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The undemocratic ways of the European Union are finally catching up with it as many of its member states — especially the United Kingdom and France — consult with their voters over whether to approve the new federal constitution prepared by the Brussels bureaucrats.

Voters in France, Denmark, the Netherlands, Poland, the Czech Republic and, most notably, Britain are leaning toward rejection of the document which confers vast new powers to shape foreign policy and regulate all aspects of European life on the EU.

Of course, Germany and a majority of the EU nations are simply skipping any consultation with their voters and ratifying the constitution in their national parliaments. When I asked one German Christian Democratic Union leader why the party does not insist on a referendum, I got the reply: “We had referenda in the ’30s, and they didn’t work out so well.”

The entire bias of the EU is toward socialism on an economic level and government by bureaucratic fiat on an administrative and political level. It really represents a European effort to mimic the kind of bureaucratic control that Japan is struggling, unsuccessfully, to shake off.

Government by those who think they know better is the common denominator here and the major threat to freedom in our post-fascist, post-Communist era.

EU regulators have injected themselves into every bit of minutia in the economies of each of their countries, and popular frustration with their meddling is growing.

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A third survey released Friday has confirmed that a majority of French voters intend to vote against adopting an EU constitution in a May 29 referendum.

The figures, though, suggested the “no” camp was growing. A previous poll by the same company a week ago showed 51 percent against and 49 percent in favour, while another by the IPSOS institute days later put the figures at 52 percent against and 49 percent in favour.

The results suggest Chirac, his conservative ruling party and the left-wing opposition Socialists, all of whom have come out in support of a “yes” result, are increasingly out of step with the wishes of the electorate.

Observers believe that much of the opposition stems from widespread disapproval with government reforms and with Chirac’s haughty rule more than a rejection of the EU constitution itself, which aims to streamline decision-making in the 25-member European bloc.

That appeared to be backed up by the CSA-Marianne survey, which asked what referendum result the voters wanted “deep inside”, regardless of how they planned to vote.
The results were 37 percent in favour of a “yes”, 30 percent for a ‘no’ and 33 percent who said “it doesn’t matter”.

Those who said they intended to vote against the referendum gave explanations that did not go directly to the constitution itself.
All good news for those of us who do not subscribe to the almost religious fervour that accompanies the usual EU philosophy.

The EU itself finds polling very a very affective method of government, which in the Euphile mind must contribute toward democracy simply because they are forever claiming that the EU is democratic.

However if we look closer at the results for this particular poll we find that Half the 856 people questioned said they would abstain from voting altogether, or submit a blank ballot. Sorry what`s that again 856 people questioned? Out of a country of how many millions? How on earth can any polling organisation claim anything from such a small representation of the people? The simple answer is they cannot, so this, like all other polls is meaningless, the French people are just as likely to vote for the Constitution as against. The only benefit is that as the EU elites themselves put so much faith in polling, it will be fun for us Eusceptics to see them pulling out all the stops and running around like maniacs, in fear that their beloved constitution is going down the drain.

In the main culled from Financial Director

In his annual Budget appearance before the Treasury Select Committee, Gordon Brown emphasized the government would be resolute in its attempts to stop companies using European law to eat into government revenues.
‘The UK will defend vigorously any challenge to UK tax law,’ he said. ‘We will take whatever action is necessary to remove uncertainty.’

The chancellor’s statement comes in the midst of an onslaught of claims against the Inland Revenue from large multi-national corporations.

Big corporations, including Marks & Spencer, Coca-Cola and IBM are involved in moves that could with interest potentially cost the Treasurer £20bn.
Banding around such colossal figures defies any relevance to the ordinary UK tax payer, but to put it into context that sum equates to almost £670 for every UK taxpayer, or nearly £340 for every man, woman and child in the country. It also exceeds total council tax receipts for 2003-04.

The sum is arrived at by combining the potential refunds from litigation or group litigation orders (GLOs)

The cases involve challenges to six separate areas of the corporate tax regime and all contest that they contravene EU law.

The cases are brought under article 43 of the EC treaty which prohibits member states hindering an EU national in one state establishing a business in another member state as they like and in the forms they like.

The Institute of Policy Studies, carried out detailed research on the claims and concluded that the ‘cost of those cases is in the region of £10bn’ and that if all other avenues were pursued the loss to the Exchequer could be a further £8bn annually’.

But many more company groups have since jumped on the GLO bandwagon.

The High Court gave the go-ahead for the sixth and latest group litigation order against the country’s tax system. This claim was brought against the Revenue on behalf of 19 of the country’s biggest pension funds. BT Pension Scheme leads the fight, but court papers reveal that Shell Pensions Trust, the Royal Insurance Group, the Royal Mail and the Lattice Group are all involved.

