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Cordon sanitaire I: Belgium

To get some appreciation of the sickness of much of what passes for European politics, try looking at events in Belgium. This misfit of a state has, since its creation in 1830, held together two entirely distinct communities: the Flemish in the northern half of the country, and the French-speaking Walloons in the south. The two communities have different political parties, different television channels and different education systems. It is no surprise that many of the more propsperous Flemish, the majority community, wish to separate from the Walloons who have traditionally dominated political life.

Now the Belgian Supreme Court has seen fit to ban the Vlaams Blok, a separatist party, on the grounds that it is ‘racist’. For years the major parties have tried to exclude the Vlaams Blok from power, erecting a so-called cordon sanitaire, an agreement to withhold any kind of co-operation. This is not unusual in many countries of Europe, where proportional representation leads to almost permanent coalitions forming and typically gives rise to cosy agreements between the two or three leading parties. The success of the Vlaams Blok has threatened the establishment in Belgium, which has hit back by changing the constitution and passing laws that criminalize the Blok. On its website today (still in existence at the time of writing, but presumably about to be pulled), the Vlaams Blok states:

More Costs less Democracy

As we the people are struggling to make our voices heard, and our wishes known against the cacophony of the political and media cant. With ever more of our powers to have our wishes influence the political agenda, being removed by piecemeal bites at the British way of life and the British Constitution, which is supposed to protect our abilities to vote for, and against, those who make our laws in perpetuity.

The politicians are increasing their hold on our birthright to control them and changing the way our political system works, so that it is they who hold all the power and not the people. They have already given the real power to run this country over to the control of the unelected and undemocratic EU Commision. Whilst they having little else to do probe ever deeper into the realms of laws and rules that are now making a mockery of Britain as a democratic country. Whilst all this has been happening the politicians themselves are charging us ever more for the privilege of their ever intrusive control of our way of life.

Philip Webster in the Times Voters are paying almost twice as much as in 1997

THE cost of British democracy has risen by 80 per cent since Labour came to power in 1997 and stands at £1.3 billion a year, according to figures given to The Times.

The first serious attempt to aggregate the cost of elections and the operating costs of the bodies for which the polls are held shows a rise of £575 million in annual expenditure in the past seven years.

Just under half the extra outlay can be put down to the running costs of the elected institutions set up by Labour since 1997 — the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Greater London Authority and the London Mayor. Labour also created the Electoral Commission to oversee elections.

There has also been a 75 per cent rise in MPs’ salaries and allowances, a 40 per cent rise in the cost of House of Commons facilities and administration, and a 71 per cent rise in local government representation and management costs, with big increases in the allowances of councillors a key factor.

The figures are in a paper to be published soon by Andrew Tyrie, the Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury, MP for Chichester and a former senior Treasury adviser. In it he calls for a 20 per cent cut in the number of MPs as a start to containing the burgeoning costs of democratic politics. The £1.3 billion cost is equivalent to 50,000 teachers or 60,000 nurses. The figures have been disclosed after last Thursday’s rejection by the North East of a new regional assembly.

Mr Tyrie told The Times that people were rebelling against the rise in the cost of democratic politics. “People are rejecting yet more politicians and the cost that comes with them.

“The North East’s concerns are a reflection of what people are thinking right across the country.

“The cost of democratic politics is now very high and the scale of the rise since 1997 is becoming difficult to justify.” Mr Tyrie’s paper is likely to be seen as a fair analysis of the costs. Had he wanted to reach a higher figure he could easily have done so.

He has excluded the £560 million cost of setting up the new institutions from his overall total.

That includes the £431 million spent on the Scottish Parliament building. Other capital projects such as the £200 million Portcullis House, the new building for MPs’ offices, has also been left out.
He has excluded the cost of the Lords — now £76 million from £38 million in 1997 — on the ground that it is not a democratic body, and the cost of special advisers (£5.8 million from £1.8 million in 1997) because they could be considered an administrative cost of the executive.

