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A Letter to the Electoral Commission:
In a hard hitting letter to Sam Younger, Chairman, The Electoral Commission, Ms Swanson put very clearly the very reasonable objection and serious questions which need answering about Tony Blair’s Electoral Commission’s decision to make the official opposition the Tory backed NESNO group.
“I understand that your officers’ original recommendation went against NESNO. What caused your change of heart?
What have NESNO done to deserve selection? Any undecided member of the electorate consulting their website would find nothing at all in the section entitled “Our Case”. They have issued no press releases since the initial one in July. They have no plans for public meetings. How did all this lack of activity qualify them for government funding?
NESNO were listed by name as the chosen opposition to the Yes Campaign in an ODPM Committee Press Release issued on 9 September, a whole five days before you made your decision. How was this possible? Is the Deputy Prime Minister clairvoyant? Was he given prior information regarding your choice? Or did he lead, and you follow? The implications are disturbing

Graham Robb, NESNO’s spokesman, state that they aren’t against an assembly as such: they would merely wish it to have greater powers. We now have a Yes and a No campaign, each of which favours regional government in principle. So who will speak for the many people who argue, quite reasonably, against the very idea of it?

I find it extraordinary that you did not take traditional party loyalties in the north-east into account when making your decision

To hand financial control of the No Campaign to a group led by Conservative supporters and backed by the Conservative Party at once reduces debate, in this overwhelmingly Labour part of the country, from the rational to the emotive level, and significantly increases the chance of a Yes vote. This may well be crucial when taken in conjunction with misleading leaflets put out by the ODPM which do not accurately state the expense involved in reorganising local and district councils, the cost of running an assembly or the degree of power to be retained by central government
Complaints start going in to the Electoral Commission
What were your reasons, when presented with a straight choice between a non-party-political, grass-roots campaign and a group headed by prominent Tory supporters, for picking the one most likely to alienate a significant portion of the north-east electorate?”
You can read the full letter either from the link above or from Neil Herron’s site accessed from side bar.
Why is this subject so very important? because this is the first of the referendums to be held on the break up of Britain into regions, and the eventual transfer of all power from the Westminster government to the EU, who will then allow some powers to be given back to the regions, but Britain will by then have ceased to exist as a nation state, we and will never be in a position to leave the Union.
The Electoral Commission will be involved in all the other referendums and the big one on the EU Constitution so it is vitally important for democracy that they act in a fair way and that their decisions are not subject to general condemnation as this one has been.

FCO 30/1048 - 1971

SOVEREIGNTY AND THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES

As far back as 1971 the British Government had reported on the effects entry to the European Union would have on British Sovereignty. In fact much earlier reports had also made this point.

It is clear from this paper that the government of the day understood the facts that to give their powers away to the union was in fact removing sovereignty from the British people. Not only that they would give some of their powers away, immediately on entry but that it would be and ongoing process over many years until eventually the right to leave the Union would also be removed.

“The conclusions and implications we have drawn are highly political said
may be judged beyond the competence of the FCO to advise. Nevertheless the
impact of entry upon sovereignty is closely related to the blurring of
distinctions between domestic political and foreign affairs, to the relatively
greater political responsibility of the bureaucracy of the Community and
the lack of effective democratic control”.

“The ability and the ultimate political right in the last resort to withdraw will re
main for a very considerable time though it may come to have mainly theoretical significance. In that last resort
the ultimate sovereignty of the State will surly remain unchallenged for this century at least”.

“To control and supervise this process it will be necessary to strengthen the democratic organisation
of the Community with consequent decline of the primacy and prestige of the national parliaments.

The premise this was built on was the untrue assumption that Parliament is supreme that has never been the case as pointed out in an earlier post.

The paper makes these arguments to support its case on sovereignty

(a) statute which has been duly enacted by Parliament and received the
Royal assent cannot be declared invalid by the courts on any grounds, for
example that its provisions are contrary to constitutional law or to common
law or to international law;

(b) Parliament may enact any law it wishes; consequently no Parliament is
bound by the acts of its predecessors, and any prior statute may be amended
or repealed later statute;

(c) there is no legislative power in the land save by the authority of
Parliament.

As the power Parliament has comes from the people, then by making these statements Government is in fact usurping powers it does not have, and under the British Constitution this is and illegal act.

This paper also recognises that disquiet in the population could derail the whole project, if the people were to understand fully the consequences of Union membership. And suggests that the loss of democracy could be balanced by regional parliaments with corresponding loss of Westminster’s powers

“the transfer of major executive responsibilities to the bureaucratic
Commission in Brussels will exacerbate popular feeling of alienation from
government. To counter this feeling, strengthened local and regional democratic
processes within the member states and effective Community regional economic
and social policies will be essential”

“The task will not be to arrest the process, since to do so would be to put
considerations of formal sovereignty before effective influence and power,
but to adapt the institutions and policies both in the UK and in Brussels
to meet and reduce the real and substantial public anxieties over national
identity and alienation from government, for fear of change and loss of control
over their fate which are aroused by talk of the “loss of sovereignty.”

“although public concern is not over technical sovereignty itself but
over more generally national traditions it is real and important and can
be evoked by reference to sovereignty. Before entry it is important to deal
squarely with the anxieties about British power and influence (masquerading
under the term sovereignty) by presenting the choice between the effect of
entry and on Britain’s power and influence in a rapidly changing world. After
entry there would be a major responsibility on HMG and on all political parties
not to exacerbate public concern by attributing unpopular measures or
unfavourable economic developments to the remote and unmanageable workings
of the Community. This counsel of perfection may be the more difficult to
achieve because these same unpopular measures may sometimes be made more
acceptable if they are put in a Community context, and this technique may
offer a way to avoid the more sterile forms of inter-governmental bargaining.
But the difference between on the one hand explaining policy in terms of
general and Community-wide interest and, on the other, blaming membership
for national problems is real and important”.

This report takes the view that people are not concerned of the loss of their ability to elect their government, preferring instead to suggest that it is merely a fear of change or a fear of foreigners that is behind anti-union feelings. We can still see this misguided theme in today’s political discussions, anyone opposed to the EU is suffering from Xenophobia.

We can also see very clearly that our government shave been following this report in their treatment of Union laws that have been enacted if it is unpopular it is the Unions fault and we will sort it all out when we are elected etc.

What is clear is that the movement towards making Britain a sub-state, within a greater European state is a long term policy that transcends normal party politics, when the report says “there would be a major responsibility on HMG and on all political parties not to exacerbate public concern by attributing unpopular measures or unfavourable economic developments to the remote and unmanageable workings of the Community” it is confirming that the union is a cross party agreement to deny the British people a say in their own government.

We need to clearly state that as a people we do not accept this denial of our rights by a cabal of political parties, and assert our determination to resist this diminution of Britain by the very people who are elected and take an oath to defend the people’s rights under our own Constitution. The only way to do this is to make clear to any person standing for election that if they want our votes they will have to accept that their position of power depends not on their party but on the people who elect them, the power to stop all of this is in our own hands or more correctly in our own votes.