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A Solemn Oath

I mentioned the other day that Denis MacShane is very concerned about solemn treaty obligations he said “the Tory-Ukip would mean the UK would instantly be in breach of all its solemn treaty obligations, which would mean either massive fines or quitting the EU”

His concern is very commendable even though no government can bind a successor and these solemn promises made in the treaties are not his promises he is right to be concerned about solemn promises, otherwise how can we trust anything or anyone, if people are going to go around breaking their solemn oaths an oath then becomes meaningless.

Of course, as an aside, if the oath was made by a minister of the British government, and had anything to do with signing away the sovereignty of the British parliament, or the British people, then we would expect that minister to be fully empowered by the people to make a promise to obey the treaties on their behalf.

As we know this is not and has never been the case with the EU Treaties, they have been signed without the agreement being sought from the people; in fact they have been signed against the wishes of the majority of the people in this country.

But in general we would expect a minister of the Crown, who is required as a prerequisite to taking office, swear allegiance to the Queen and to the country, to be prepared to stand by that solemn legally binding oath, after all a solemn oath of allegiance to ones queen and country is rather more important than a quick promise to pick up a pint of milk on the way home from the office.

There is a maxim in Law

Juramentum est indivisibile, et non est admittendum in parte verum et in parte falsam.

(An oath is indivisible, it cannot be in part true and in part false.)

Although Dr MacShane is quite concerned about solemn Treaty obligations he did not make and is therefore not bound by, he seems to be incredibly unconcerned about either his or his ministerial colleagues oaths to the Queen.

We have situation arising very soon when Dr MacShane`s Ex Ministerial colleague Peter Mandelson
Swears his oath of allegiance to the EU, yet is under a sworn an oath to the Queen, each oath is mutually exclusive in as much as each oath promises to serve only the one master.

When The Right Honourable Peter Benjamin Mandelson takes his oath as an EU Commissioner he will swear
“To perform my duties in complete independence, in the general interests of the communities; in carrying out my duties, neither to seek nor to take instruction from any government or body; to refrain from any action incompatible with my duties”,

Let us not forget at this stage, this is a man who has twice been sacked from government for corruption.

His oath to the Queen obviously means nothing to him or obviously Dr MacShane because when they took office they both took the following oath…

You do swear by Almighty God to be a true and faithful Servant unto the Queen’s Majesty, as one of Her Majesty’s Privy Council. You will not know or understand of any manner of thing to be attempted, done, or spoken against Her Majesty’s Person, Honour, Crown, or Dignity Royal, but you will lett and withstand the same to the uttermost of your Power, and either cause it to be revealed to Her Majesty Herself, or to such of her Privy Council as shall advertise Her Majesty of the same. You will, in all things to be moved, treated, and debated in Council, faithfully and truly declare your Mind and Opinion, according to your Heart and Conscience; and will keep secret all Matters committed and revealed unto you, or that shall be treated of secretly in Council. And if any of the said Treaties or Counsels shall touch any of the Counsellors, you will not reveal it unto him, but will keep the same until such time as, by the Consent of Her Majesty, or of the Council, Publication shall be made thereof. You will to your uttermost bear Faith and Allegiance unto the Queen’s Majesty; and will assist and defend all Jurisdictions, Pre-eminences, and Authorities, granted to Her Majesty, and annexed to the Crown by Acts of Parliament, or otherwise, against all Foreign Princes, Persons, Prelates, States, or Potentates. And generally in all things you will do as a faithful and true Servant ought to do to Her Majesty. So help you God.

An oath of allegiance to ones queen and country may not mean much to these people, but if our system of government is to have any meaning at all, then a solemn oath must be enforceable, otherwise we are all living in a never never land of make believe when words can mean anything that is required of them at the time.

