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Neil Herron:

“More evidence of a stitch up

In a telephone call to the North East No Campaign at 2.30pm today the House of Commons Library was enquiring about the written evidence put to the Select Committee on the Regional Assemblies Draft Preparations Bill by the North East Says No Campaign

This may puzzle some people that they came to us. They did not have NESNO’s telephone number.”

Regions aim for key role in ‘communicating Europe’ during referendums

That the idea for regions in Britain predates the EU is not in dispute; however the EU has been quick to recognise the potential for an EU made up of regions and not nations states.

This plays in several ways to the integration cause, which is of paramount importance to the EU if it is to be the government of Europe, and then it must by necessity diminish the role of nation governments.

I will look at this further a bit later, but for the meantime just one small thought. As a nation state Britain joined the Union in 1972 as one unit the United Kingdom, but the United Kingdom retained the right to leave the union at any time its government chose.

Now we have a situation where the lines between the united union, are being stretched, first Scotland then Wales then to an extent Northern Ireland have been given their own parliaments. We are now in the process of further dividing England into regions with the first referendum to install an elected parliament (although with little power) being foisted on the people of the North East (see post below). All this means that should in a few years time an elected government of the United Kingdome wish to leave the EU there will be constitutional difficulties coming out of the woodwork. So much so that it might well be impossible to actually withdraw, the more power passed to the regions will have the effect of making those problems worse.

A Little Local Difficulty
Here
I make no apologies for returning to this subject it is a subject of vital national importance. When a commission set up by the government to supposedly act independently have this much power to direct the outcome of a referendum, in a way that supports just one side, we should all be very concerned to ensure that they are in fact independent and are not just a front to push government policy.

The Electorial commission has been asked to explain the reasons it decided to award £100,000 pounds of public money to the Tory backed NESNO group (which is actually in favour of an assembly but feels it needs greater powers) and ignored the real no campaign that had already been established and was the only group actively campaigning with success against the North East assembly the only response was silence.

Then Christopher Booker in the Telegraph mentioned that “the Electoral Commissioners overruled the advice of officials in taking the decision to designate the lead campaign organisation for the “No” side, “in a way that plays into the hands of Government”

Which of course it does. Firstly because NESNO is a Tory backed group, and this has allowed the government to play the party card, as they did in the Welsh referendum. The deputy Prime minister was at it yesterday, portraying the debate along party lines. By making it a party dispute in an area of the country where the Tories do not have good support plays directly into the hands of the government, and the Electorial Commission were well aware of this fact before they made their decision to reject the broadly based group in favour of NESNO.

The other reason it plays into the governments hands is because the NESNO group are in fact in favour of an elected assembly in principal, and are only saying no because they believe the proposed assembly will not have enough powers; when you consider the present leader of the Conservatives was instrumental in setting up the assemblies in the first place this should come as no surprise.

The chairman of the Electoral Commission, Sam Younger, after choosing not to officially explain the reasons behind the decision has been stung into replying to the Booker comment….

Sir,
In his article on the proposed regional government for the North East, Christopher Booker suggests that the Electoral Commissioners overruled the advice of officials in taking the decision to designate the lead campaign organisation for the “No” side, “in a way that plays into the hands of Government” (News, Sept 19).

It had in fact been agreed before the referendum period that the commissioners would take that decision independently of staff, and no advice was therefore provided.

All information submitted by the potential designated organisations was given directly to commissioners. In the view of the commissioners, North East Says No Ltd represented to the greatest extent those campaigning for a “No” outcome.
From:
Sam Younger, Chairman,
The Electoral Commission,
London SW1

This of course opens up a new can of questions,

1. Who made the decision that the five members of the Electorial Commission would make their decision only on information submitted in the actual applications and the officials would be ignored?

2. When was this decision made?

3. Was the north east no campaign informed of the decision?

4. If the commission were going to take independent action, then why send their own officials to the north east to gather information?

5. Why did Doug Stewart, Head of Referendums say that there was no need to submit voluminous records of coverage in the press because the referendum team had already prepared all this for the Commissioners?

6. As Sam Younger is now claiming they made their decision independently, on what information was that based on, none of the claimants were interviewed, and as above at (5) the information the teams had collected, was supposed to be used in the decision making process, otherwise it would have been a pointless exercise collecting that information in the first place.

Perhaps Mr Younger would now like to back up his statement, with some facts that will explain the inconstancies of his argument. He might for instance also like to explain how it was that NESNO the BBC and John Prescott’s office knew of the decision 5 days before it was made, and what influence the Deputy Prime Minister had on the decision.

