eurealist.co.uk

Neil Herron
A leading business pressure group is challenging the Government to scrap the eight unelected regional assemblies in England, after finding overwhelming hostility to them among its membership (see member quotes below).

The Forum of Private Business (FPB), which represents 25,000 small and medium-sized firms, says businesses have delivered a damning verdict on the assemblies and would rather the £23m it costs to run them each year was spent on improving public services.

The FPB’s National Chairman Len Collinson said the assemblies had abjectly failed to communicate with small businesses, despite the fact they have a remit to drive the economy of the regions.

“Our members are scathing about the performance of regional assemblies,’ he said. “Many businesses do not even know they exist. The assemblies have failed to inform businesses about who they are, where they are and what they do, even though they cost tens of millions of pounds to run and were set up way back in 1998. Employers are telling us loud and clear that this money would be better spent on improving transport and public services – not creating more pen pushers in plush offices. The FPB believes the assemblies have had enough chance to prove themselves. Their record is lamentable. They must go.“

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A thought provoking post from The Anglo Saxon Chronicle subject “The British Monarchy within a Federal Europe”

There seems to be a general misunderstanding about the British system and an inclination from Pro EU pundits to either dismiss or just ignore the questions that need to be addressed as more of the power of self- government is lost to the EU. The whole British EU argument rests solely on one thing and that is have we only loaned the sovereignty to the EU which is always within the power of the British Parliament to return to itself with no external interference in that process, or have we transferred the sovereignty.

This difference between power delegated and power transferred is akin to, but should not be confused with, another difference: that between sovereignty de jure so called, and sovereignty de facto so called. The delegate is entitled by treaty to exercise sovereign power de facto; but it does not belong to him: he does not possess it de jure. But the language of this distinction is misleading.

The delegate’s exercise of sovereign power is perfectly lawful. He has not usurped it. The owner of sovereignty has chosen to delegate it, and it may be assumed that all proper formal legal requirements to that end have been observed. To this extent the delegate’s power is certainly de jure; that is, it is
in accordance with law. It is given by lawful process, not taken by revolution or other superior force. The real distinction here is not between de jure and de facto sovereignty. It is between sovereignty delegated and sovereignty transferred. Lord Justice Laws
The United Kingdom as a Sovereign State

2 ~ The basis of the British system of government is a closed loop:

the People are sovereign;
their sovereignty is represented by the Monarch whom they, the People, choose;
the Monarch, as head of the Government, oversees the work of the Government;
the Government governs the People. (The Government thus governs the People with the consent of the People.)
The Monarch, as head of the Government, is responsible for the effective coordination of a triad: the legislature; the judiciary; the executive. The Monarch calls and dissolves Parliament, appoints and dismisses prime ministers - and in these four actions retains the freedom of choice necessary to protect the people the Monarch represents.

Legislation is thus the power of the Sovereign in Parliament.
The Monarch appoints the judges: and thus justice is the power of the Sovereign on the Bench.
All executive orders, whether civil or military, are given on behalf of the Monarch: thus executive power is the power delegated by the Sovereign in Council.

The Monarch’s office is authorised by the Act of Settlement 1701, which gave the descent of the Crown to the Protestant heirs general of Sophia, and the Monarch succeeds to the Crown at the moment the predecessor dies. However, the ratification of that succession which the Monarch’s subsequent coronation signifies is not owed to the Act: it is the gift of the people the Monarch is to represent until death. At the coronation, the Sovereign is acclaimed as the choice of Parliament acting for the People, and the coronation oath, whose continuous history can be traced to the time of the Confessor, and whose development embraces the Magna Carta, confirms that the Sovereign’s authority is itself subject to the Law (and thus all authority delegated from the Sovereign is subject to the Law).

Without the Monarch, Parliament cannot legislate, for although the Royal Assent is given by the three Lords Commissioners for the Monarch, that Assent has first to be authorised by the Monarch. While it is true that the full authority of the Monarch as Sovereign may be attained only with the Three Estates of the Realm assembled in full Parliament, the Monarch will always retain the Royal Prerogatives: to dismiss the prime minister; and to dissolve the Parliament. We have a balance; we have a closed loop; we have a sovereign people. That is the situation today.