The new bodies created since 1997 cost £188 million to run, his research shows. The Scottish Parliament costs £59 million, the Welsh Assembly £45 million, the Northern Ireland Assembly £36 million and London £22.6 million.

EU Referendum “The price of democracy” has looked at some of these costs and the many billions our politicians could save us the taxpayer, if only they were prepared to actually do what the are paid for, and as Dr North says; that is not to be high priced social workers for their constituents, but to hold our executive to account.

EU Referendum has more indepth information on this story

What will they do now in Belgium?

This blog had a piece about the disgraceful behaviour of the Belgian Government under the “liberal” Guy Verhofstadt and some Belgian courts in April. We pointed out that Mr Verhofstadt was conducting an entirely unjustified hunt against the Flemish separatist party, the Vlaams Blok.

The Vlaams Blok has been accused of being racist and xenophobic and under laws passed soon after Mr Verhofstadt coming to power this means a deprivation of state financing – death to a political party in Belgium – and stringent fines on anyone who is involved with such an organization or works for it.

For a while various courts refused to pass the judgement demanded by the Belgian government, arguing that a political party must be judged by the voters. They have, indeed, judged it by making it the most popular party in the country. In the European elections of June it received over 13 per cent of the vote and in the Flemish regional elections at the same time they received over 24 per cent. Present polls show that they now have over 26 per cent support in Flanders, which accounts for 60 per cent of Belgium’s population and is the productive part of the country.

Flemish party banned as racist by Belgium’s high court

The Old USSR in The EU
Well they have done it, they have been threatening this for along time and at last Belgium’s ruling liberal party of Guy Verhofstadt, the prime minister, has used a rights watchdog controlled by the his office to issue a lawsuit against the Vlaams Blok. Belgium’s most popular political party, which is now banned from receiving funding of any kind and will have to disband.
The high court accepted that Vlaams Blok was a racist party because it violated race laws by distributing 16 leaflets in the late 1990s deemed to be incitement against immigrants. One of the tracts, denouncing female circumcision in Islamic countries, was written by a Turkish-born woman member of the Vlaams Blok, but the court ruled that the arguments were intended to foment anti-Muslim feeling.
The party attacked the ruling as a breach of free speech since much of the material consisted of official statistics. The country’s high court yesterday, fuelling concerns that the judicial branch is being used to eliminate political enemies. Frank Vanhecke, the party’s chairman, accused the ruling elite of using totalitarian tactics to stop legitimate political expression. This is an attack on democracy and free speech. Our political opponents have changed the racism laws six times in a campaign to have us condemned. What they have done today is shocking,” he said.
I could not agree more, I do not know if Vlaams Block are racist, but let us just for one moment accept that they are, is this any reason to ban them from expressing their beliefs. Some would obviously say yes to that question, but we must then understand that those who do, cannot have a belief in free speech, because once you start banning one persons freedom to voice their opinions, where do you draw the line, and when you do this to a fully formed political party, that is nothing less than an attack on democracy.
If this is allowed to stand then we can expect further moves to ban freedom of speech, and political parties opposing the EU, this blog could well be considered to be breaking Xenophobic laws, Denis MacShane has already made it clear that Eurosceptic are in his eyes xenophobic. First they make something illegal and then they define it in a way to silence opposition, so Xenophobia is to become the word they use to describe someone who opposes the EU, because the only reason we oppose the EU is because we are frightened of foreigners, therefore we are Xenophobic.
If this goes on we can all wave goodbye to our freedom of expression, freedom to choose which party to vote for. The largest majority of voters in Belgium have been disenfranchised by the courts, if this were to happen in some third world country there would be an outcry of indignation, but here in the EU these people believe they have the right to silence opposition.

It would seem that the old USSR far from being finished has simply moved west, because that was the excuse they, used to ban opposing political parties.