While the total compensation of the so-called foreign income dividend GLO is likely to top £100m, it is dwarfed by both the advanced corporation tax (ACT) and loss relief GLOs.

Well over 100 company groups, including Coca Cola, BMW, Heinz, Ericsson, Volkswagon, Citibank, Compaq, Esso, BSkyB, and Nestle are listed on court papers for the ACT (GLO).

However the (group relief case) is likely to be more damaging. While there are just 59 company groups listed on the GLO, court papers, including Six Continents, Weir, Portakabin, Lloyds, BT and Asda, the implications of the case could be far wider.
Papers from a High Court case reveal that a further 140 companies have made claims in respect of group loss relief which are outside the loss relief GLO. Those claims have not been brought in the High Court’.

The six current (group litigation order) GLO

Loss Relief; In its simplest form, losses incurred abroad should be able to be offset against UK profits.
Test claimants: Autologic, BNP Paribas, BT, Caterpillar, Heinz, The Future Network.

Advanced corporation tax
In its simplest form, payment of ACT on dividends from UK subsidiaries to EU parents contrary to EU law. Test claimants: Deutsche Morgan Grenfell, Pirelli, NEC Semiconductors

Thin capitalisation
Thin cap provisions are in breach of the EC Treaty Test claimants: IBM, Pepsi, lafarge, Volvo, Caterpillar

Controlled Foreign Companies
Dividends received by UK corporations from European companies are subject to corporation tax - illegal under EC Treaty. Test claimants: Anglo-American, Cadbury Schweppes, Prudential. Royal Sun Alliance, J Sainsbury, AXA and Invensys are all named as claimants in court papers.

Franked Investment Income
Payment of ACT by UK company groups on dividends from EU-based members of group contrary to EU law. Test claimants: British American Tobacco, Aegis

Foreign Income Dividends
Tax relief should have been available on dividends received on overseas investments between 1994 and 1997 Test claimants: BT Pension Scheme.

There is no doubt the European Court of Justice is gaining more and more influence over the tax affairs of our country, and these cases threaten to introduce effective direct tax harmonisation by the back door.

Not only have all recent ECJ corporation tax decisions gone in the taxpayer’s favour but the volume of decisions has been steadily increasing.

From the occasional case each decade we have more than 20 decisions or references since 2000. Even the waiting period to get before the ECJ with a corporation tax question is declining.

The ECJ has taken the freedom of establishment article as the main battleground, extending it in ways which are bringing down principle aspects of corporation tax common to most developed economies and which have been with us since at least the 1980s.

It is only a matter of time before the ECJ determines whether the denial of cross-border loss relief is illegal.

The Lankhorst-Hohorst case, among others, showed it is illegal for repayments of loan capital to company members in other countries to be recharacterised as distributions of profits.

On top of this there is also the challenge to VAT repayments, following the governments defeat by Marks & Spencer over biscuits and other foodstuffs. The European Court of Justice ruled in favour of the Marks & Spencer in its long running dispute over the repayment of VAT on biscuits, tea cakes, bottled water and gift vouchers. It is estimated Marks & Spencer could hope to claim back VAT totalling between £8m and £9m, including interest. This has opened the way for multi-million pound claims by a wide range of businesses, both retail and non-retail, to claim back VAT dating back to its inception in 1973. ‘These claims could be in excess of £100m.

The Revenue is fighting back by rejecting the GLO claims on the grounds that the UK group relief system - for offsetting profits and losses of connected companies - only applies to parents and subsidiaries that are both in the UK, and imposing new legislation rushed in by the UK to counter the burgeoning number of cases.

But The ECJ is concentrating on Article 43 of the EC Treaty which relates to freedom of establishment, and stipulates that member states have to operate on a level playing field, and domestic companies should not get any preferential treatment over foreign companies. The ECJ ruling confirmed that a parent company that invests in a foreign subsidiary cannot be treated less favourably than one that invests in a domestic subsidiary.

The bottom line is that Gordon Brown has produced a budget for the United Kingdom, delivery of which is beyond his capabilities, unless the government is prepared to break their own agreements with the EU, and to undermine their own assertions that We control tax and social security
and Primacy simply means everybody sticking to the rules that we agree at European level.

Where we have not agreed to act together at European level, there is no EU primacy.

Without primacy of EU law, Governments could use national laws to get around common trade rules and standards. Without primacy, we could not guarantee a level playing field for British business in Europe or common standards for British consumers.

