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Times Online - Comment

Where can liberty turn? Charles Clarke is now to make lawful whatever he says is lawful

“NO FREEMAN shall be arrested or detained in prison or deprived of his freehold or outlawed or exiled or in any way molested . . . except by the lawful judgment of his peers.” Magna Carta, 1215.

It is near incredible than in 2005 ministers of the Crown should need reminding of Magna Carta. There is only one question after yesterday’s decision of the Home Secretary in effect to repeal it. How can he be stopped?

….

Where else can civil liberty turn? The law is no good. It was the supreme court, the law lords, who told the Government its internment of foreigners was unlawful. Mr Clarke now means to reverse that decision by making lawful whatever he says is lawful. Such is the thin ice on which freedom skates.

The only bulwark that remains is one we never thought to welcome, the ramshackle agglomeration of cronyism and heredity that is the House of Lords. No constitutional evolution has been more remarkable under Labour than the revival of this place, given a new lease of legitimacy by Mr Blair’s half-hearted reform. He may have appointed twice as many peers a year as any of his recent predecessors, but they have shown little gratitude. The Government is defeated in the Lords more often that at any time in the past quarter century.

It must be defeated again. Mr Clarke and Mr Hain want to railroad detention without trial through the Commons in six days. They will doubtless succeed. The Lords is made of stronger stuff. If it can vote against hunting it can surely vote against the control orders until the election. If the measure is reintroduced by a new government, the Lords should go on defeating it until the Parliament Act is invoked. If this is to be the last deed of old House of Lords, I cannot imagine a nobler baronial epitaph than to die fighting for the Great Charter against a dictatorial Crown.

Mathew Green MP Ludlow
House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA
16th February 2005

Dear Ken,

Regional Assemblies

Your letter expresses concern over the lack of democracy created by having unelected Regional Assemblies.

You are right to oppose the continued existence of unelected regional government.

Unelected regional government has existed in the UK for over 20 years. It was set up by the Conservatives, who established regional quangos as a means of distributing regeneration funds. These bodies are directly responsible only to the Secretary of State. Liberal Democrats oppose unelected bodies making funding decisions — that’s why, when the government announced plans to set up elected regional bodies, we supported them, but only on the grounds that these bodies were given real powers, and that regional assemblies were small and efficient. We also argued that regions should accurately reflect local needs and priorities. Most Shropshire people do not think of themselves as part of the West Midlands, an arbitrary region whose boundaries were determined by the Conservatives. I have argued that, if we were to have a regional assembly in our area, it should be a Severn Valley region, comprising Shropshire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire.

it is most important that funding decisions of the sort currently made by regional government are made democratically, by accountable, elected representatives. Many of these decisions and programmes could be run effectively by local councils. If we are not to have directly elected regional assemblies, I would support the redistribution of the functions of regional government, to the most appropriate level of government — whether that be local or, in some cases, central.

I hope my comments help to address the concerns you raise. Additionally, I have passed on your letter to the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, asking him to comment on your views. As soon as I receive his response, I will of course contact you again.

Yours sincerely,

Mathew Green MP

Dear Mr Green

As you have helped me in the past I thought it appropriate to send you the enclosed letter from a contact, who clearly states some of the objections many of us have about Britain’s lack of democracy. Yes we can vote for whom ever we wish, but there seems to be a point beyond which we cannot affect a particular policy all main political parties are intent upon.

The people of the North East have just compleatly rejected the case for the regonalisation in this country, we in this area will now not have the opportunity of making our own feeling known, because the government will not now chance another rejection of their policy, this means we are left with the regional assembly as an unelected and unaccountable government quango, this is not acceptable because these assemblies were intended to be the nucleus of an elected regional assembly, we have not asked for this, yet we have to pay for the assemblies their offices in Brussels and everything else that goes with them. So to quote the enclosed letter WHERE IS THE DEMOCRACY?

Yours Sincerely

Ken Adams

Address removed
13.11.2004.
Dear Mr Prescott,

Why is the government trying to force “democracy” on to the people of Iraq and now, even the Palestinians while this government is intent on destroying ‘democracy’ here in the United Kingdom?

The people of the North East Counties have spoken loud and clearly that they want their own Local and District Councils to remain because they truly ‘bring democracy closer to the people’ and our Counties and Councils should have the power and money that have obviously been available to the Union’s Regions.

The democratically elected Members of Parliament are forever (whinging) on about the “unelected” House of Lords (even though, having removed the hereditary peers had the opportunity to “elect” peers yet preferred not to) now is the time to remove the undemocratic unelected Regional Assemblies, closing the existing Government offices in the regions and scrap the Regional Development Agencies altogether.

