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“The citizens of Europe rightly expect the EU … to take a more effective, joint approach to cross-border problems such as illegal migration and trafficking in and smuggling of human beings, as well as to terrorism and organised crime”.
Speaking to MEPs in Strasbourg on Wednesday (17 November), Jan-Peter Balkenende said the events in the Netherlands “show that there is tension in our society” adding, “we have to learn from one another in the integration of minorities”.

EU policy in the area of justice, security and freedom is of “direct social relevance”, said the Prime Minister, who currently heads the EU.

Well Mr Jan-Peter Balkenende had better remember before he starts making wide sweeping statements surmising what EU Citizens do or do not want, that nobody has asked them, nobody asked them if they even wanted to become citizens of the EU in the first place. Perhaps the citizens would the chance to air their views instead of being told what those view are, perhaps the citizens would like to tell the Dutch Prime Minister that the citizens of Britain do not want the Dutch Prime Minister to interfere in the lives of the British citizens, perhaps the British citizens would like to tell the Dutch Prime Minister to go home and sort out the trouble he has in his country before suggesting sharing those troubles with the rest us. All speculative of course, but then so is the idea that the EU citizens expect anything from the EU. This is going to be an increasingly voiced reason by the undemocratic Europhiles for doing what ever it may be they want to do, but it is best we all remember they only know what they want, and more to the point they do not care what we want.

One thing with the EU when it gets an idea in its collective head it keeps on about it until it gets what it wants, even if that means years and years of waiting for the right moment.

Ever since Margaret Thatcher held up EU proposals until she got her way over our payments to the EU, they have wanted to reverse the agreement they made. So they give in on something to get their way over something else, and then they come back and want to take back what they gave. Call me naive if you like but I would have thought that, if the EU now wishes to repeal their agreement over Britain’s rebate, then we should take the stance that of course then everything else is back on the table, and we will insist that they undo the original agreement. So that, which Mrs Thatcher agreed to in order to get our rebate, must now be reversed. The ratchet seems to work in all spheres of EU negotiation.

The French of course are all for the EU rescinding the rebate but of course they are quite happy with everything about the EU just as long as France does not have to participate or contribute without the rebate each British person would pay 15 times the amount of a Frenchman.

Of course as the rebate question rumbles, on we should remember that the cost of being a member of this Union is set to grow in any case, and that any figure produced must show the increase costs and the loss of the rebate to have any sense in a cost benefit analysis were the government ever to feel safe enough to produce one.

It looks like with the increases asked for and the loss of the rebate Britain will become the biggest paymaster for the EU, for the British government to allow this to happen, when the EU cannot even convince its own audit court that its can account for the money it spends would be the height of irresponsibility.

Rats in a Bag
This was how a senior EU auditor described commission insiders who set a dreadful tone by behaving like “rats in a bag seeking to evade responsibility”.
When he announced that for the tenth year in a row the audit office was not prepared to sign off the accounts for the EU. Finding that 93.4 per cent of spending was either unsafe or riddled with errors” Once again, the court has no reasonable assurance that the supervisory systems and controls of significant areas of the budget are effectively implemented,” it said.
The annual report rebuked Brussels for failing to “satisfy the legitimate expectations of the citizens of the union”.
But then why should they care, the rats in the bag do not owe a responsibility to anyone, they have ensured that is the case, they are the untouchables, denying responsibility for anything, sacking anyone who dares to complain that they are not doing their jobs properly, this unelected, unaccountably lot of wastrels will continue to run our lives for just as long as we are stupid enough to let them get away with it.
Of course in Britain’s case we not only allow these rats to get away with it, but we reward them with a Knighthood on their return from Brussels, where one of them was responsible for seeking out fraud in the EU and did this by sacking the auditor who was brought in to assist him in his quest, because she found some, and of course the other was instrumental in spending our money supporting Palestinian terrorists through the sponsorship of their late great Leader.

VOTE NO
“The Vote No Campaign” has apparently decided to use the slogan “Europe yes, constitution no” in their well funded fight against the EU Constitution. On past experiences we can expect that “Vote No” will be designated as the official no campaign and then any other voices no matter how well informed will be struggling to make themselves heard. As happened in the North East Referendum once NESNO was selected by the Electorial Commision the media only wanted to hear what they had to say and ignored the well founded people’s campaign run by Neil Herron. In that case Mr Herron and his team had for two years been doing a great job of opposing the yes camp and exposing the government plans.
Only to be usurped by the jonnie come lately NESNO who are all now back in their London bases after claiming a great victory on the back of someone else’s hard work. This sidelining of Neil Herons campaign was obvious when he was not even allowed in to hear the deputy prime minister`s acceptance that he had lost.