It also must be remembered that Chris Pattern, who is soon to return from the EU, took both oaths; perhaps someone will ask him, which he will be obeying, when he is trying to sell the EU Constitution to the people of this country. The people he has already shown his contempt for by breaking his oath of allegiance to the Queen or the EU which gives him immunity from the law for life, and also pays him a handsome pension, that he need not declare as an interest.

Many thanks to Alex Dakers for the legal information.

A Foreign Land

I don’t know what to think, reading the Telegraph I began to think that perhaps I was reading the Guardian by mistake. Matthew d’Ancona wrote a piece “Mr Howard is teaching the Tory party to hate losing” which seem to me to be full of weird phrases that had no relevance and certainly no authority.

The fact that the results of the poll are bad for the conservatives is beyond doubt, but the journalistic spin on what they should do about it is not making any sense to me. Matthew d’Ancona wrote

“There are two possible Tory responses to today’s poll: the first is for Mr Howard to ditch the dignified strategy he unveiled last week and scramble for whatever votes he can with whatever populist gimmicks he can dream up between now and polling day. The second is for him to stick with a sound plan, and, in the words of one shadow cabinet member, “bore ourselves stupid between now and the election” by repeating the message of the conference again and again and again.”

“However depressed party strategists are today as they digest ICM’s poll, they would be mad to submit to pre-election panic and squander the assets accrued last week. For the first time in more than a decade, the Conservatives’ annual seaside gathering was not dominated by speculation about the leadership”

A sort of steady as she goes plea; but go where? would be a good question, how can Matthew d’Ancona suggest that the Tories gained any assets last week let alone enough to “squander” when the poll shows just the opposite. The Tories policies are simply not attracting the voters, if the polls are to be believed, so it seems a stupid answer to say they should just keep on with the policies which are obviously failing and have been failing for the past several years.

“Mr Howard should be concentrating in his speech on issues that affected the nation as a whole, rather than trying to assemble a coalition of angry single-issue groups” “Mr Howard’s task is to win over those who are more worried about education, health and crime..” exactly the task that he has set out for himself a year ago and exactly the undertaking that is failing to attract the voters, to the Conservatives cause.

Mathew d’Ancona is right to point out that “The Tory party’s relationship with the voters has to be visionary as well as contractual” but we see neither vision or obligation in what was on offer last week. That is where the Tories a failing themselves and the country.

“It was no accident - though few spotted the allusion - that, in praising the Swedish education system and the French health service, Mr Howard said: “I do want to take you to a foreign land.” This, I gather, was a quite deliberate echo of William Hague’s disastrous “foreign land” speech of March 2001, which warned of sinister alien forces taking over this country, and epitomised for many the worst of Mr Hague’s so-called “skinhead politics”.

It ill becomes an intelligent journalist to miss-represent what William Hague said in this way and thereby helping to confirm the basic lie put about by the Labour spin machine. Perhaps he should have read the speech before he called it “skinhead politics”.

“We shall see if the Tory leadership can treat this most sensitive issue with the restraint it deserves between now and polling day, resisting the temptation to outflank UKIP (a xenophobic rather than a Eurosceptic party). But Mr Howard’s position, at least, is clear”

Again we see Mathew d’Ancona taking the labour line, a dictionary would have shown him the difference between (A person unduly fearful or contemptuous of that which is foreign, especially of strangers or foreign peoples.) and what UKIP stands for and to try to confuse the two is just jumping onto the bandwagon with Dennis MacShane.

To underplay the EU involvement in this countries law when the EU is responsible for making over 50% of it is simply to bury your head in the sand. Has it not occurred to this journalist that all the major parties are involved in conning the British people that they if elected would be in charge when it is obvious that they will not be.

What the Conservatives need to do is to prepare to be a government of Britain for Britain, to return the peoples sovereignty, so there will be real parliamentary democracy and real accountability, to look at ways of undoing the harm the labour party have done to our Constitution, and restate the basic rights of the people of this country to be ruled by their own consent, to in fact become real Conservatives again.