The post then goes on to explore some of the difficulties of the United Kingdom attempting to enter a United States of Europe.

Prof. Mario Monti the former competition commissioner of the EU, proposes that a government whose signature on the treaty is repudiated by its parliament or in a plebiscite be invited to try once more, but this time it should not ask its citizens, “Do you accept the European constitution?” He says the question should become, “Do you wish your government to continue to be a member of the EU on the constitutional terms the other members now have adopted, or do you wish your country to leave the EU?”

This makes explicit what is implicit in a vote against the constitution. There are consequences for saying no when the rest have said yes. If the public or parliament nonetheless says no to the restated question, it can be said that it has voted to leave the EU as the union newly exists. Monti says, “The union is not a prison. It’s a club… with rules for becoming a member and rules for leaving.”

One of the rules Monti is so keen on, is that any changes to the treaties requires 100% acceptance by member states not 50% 75% or even 99% but 100% now which part of that rule does the professor not understand. Because what he is suggesting is that the only rule that the EU will agree to is the one that says, it and not the member states are in charge. It is the EU that is setting the agenda and the EU that is demanding more power, it is the EU Constitution, but it is up to the members to give it those powers and as our own dear Jack Straw reminds us “And we will make clear to the British public how the constitution gives us our kind of Europe, based firmly on the power and legitimacy of the nations of Europe”.

So who is right according to Monti we have two choices, accept the Constitution or leave the Union? On what does he base his argument, perhaps he would be king enough to phone Jack and tell him that he is wrong, and the Constitution is not based firmly on the power and legitimacy of the nations of Europe but on the power of the supra national EU.

Jack Straw is going on the offensive, and will be issuing a raft of fact sheets explaining the background to the EU constitution.

A new document will be released each day this week Eureferendum has analysed yesterday’s offering.

The first “myth”, published yesterday, is stated in terms that: “Britain would lose control over foreign policy under the constitutional treaty.”

In fact, no one at all knowledgeable about the EU treaties would even begin to argue that Britain would lose control of foreign policy under the constitution. The point is, as is often the case in the incremental development of policy which typifies the EU, that we would lose even more control than we have already – albeit that some residual powers would remain.

Straw says ‘In the public debate over the European Treaty, we will be making the patriotic case for a strong British role in the European Union”.

So it is now patriotic to give away British governments powers to a supra national unelected unaccountable organisation well that is one view another would be that it is in fact treason to do such a thing.

“And we will make clear to the British public how the constitution gives us our kind of Europe, based firmly on the power and legitimacy of the nations of Europe. “We will firmly be taking on the mythology of the eurosceptics which distort so much of the European Union.”

Yes and It gives the French their kind of Europe

Perhaps Straw will be explaining exactly how the Constitution
which reverses the power in the present treaties,
sets the EU up as a power in its own right
makes its Constituion and its laws superior to our laws,
compels us to facilitate the achievement of the Union’s tasks and refrain from any measure which could jeopardise the attainment of the objectives set out in the Constitution.”
“would deprive the Member States of most of their present treaty-making powers,”
gives the EU “The power to promote and coordinate the economic and employment policies of the Member States,”
“to define and implement a common foreign and security policy, including the progressive framing of a common defence policy.”
the power to oversee “industry; protection and improvement of human health; education, vocational training, youth and sport; culture, and civil protection.”
Insists that “Member States shall actively and unreservedly support the Union’s common foreign and security policy in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity and shall comply with the acts adopted by the Union in this area.
They shall refrain from action contrary to the Union’s interests or likely to impair its effectiveness.”
The Union Foreign Minister “shall conduct political dialogue on the Union’s behalf and shall express the Union’s position in international organisations and at international conferences”
requires all Member States to “make civilian and military capabilities available to the Union for the implementation of the common security and defence policy …”
and to “undertake progressively to improve their military capabilities.”
insists that “The currency of the Union shall be the euro.”

