eurealist.co.uk

BE welcomes European Union Bill

“Britain in Europe welcomes the government’s decision to publish a bill to ratify the new European constitutional treaty, subject to a referendum.

“For far too long we have been subjected to a diet of myth and misinformation by the eurosceptics, their millionaire backers and their friends in the media. A sensible debate about Britain’s relationship with the rest of Europe is long overdue, so we look forward to the informed and balanced reporting in the media as the Bill progresses through its parliamentary stages.”
The new treaty will make it easier for Europe to advance our common interests across our continent as well as on the world stage, while respecting national differences and becoming more accountable to its peoples.

The Financial Times said: “The referendum can only be won with a sustained campaign that proclaims the benefits of EU membership for Britain and its European neighbourhood - in the past and in the future. It should also unashamedly trumpet British success in shaping the EU as a free market group of nations that voluntarily pool sovereignty in some areas.”

So we have a Europhiliac group that claims to be independent, welcoming the EU Constitution, putting the boot into those who do not agree with them, and spreading disinformation. Asking for informed and balanced reporting on the Bill. But then oddly going on to spread their own myths and disinformation in the very next paragraph.

BIE obviously do have a thing about, millionaire backers and their friends in the media, when they apply that as an insult to eurosceptics. We must be sure that these upstanding paragons of freedom and democracy are not really just some front organisation for interested groups disseminating disinformation.

Disinformation is deliberately misleading information announced publicly or leaked by a government, intelligence agency, corporation or other entity for the purpose of influencing opinions or perceptions.
One distinction that most students of these topics accept is that someone with an economic self-interest is rarely, if ever, a neutral observer.

So who or what are Britain in Europe

Britain in Europe was launched on 14 October 1999 by Tony Blair; Gordon Brown; Michael Heseltine; Kenneth Clarke and Charles Kennedy. They work closely with their partner “The European Movement” whose president is none other than Ted Heath.

Chair of the group is: Lord Marshall of Knightsbridge, Chairman, British Airways
• Vice-Chair: Lord Simon of Highbury, former Chief Executive and Chairman, BP
• Vice-Chair: Adair Turner, Vice Chairman, Merrill Lynch (Europe)
• Treasurer: W. Guy Walker, former President, Food and Drink Manufacturers Federation

Wealthy businessmen perhaps millionaires on the advisory board include such luminaries as;
Niall FitzGerald, Chairman, Unilever PLC
Lord Hollick, Chief Executive, United Business Media plc
Sir Bryan Nicholson, Chairman, Cookson Group plc
Lord Sharman of Redlynch, Chairman, Aegis Group
Sir Martin Sorrell, Group Chief Executive, WPP Group plc

Now I do not want anyone to think that I have any problems with any of these people belonging to a Europhiliac group, they have right to work towards the destruction of this country if that is their particular bag, and even more so nowadays when treason seem to have been decriminalised. But I would suggest that it is ill becoming for such a group to plead poverty and lack of their own friends in the media. And to put their name to the statement; “For far too long we have been subjected to a diet of myth and misinformation by the eurosceptics, their millionaire backers and their friends in the media”

For a full list of BIE Personnel Advisory Board and financial Backers. Here

I have only looked at a couple of BIE financial bakers first on their list Mr Paul Adamson, more of Mr Adamson later.

As pointed out by Martin Cole of Ironies third on the list of BIE financial bakers is none other than our old friend ALSTOM the very same company that received 800 million euros provided by the French government, To bail them out of trouble earlier this year. As Martin Cole says HOW! One must ask can such an impoverished company, totally dependent upon state aid and blindfolded EU nudges, pay ANY of such money to undermine either OUR NATION - OUR DEMOCRACY OR OUR SOVEREIGNTY? I don’t suppose he or any of us will be getting an answer to that anytime soon if ever.

But Mr Paul Adamson is a Public relations guru and that profession trades in influence and in altering mind-sets and conceptual metaphors in public life, often has both economic self-interest and a commitment to a point of view. Thus an extreme scrutiny on activities and ethical codes of such professions is advised: the statements it produces must usually be considered disinformation by definition.

The Socialist review did mention him some time ago
Labour Party. Euro-lobbyist Paul Adamson is a leading part of this lobby. He runs the Brussels-based lobbying firm Adamson BSMG, and is also a donor to the Labour Party who rubs shoulders with Labour ministers and advisers. Adamson BSMG has lobbied for the chemical, car and biotech industries. His firm also has a Geneva office to help lobby the Swiss-based World Trade Organisation, and boasts of ‘WTO expertise’. He has actively campaigned to make ‘services’, including the public sector, open to competition and privatisation under trade agreements like Gats.
Adamson is a member of the ‘Global Services Network’, as are two of his employees at BSMG, Stephen Kehoe and Bart Vermeulen. This network is a group whose ‘mission’ is ‘to build global support for the liberalisation of international services trade, and to create a global services community of businesspeople, government officials and academics who are committed to increased trade in services’.

Adamson and his staff are prominent in the Global Services Network, as are some important players in the privatisation game, including executives from the Chubb Corporation and Goldman Sachs. British members also include two civil servants, Malcolm McKinnon of the DTI and Angela Strachan, who works for the Commonwealth Secretariat. Strachan’s official job is to ‘assist small and least developed Commonwealth member countries address the challenges of globalisation, and to better integrate into the global economy’.

Adamson has worked hard with the Global Services Network. He was a member of the Business Advisory Committee of its ‘World Services Congress 1999’. On the programme were courses in ‘Privatisation Practices’ and ‘Pioneering Public-Private Partnerships’. The conference, which took place in Atlanta, Georgia, included a forum on ‘Building a National Strategy for Health Services Exports: What Government Must Do’. This sounds like a manifesto for transnational firms forcing the privatisation of state health systems. The discussion centred on, ‘How can government and industry work together to promote exports of healthcare services around the globe?’

As well as giving cash to the Labour Party, Adamson has put some effort into supporting former foreign secretary Robin Cook’s ‘think tank’, the Foreign Policy Centre. Founded in 1998 with Tony Blair as its chief ‘patron’, Robin Cook as the centre’s president and Labour’s Lord Levy, it also includes Lord Paul and Baroness Helena Kennedy on its advisory council. Last November Adamson BSMG ‘kindly supported’ the centre’s publication ‘The Future Shape of Europe’, edited by Labour’s ‘rebranding Britain’ expert Mark Leonard. The pamphlet contained an article by Tony Blair. Ironically, given its support from a lobbyist representing big business in the EU, the pamphlet claimed to deal with Europe’s ‘democratic deficit’. The pamphlet was launched in December by Peter Mandelson at a reception that was also sponsored by Adamson BSMG. Last September Adamson BSMG sponsored a meeting on ‘How to Win the Euro Referendum’ at the Labour conference. European minister Keith Vaz addressed the meeting, which was chaired by Paul Adamson himself.

So with just a quick look at Britian in Europe we can clearly see that they are a well connected, self interested group of big businessmen Europhile MPs and Euro-lobbyist all with an economic self-interest in the EU, hardly the neutral observers they purport to be.