Vote No, one would have thought, would be welcomed as an added weapon in the fight against this EU Constitution, but already there is controversy growing, because their slogan, “Europe yes, constitution no” if it becomes the basis for a no result is in fact also a yes to the EU. One can then imagine the morning after the no vote is announced our esteemed leader, if in fact he is either by then, will be making much of the massive yes vote for the EU, saying on the back of that massive mandate for further EU integration, just shown by the British people he will be in Brussels for a day or two to negotiate an opt out for Britain from parts of the Constitution with which we were not happy, and will then announce the date for the next referendum.

For those of us who do not believe the EU is good for Britain, good for democracy or in my case good for anything, the danger of giving the government of this country any encouragement to back up their intention to give away more of our sovereignty to the unelected and unaccountable EU is to great to accept. Many Eurealists would like the question to be on Britain’s place in the EU in or out, there is a very good case to be made for Britain to leave the Union and make its own way in the world, without having to become a state in the Greater EU. Unfortunately we are just not being asked if we want to leave the Union or our thought on any of the treaties, so a no vote cannot be construed as a wish for the people of Britain to leave. If the campaign is fought on the question of leaving, I feel we will be playing into the hands of the government who want to make that the question, because they know that will frighten the children and then out of fear they will vote to stay in. That is one of the ploys already much in evidence from the Europhiles we will be sidelined in Europe and so on.

To fight a campaign that is based on leaving the EU we need to then, if we win, have the authority of demanding of our government to comply with the wishes of the people, as expressed in the vote. As the question is only about the Constitution there will be no proof that anything other than that question was answered. The important fight is to get a no vote to the question asked, not the question we would like asked. But it is also vitally important not to allow the impression that we accept anything else from the EU.

If however we fight under the slogan “Yes to the EU but No to the Constitution” that is also wrong because we are then confirming that we want the EU, and that will be used by governments as a mandate from the people for further integration, they will also have an answer against the case for leaving, “But the people have made it clear they want to stay in the Union”.

So the question needs to be asked of the Vote No campaign why are they going to be pouring money into a campaign which has the clear possibility of being misinterpreted as a vote of acceptance of all the EU treaties that our governments have signed us up to without our agreement up to this date, because the outcome of a no vote can and will be taken as such.

If the government wished to create a situation in the knowledge that they do not have a cat in hells chance of winning the referendum, but wanted to create the impression that we the people agreed with Britain being in the Union, this is exactly the situation they would love, because it turns a massive defeat for their policies into a massive vote of confidence for the EU and for Britain being a member of the EU.

Scientists now have hard data to show European fishing policies are driving some of the bushmeat trade in Africa.

The market for wild animal meat, which threatens to wipe out a myriad of species, has become a major issue of conservation concern in recent years.

Dr Justin Brashares and colleagues tell Science magazine that consumption of bushmeat in Ghana rises whenever the supply of fish in the country falls.

The region is blighted by overfishing, much of it by EU-subsidised trawlers.

“We took annual estimates of wildlife abundance and compared them with per capita fish supply and found that years of below average fish catches had greater declines of wildlife on land,” said Dr Brashares, from the universities of California-Berkeley, US, and Cambridge, UK.

“People in Ghana turned to bushmeat when fish became unavailable.”

West Africa has a large indigenous fishing effort trawling its waters but it is the activities of EU-subsidised and other foreign fleets that have been criticised by conservation groups for accelerating the decline of fish stocks in the region.

The trawlers chase chubb, snappers, mackerel and the highly prized tuna, among others.

The Science study notes that the European Union maintains the largest foreign presence off the coast of West Africa, with EU fish catches increasing 20-fold from 1950 to 2001, and financial subsidies jumping from $6m in 1981 to more than $350m in 2001.

The big prize off west Africa is tuna
“Other studies have shown that EU subsidies artificially increase the profitability for EU ships to fish in African waters,” said Dr Brashares.

“If it weren’t for this financial support, these studies suggest, it wouldn’t be worthwhile for EU fleets to head to west Africa.”

Some campaigners have accused foreign interests of pressuring African governments into issuing generous fishing licences by tying negotiations to loans and aid packages

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