an analysis (which will show how we are being looted to pay for all manner of wasteful stuff) will undercut the Conservative party’s “in Europe but not ruled by it” stance and raise the whole issue of our membership of the EU, something which the political elite (on all sides, as if by unspoken agreement) is not even prepared to mention let alone discuss.

Might it just be that, with a resounding ‘No’ vote in a referendum on the Constitutional Treaty Mark II, the Tories may yet find themselves choking on their cornflakes?

Referendum News

Why is it thought that having a fresh election on a new manifesto which does NOT promise a referendum on the Constitutional Treaty Mark II will absolve the Labour Party from having a Referendum upon it?

The facts remain the same: the Treaty is, but for some cosmetic changes, the same Constitution (indeed in some respects it strengthens the EU as against the Nation State Members) that was rejected by the French and the Dutch and would have been resoundingly rejected by the British people as well. The effects of this treaty remain, in essence, the same. It represents a huge transfer of sovereign power away from the United Kingdom to unelected EuroCrats in Brussels and to foreign politicians, not all of whom love us. If it is thought that changing the terms of the Labour manifesto changes the need for a referendum then that is simply one more example of The Town Rat Catcher (so called because that is the highest elected position to which Gordon Brown may aspire after the Treaty comes into force) being dishonourable and dishonest in his dealings with the independence of our nation. Would that a political party would come along that offered to put him and his Junta on trial for their Quisling behaviour!

So changing the terms of the manifesto will not alter the terms of the debate about a Referendum at all, simply drive the Labour party into an even more unprincipled position than it is at present. What a shabby dishonest party they are that they play party politics with the Independence of our country.

The difficulty of The Town Rat Catcher’s position is emphasized by the entry into the lists of one Keith Vaz, disgraced former Minister for Europe, who, despite a rampant case of the EuroPox (so serious that he is forever to be found in deep osculation of the EU’s nether parts) is calling not just for a referendum on the Treaty but on the wider question of our very membership of the EU. Chance would be a fine thing: he should be careful for what he wishes as I reckon that we stand a fine chance of getting the 51% we would need to be rid of the whole clapped-out enterprise.

Meanwhile the LibDems under ZimmerMan sit there squirming with embarrassment at the honing of their anti-British and anti-democratic credentials by the elderly gent they have as leader waffling on about seeing what the final text of the Treaty will be before deciding finally whether to support a referendum. Does the Old Buffer really think there is going to be so radical a change in the text that it goes from being the same as the Constitutional Treaty Mark I to a toothless little thing which does nothing? Talk about a LibDem Νεφελοκοκκυγία of eternal nut cutlets and sandals!

With a certain amount of nervousness about a snap election being called, the EU Referendum is looming large on everyone’s plates at the moment. Given the Town Rat Catcher’s little local difficulty with his own party being split from top to toe on the issue of Europe, this may yet derail his decision to cut and run before the economy goes sour on him.

Referendum News

The Guardian reports that as many as 100 Labour MPs may be planning to vote in favour of a referendum. If so Brown's majority would be well down the pan and a vote on the EU would become inevitable.

One should not, I feel, put too much store by the figures for the moment. But what it does suggest is that the clear and unambiguous evidence of the opinion polls (82% in favour of a referendum at the last count) is perhaps beginning to translate into discontent on the doorsteps so to speak and Labour MPs are doing no more than reflecting what is being said to them, back in their constituencies. In addition Union-sponsored MPs may have had their ears bent in recent days by their Paymasters, the Unions.

The motives of the Socialists will probably be, in some cases at least, similar to those of the Unions, who will be calling for an opt-in to all the worker 'friendly' stuff (actually it is not worker friendly at all but mostly liable to put them out of a job in sue course, but that is by the by) that The Town Rat Catcher has tried (probably unsuccessfully) to opt out of. Others are troubled (as well they might be) by the damage that the Rat Catcher's dishonourable and deceitful position may be doing to them. They have also worked out that the Chindamo case, based as it is on a piece of EU law that Jack Straw as Home Secretary allowed on to our statute books without our say-so, is causing collateral damage to the party.