As the FOC has said
EU law protects British business and consumers. Britain agrees rules with other European countries covering trade, access to markets and common standards. We need those rules to enjoy the benefits of Europe’s single market of 450 million people, the largest in the world. They create one rulebook for 25 countries to follow. These rules aren’t inflicted on us – we help write them. ‘Primacy’ of European law means nations can’t use domestic rules as an excuse to get around those promises.

Primacy simply means everybody sticking to the rules that we agree at European level. Where we have not agreed to act together at European level, there is no EU primacy. Without primacy of EU law, Governments could use national laws to get around common trade rules and standards. Without primacy, we could not guarantee a level playing field for British business in Europe or common standards for British consumers. Without primacy, we could not have turned to the European Court of Justice to overturn the French ban on British beef.

Primacy of European Law is not new. It was already well established as a central principle of the single market well before the UK joined the EEC in 1973 and has been reflected in UK law ever since.

No international organisation could function if domestic law undermined treaties. Whether it’s the WTO, the UN, NATO or the EU, no international organisation could function if its members used national laws to get around international commitments. Once made, agreements with other nations must be kept in good faith and domestic law must respect them.

The European Court of Justice defends those rules.

The ECJ decides whether countries have broken the rules. It interprets the laws agreed by the national Governments, reaches judgements and can impose penalties. In recent years the Court has reached verdicts including upholding bathing water rules and penalising toxic waste dumping.”

According to this interpretation Gordon Brown is attempting to use domestic rules to get around promises, which are not inflicted on us, rules that we help write. And to ignore the concept that ‘Primacy’ of European law means nations can’t use domestic rules as an excuse to get around those promises. Either that or the ECJ is using a clause which was just waived through to extend its remit imposes tax harmonisation.

Telegraph | Opinion | Juries weighed in the balance and found wanting:

“The collapse of the Jubilee Line corruption trial shows how disastrously wrong jury trials can go when they are badly handled. It should not, though, be used as a stick with which to beat all jury trials, when it comes to the inquiry into the trial that has been ordered by the Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith.

This Government has shown itself all too keen on restricting trial by jury and, in its introduction of control orders, by judges, too. In the face of an administration with a devil-may-care attitude to civil liberties, juries are a vital buffer between executive and subject.“

So starts this opinion piece in the Telegraph I find it surprising therefore that the Telegraph then goes on to suggest implementing some of the recommendations in the Auld Report.

“In place of a jury, one could have any of the four replacements suggested by Lord Justice Auld in his 2000 review of the criminal courts: trial by a panel of judges; by a judge alone; by specialist juries; or by a tribunal of judges with two expert assessors. All methods would be quicker and cheaper, with the added bonus that judges, unlike juries, would give reasons for their decision.”

The Telegraph argues that “Selection of particular types of cases for jury trial is nothing new. After all, the vast majority of criminal cases are heard by magistrates without a jury already”. But forgets to mention that this is an elective process on the part of the accused, who can if they wish elect instead to be heard by a judge and jury. Auld also attacked this concept, arguing that although it was a basic right to have a trial by jury, it was not a basic right of the accused to choose which type of court should hear the case and this decision should be made by judges. The obvious flaw in that argument is that if the judges decide that a case should be heard by a different system, that will have removed the basic right to a trial by jury.

The, according to the Telegraph “added bonus that judges, unlike juries, would give reasons for their decision” is the very basis of our protection when the Telegraph says “juries are a vital buffer between executive and subject” that, only works because under our present system juries can find against a law they feel is unjust. Simply by refusing to convict, they act as a vital back stop which works as the peoples final right to defend their own liberty against an overpowering executive. No arguments by either the judges, government or in this case the Telegraph, has answered that particular point, to remove the power of the jury to refuse to convict against the evidence, removes the very reason for trial by jury in the first place, without that right we will be left with no protection from the state and a jury system that is no more than an meaningless charade.

The answer might be to place the jury at the centre of the system rather than being an inconvenient impediment to the legal professionals desires to conduct their law in their way.

Although not related to the EU, this post illustrates the very serious nature of the proper working of UK constitutional arrangements. How in the instance of the War in Iraq the integrity of our government systems were ignored as Tony Blair pushed for his war.

On passed experience we can expect similar problems when Blair pushes for his EU Constitution. When we can no longer have trust in our political systems there is very little left.

The Anglo Saxon Chronicle: Short Story: “Short Story
Clare Short : How ministers were misled on the legality of Iraq invasion.

Following the recent controversy about the Attorney General’s advice, I have gone over in detail the process by which he gave his advice on the legality of the war. I have concluded that he failed to comply with the Ministerial Code when giving his advice to the Cabinet and that he misled the Cabinet about his legal advice.

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Tim Worstall: Urgent Blegging!:

“Wanna give me 90 seconds of your time for my birthday?”