According to Hansard the Electoral Commission have spent £100,000 of taxpayer’s money on the “Yes” and “No” campaign. The Boundary Commission a further £6 million, another £5 million on your Department’s “Your say” campaign, quite apart from various ‘visits’ from those in high office to help the “yes” campaign. Yet we are led to believe that you are going to ignore the people’s referendum, and continue with the Quango set up in 1998. (All a waste of money and time- to which you and your department should be accountable) The people’s vote was a rejection of this country of England being split up into Regions, a democratic vote by the people, which you sir, appear to be ignoring. Do you wonder why people do not wish to vote at elections?

The Prime Minister made a great play on the word “democracy” whist he was in America at the White House; he wants Iraq and now Palestine to have ‘democracy’, and the latter a “state” in its own right as long as it embraces “democracy”.

So what is this “democracy” that we are so proud to share with others and want others to have too? Is it all that it is ‘cracked up’ to be? We have fought and many have died fighting for freedom in this country, and many of our brave soldiers are laying down their lives now, fighting for strangers we have never met, so that they too can have a slice of freedom and this magical ‘democracy’ they have heard so much about. To be able to vote freely for their leader. To actually “take part” in what they are being led to believe, is the running of their Country.

It is not democracy when government does not listen to the people. It is not democracy when people we vote for cannot stop EU legislation from destroying our industries. It is not democracy when our Prime Minister signs for a new constitution for this Country when he knows without doubt that the people do NOT WANT IT. It is not democracy when a Government deliberately sets about destroying the very people’s Common Law Constitution that even the Government are supposed to observe and protect. It is most certainly NOT democracy to deliberately continue further and deeper integration into what you know will eventually become a federal State of European Union in the full knowledge that it is against the wishes of the vast majority of the people in this country. It is not democracy when a National Government puts the undemocratic European Union before their own Country. Even as you sir, are doing now by ignoring the democratic votes of the people so recently taken.

We have lost the true ‘democracy’ and freedom we once had and I ‘pray’, I really do pray, that it comes back naturally without having to fight once more for both. The people are beginning to fight back as shown in the democratic referendum on the North East Counties last week. It was a ‘legitimate and legal’ fight, please remember that fact.

Slowly, over the years in government through the so-called democratic vote of the people, the Government have systematically overruled the law above the law, the very basic foundations of this country, its Constitution, yet the present government would eagerly take on board an EU constitution that, even as a democratically elected Government of this Country, they would no longer have the power to alter one dot or comma of that EU constitution. So where, since we have democratically elected this Government to represent us, is this magical wonderful democracy now?

Yours faithfully,

Anne Palmer.

To The Rt Hon John Prescott MP
Deputy Prime Minister,
House of Commons,
London,
SW1A OAA.

Copy to Hon Bernard Jenkin MP,
Shadow Secretary of state for the Regions

Bruno Kaufmann President of The Initiative & Referendum Institute - Europe’s Direct Democracy Think Tank

No other country in Europe has received as much financial assistance from EU taxpayers as Spain has since its accession back in 1986.

The Spaniards also said ‘yes’ to a new European Treaty, which in fact weakens the country’s voting right in the European Council in comparison with the Nice Treaty.

“But at the same time, millions of Spanish voters said ‘Si’ to the new basic law of the Union, because of the introduction of the first transnational citizens’ initiative, which gives one million people across the continent the right to propose a new European Law”

However, the Spanish ‘Yes’ was not a full ‘Yes’ to a democratic European future, but more of an expression of deep appreciation of the developments over the last 20 years.

How on earth can Mr Kaufmann make theses claims, what evidence has he that the reasons for the Spanish yes vote was “because of the introduction of the first transnational citizens’ initiative, which gives one million people across the continent the right to propose a new European Law”

Because he is the director of a think tank which concentrates on the subject of direct democracy his claims are simply to push his own agenda, I could equally claim that the people voted yes because the sun shone.

Any Eusceptic claim that the 42% turnout is symptomatic of a less than enthusiastic agreement with the constitution is equally flawed reasoning, it could equally be for the very opposite reasons, or even because the people did not want the introduction of the first transnational citizens’ initiative, which gives one million people across the continent the right be ignored.

Politicians will always try to read that which will enhance or defend their own arguments into any polling situation, as was attempted when the people of the North East soundly rejected elected assemblies some were trying to claim that this meant that they preferred the imposed unelected Regional Councils.

If the British people vote No to the referendum, the pundits will be out in force making claims that have no basis in reality, but will allow the government to renegotiate or temporarily opt out of those areas which they will claim have influenced the vote, the only evidence they will have is that more people voted no than yes, but this will not stop them building any argument they wish out of the result.

The threat to the United Kingdom

Home Secretary Charles Clarke says Britain is facing a terrible threat. And he’s right — but the threat is not from terrorism, but from the government of which he is a member, which wishes to destroy all our civil liberties and abolish the rule of law.