The mathmatics are of interest. The Labour party can muster on paper 353 votes and the combined opposition (in practical rather than theoretical terms) 284. It needs just 35 to vote with the opposition for that majority to disappear. Brown might just risk a vote but defeat would be more humiliating than an earlier 'managed' retreat ("we've just had some further legal advice and we have realised that....") would prove to be. Brown's position may, therefore, be on the cusp of becoming very tricky indeed.

Meanwhile Labour Whips are doubtless oiling their sjamboks and knouts as I write.

Referendum News: Daniel Hannan Has Got The Message About the EU and The Montevideo Convention

I emailed Daniel Hannan on 4th. July 2007 with my observations on the position in which the EU will find itself on 1st. January 2009, when the Constitution of the EU comes into effect. Regulars here will know that my view (for which see HERE) is, in short, that as a matter of customary international law, the EU will at that moment have acquired all the institutions that it needs for it to declare itself to be a Sovereign Independent State and, if that be right, the status of each of the 27 members of the EU will, on that date, have changed from their being themselves Sovereign Independent States to being that of mere component parts of a Federal EU.


It is with considerable regret that I have to relate that Mr. Hannan did not have the courtesy to reply to my email. Doubtless he is a busy man, far too busy and important to write the words “Thank you. I shall read your views with interest”.

I am very old-fashioned about such things. When someone comments on my blog I will always publish it unless it contains unnecessary swear words, is evidently a ‘round robin’ piece of spam, is defamatory of someone or is otherwise just offensive. I try to make a reply to all comments, though there are some which can stand by themselves and require no further comment. Sometimes I will email the commenter direct. In time it may be that the blog acquires too many comments to pursue that policy, but for the moment the urges of upbringing are too strong.


Mr. Hannan apparently sat next to Bill Deedes at the DT for some ten years. I cannot imagine the late Bill Deedes failing to acknowledge an email of the kind I sent and one is sad that his unfailing courtesy did not apprently rub off on Mr. Hannan.

Still, he has plainly taken my arguments on board for today he writes in his column for the Daily Telegraph:

“Eurocrats are too close to their final objective to let a little thing like democracy stand in their way. The new constitution will bestow on the EU all the characteristics that international law recognises as attributes of statehood: a head of state, a foreign office, a criminal justice system and the "legal personality" needed for the EU to sign treaties and displace its member nations in international associations.”



Despite the lack of acknowledgement, I am very glad to see that the message is getting through. At the end of the day I am quite unimportant. It is the message, that we are on the cusp of losing a thousand years of independence at a stroke of Vanity Blair’s pen, that is important.

Referendum News

How nice for The Town Ratcatcher and his Hun chum to idle away an evening watching soccer. One hopes they enjoyed the spectacle.

Earlier Labour continued to stonewall demands for a Referendum with the Town Rat Catcher reiterating his refusal to have one again last night, notwithstanding the presence by his side of German Chancellor Frau Angela Merkel who has already boasted of how close the Constitution Mark II Treaty is to Mark I. To dishonour, deceit, deviousness and breach of promise Gordon Brown has added shamelessness as well.

Meanwhile over on Newsnight Kirsty Wark held court with an assortment of folk for and against the referendum. Bob Crow of the RMT Union hrmphed about the militarisation of the EU, its breaking of the 'Workers' on the wheels of capitalism, the evils of privatisation and other assorted fantasies with which Old Labour lefties are clearly still absorbed. What a breath of fresh air! One had forgotten what a real dinosaur looked like and here was one live on TV, not so much Tyrannosaurus Rex as Bovine Iguanodon. They used to be so much part of our lives - indeed once they were the Government before Mrs. T came along and unmanned them - and now they are the thing of fairy tales or so we thought.