The Constitution represents a further stage in the assault on the Nation States of Europe and the national democracy that underpins them, by the powerful political, economic, bureaucratic and ideological elites that for decades have been pushing the EU integration project. (Anthony Coughlan)

It has been announced today that Peter Mandelson has mounted an attack on John Humphrys, the Today programme journalist, complaining to the BBC of his “virulently anti-European” views and claiming that the “anti-European bias” of some BBC presenters is a “problem”.

In a stinging letter, obtained by The Times, to Michael Grade, the BBC Chairman, Mr Mandelson accused the BBC of failing in its charter obligation to promote “understanding” of European affairs and declared: “I do not think the present BBC coverage is good enough.”

The BBC Charta does not require it to promote understanding of European affairs but Mandelson of course would like the situation that was in place in the 1975 referendum, when BBC and other media leaders met each morning over breakfast with the leaders of the Yes camp to agree on the strategy for spinning that days reporting in favour of the Yes camp.
He said the “BBC gave too much coverage to moderate Eurosceptics and should instead give more coverage to extreme Eurosceptics such as UKIP, who wanted to take Britain out of the EU altogether”.

The BBC has totally ignored the withdrawal argument that is one of the major complaints made against its coverage, but this does not mean it needs to be presented as Mandelson would like, as the ravings of a few half crazed lunatics, or as a means of polarising the debate over the referendum which does not pose that question.

Peter Mandelson has taken an oath of allegiance to the EU he has sworn not to be influenced by any outside body and to only work for the EU, as such he is paid to be discriminatory in his views on the outcome of the Referendum that the commission is trying to force through, he is closely linked to Britain in Europe, the pro-Constitution campaign group, and is on the European Commission’s communications committee, where he has been drawing up a communication strategy to win over British public opinion, he can hardy pass himself of as a disinterested commentator.

Yet he himself feels free to try to influence the debate on the EU Constitution.

He is of course right that the BBC coverage of the EU (not European) is not good enough as the BBC report makes clear that BBC news suffers from an “institutional mindset” that leads to a “reluctance to question pro-EU assumptions”.

This is no more than an attempt by Mandelson to turn the argument around, the report did not say the BBC of was “virulently anti-European” or that the “anti-European bias” of some BBC presenters is a “problem” quite the opposite.

“We were asked whether the BBC is systematically europhile. If systematic means deliberate, conscious bias with a directive from the top, an internal system or a conspiracy, we have not found a systematic bias. But we do think there is a serious problem. Although the BBC wishes to be impartial in its news coverage of the EU it is not succeeding. Whatever the intention, nobody thinks the outcome is impartial.

There is strong disagreement about the net balance but all parties show remarkable unity in identifying the elements of the problem. Sometimes being attacked from all sides is a sign that an organisation is getting it right. That is not so here. It is a sign that the BBC is getting it wrong, and our main conclusion is that urgent action is required to put this right.”

We feel that impartiality requires even-handed treatment of the broad spectrum of views held by the British electorate. The BBC should be “the voices” not “the voice” of Britain.

For example the written evidence from the Conservative Party says: “Conservative MEPs are under-represented. Packages from Brussels predominantly contain Labour and Liberal Democrat MEPs but no Conservative. Given that the Conservatives are the largest party within the European Parliament, this cannot be justified.” Without a reliable monitoring system the BBC has no way of knowing whether such allegations are justified.

For instance we struggled to gain comprehensive information about complaints received, upheld or rejected. Such evidence as there was overwhelmingly found in favour of complaints from eurocritics. That evidence was also supported by admittedly imperfect evidence from external monitoring, although in the absence of any other sources that is all that was available to us.

It has failed to reflect a significant minority opinion that the UK should withdraw from the EU because this does not figure in the policies of the Westminster parties.

So we should view this complaint from Mandelson with the contempt it deserves, he does not have the best interest of Britain in mind but the advancement of the organisation that will pay him a substantial amount of money for the rest of his life.