This is not just a little local difficulty the Electorial Commission will be involved with selecting the No groups for the other 7 regional referendums. So their working methods have got to be seen as completely above board and clearly based on correct information.

Of course the commission will also be involved in the Referendum for the EU Constitution, and if they are going to make “independent” decisions that play into the governments hands, then it is best we know that now, so the people can be informed that they are not independent but are in fact working as part of the government’s machine to force both regionalisation and the EU Constitution on an unwilling public.

The Booker comment
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/09/19/nbook19.xml

“Thirty years ago, we joined a common market that was little more than a free trade area. Foolishly, Ted Heath promised no reduction in national sovereignty - instead of emphasising the strength that comes when sovereignty is pooled. But we all knew that the Zollverein was only the beginning. The free trade area begat a community and the community begat a union. At each step along the way, political and economic integration went hand in hand. It would not have been possible to run the single market, which Margaret Thatcher’s government supported with such enthusiasm, without a political and legal framework to enforce its acceptance and application”.

Roy Hattersley should know that Ted Heath deliberately lied to the British people about the Common Market to underplay the seriousness of what he was doing, to keep the people uninformed and misdirected by describing the move as entry into a trading block the classical Monnet Method, tell the people it is for trade when in fact if whole aim is to form a united state of Europe.

Had Heath, as Sir Roy suggests emphasised the strength that comes when sovereignty is pooled. He would not have been able to sell entry as he did, and three years later the referendum would not have been won as it was on false information to the British people. We would have been able to explain the bleeding obvious, you cannot pool sovereignty! You either do or you do not have it.

“The social chapter of the Maastricht treaty deserved support on its own merits. But half of Europe wants it applied to the whole union to make sure that Gradgrind welfare policies do not allow skinflint companies to undercut competitors in more progressive nations. Economic and political union cannot be separated. The free movement of capital and labour have to be politically defined and legally regulated. That is a necessity, not a matter of choice. An army and a unified foreign policy may be optional extras. A common competition policy - by definition a political proposition - goes, automatically, with a common external tariff”.

Yes unification has been sold on these terms which are again classic Monnet describe a policy designed to unify as a trade policy.

In the first instance the Professor is wrong to say economic and political union cannot be separated that is exactly what did happen In the early 1950s, ministers from the six members of the ECSC drafted a constitution for a new form of democratic government to control the planned European Defence Community (EDC). Monnet had intended that the EDC would be a parallel organisation to the ECSC. This so-called European Political Community (EPC) would be able to levy taxes and would establish a Common Market. The collapse of the EDC, voted down by France led to the EPC being shelved. But now we see the political part being reintroduced.

The argument that just because the need to trade with each other we should also have to have exactly the same laws is nonsense and simply a cover for integration.

The point “to make sure that Gradgrind welfare policies do not allow skinflint companies to undercut competitors in more progressive nations” clearly shows the thought process behind the argument, why is it more progressive V Skinflint?

The free movement of labour and capital, common competition and common external tariffs do not rely on a central government taking all powers to itself and making laws for the whole union, all it needs is agreement between the countries.

Parts of the social chapter were rejected by the Prime Minister (Major) at the time and without an opt out, the Maastricht treaty would not have been signed. To simply dismiss this by saying it “deserved support on its own merits” is to belie history which shows clearly it was not deserving of support.

The Single market has been a failure the claims for the single market stimulating economic growth have not, so far, been fulfilled. The Cecchini Report claimed that the internal market would add around 5% to the GDP of the European Community’s member states, reduce prices by 6%, raise growth by 4-7% and create several million extra jobs. It would “put Europe on an upward trajectory into the next century”, assuming the pursuance of expansionary policies (which did not happen). This ambition was not achieved – in fact we have seen a period of poor growth, throughout the
1990s and into the 21st century.

All arguments Sir Roy or Professor Haseler make regarding the need or otherwise of this or that political integration or legal necessity should have been openly put to the British people in 1972 or failing that in 1975 they were not, we were told the exact opposite. Had we been told of this ambition of a small number of people to gain total control of Europe, and unite it into one political unit under one undemocratic government, we would have told them to go and take a running jump.

Roy Hattersley was part of the group, who he now says should have told us the truth. He had his chance to do so then. Although he is on record as being disgusted by the secret arrangements being made to lie to the people, he chose not to be truthful, why on earth should we believe a word he has to say now. Its a bit rich after thirty years of lying to the British people to now try to rewrite history Sir Roy.