Next up was one Katynka Barysch. I assume, without more, that Mrs. Barysch holds a UK passport entitling her to vote in the UK since I detected just a teensy-weensy bit of a non-British accent there: if she is not British, then it speaks volumes if even the BBC cannot find enough Brits to speak up for this wretched treaty. She advanced the interesting canard that as we are a Parliamentary democracy, we do not need a referendum. Odd then that Ireland, a Parliamentary democracy the last time I looked, is having a referendum. The Netherlands and France had referenda on the Mark I Treaty but both are vigourous Parliamentary democracies. Of the latter two countries she was most dismissive, however, denouncing their votes as having been about immigration or dislike of the government or anything but the Treaty itself. As I recall it the arguments in both countries were surprisingly mature and to the point, with the Dutch, in particular, focusing on the loss of power to the EU involved in the Treaty.

Her second offering was risible and even more off the wall: despite Vanity Blair's promise that we could have a referendum on the Mark I Treaty, Mrs. Barysch's view is that he was quite wrong to have offered one at all and a referendum was quite out of the question on this or the earlier Treaty. It will come as no surprise to anyone that Goggling her name will reveal a plethora of pro-EU quotes that suggests she has a very advanced case of the EuroPox.

And then there was Gary Titley ("Titley by name and Titley by nature!'). MEP for the North West in the Labour interest who was once a considerable advocate of a referendum on Regional Government for the North Wast (which involves devolving more power to a regional assembly) but is now unwilling to let the UK as a whole have a Referendum on the wholesale transfer of powers involved in Constitution Mark II. His take was that all 27 members of the EU signed separate treaties and that ours is different from all the others, in that it has all these wonderful 'opt-outs' and so when Frau Merkel says that the Mark II treaty is the pretty much the same as Mark I, she is talking about the Mark II Treaty which Germany signed and not the Mark II Treaty signed by Britain.

Oh, please......

Neil O' Brien of OpenEurope stood his ground well and did not make a slip, reminding us of Titley's enthusiasm for referenda unless it involves the EU. A solid effort.

Kirsty Wark asked the 'have you stopped beating your wife question' of Titters: If there is a referendum, would you win it? Answer : 'Yes'. So, says Wark, what are you frightened of? Splutters all round.

Trouble ‘t Mill

It is the desire of a vast majority - 82% - of the people of the United Kingdom to be afforded a chance to give or to withhold their whole-hearted consent to the ratifying of the Constitutional Treaty Mark II signed without a thought by Vanity Blair just before he did a runner. For the moment Gordon Brown continues to defy the wishes of the British people, dishonourably and deceitfully trying to insist that Mark II is wholly different from Mark I and that there is therefore no need for us to have such a vote. So much for Mr. Brown, whose personal honour is thus besmirched, being willing to ‘listen’ to the people. But how much longer can he continue with impunity to stick two fingers up to the British public?

There is a sense that he is slowly but surely being pushed into a corner, step by step. Now comes the intelligence that there are signs that Brown’s escape route to the Left is about to be closed with news from the TUC and individual unions that some will seek a motion at the next Congress in favour of a referendum. For example the GMB union has already submitted a motion in favour of a referendum; The RMT has, remarkably, submitted a second motion calling for a ‘No’ vote.

The Union’s motives are rather different from those of the rest of us: the GMB is exercised that there was an opt-out to the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. But the rest of us should not cavil at the motives, which in a democratic society the union is perfectly entitled to have; rather we should welcome their support for the democratic process.

If such a motion was to be passed at the TUC it would be a serious blow for Brown. With it, he would be left in a position of very considerable isolation with only himself, the Cabinet, Ministers outside the Cabinet and perhaps a minority of the rest of his party in Parliament holding out against a referendum. Surely in those circumstances he must bend or lose all credibility?

One must not forget however, that yielding on a referendum on the EU will gravely weaken him on the issue of that other referendum, that in Scotland on the issue of independence. If he now agrees to the EU vote, he may find it much more difficult to resist in Scotland. Not for the first time might the Scottish Tail wag the UK Dog.