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It is time the Consevative Party became conservative again, the Cornerstone Group of 28 MP`s have put their names to A Cornerstone of Policies to Revive Tory Britain. The Cornerstone Blog has this to say about the present direction of the political party, which gives all the appearance of wanting power for the sake of it, I only hope my own MP can overcome his present naiveté and fully support this group, because they offer the only hope for Britian as an independent democratic state.

Sadly, some in our party have come to believe that by aping Blair, rather than studying Burke, by adopting the assumptions of the liberal elite, rather than recalling our Conservative roots, we might become as popular as real Blairites or real liberals. This route is likely to prove as disastrous electorally as it is unauthentic. Why on earth would voters support imitation liberals when they can have the real thing?

“Conservatives must be both brave and authentic; brave enough to undertake the task of challenging the dominant liberal elite in all the spheres and institutions it has so effectively colonised, and authentic enough to regain the respect and loyalty of our natural supporters.

“It is this courageous authenticity that will awaken the interest of all those weary of the current political stagnation.”

From the Blog there is a collection of essays I have only had time to read one, written by Owen Paterson MP “Who governs Britain? Part of is I have reproduced below

“There is a common feeling of helplessness that officials, more than elected politicians, run the country. This must change and Parliamentary Select Committees should have a role here. Employment terms of public servants must be revisited. The perception is that, in far too many cases, when large amounts of public money are wasted or there have been serious failures of duty, no one is found responsible, or those responsible are not punished and in some cases are actually promoted. Governments, whether central or local, must also have the power to terminate the employment of those who fall short of the standards set and should be prepared to exercise that power.

We must get back to the Conservative concept that the State exists to serve the people and that the people are genuinely sovereign. It should therefore be a central tenet of a Conservative government that it cannot delegate its law-making powers to any other organisation or institution. This applies to external bodies such as the European Union and internally, where currently so much effective law is made by officials without political input or control. Law-making must remain in the hands of politicians directly elected by the British people to serve their exclusive interests, affording the people an opportunity to remove legislators if they do not approve of their actions.

It is ludicrous that over 60 percent of the laws imposed upon the fourth largest economy in the world are created by people who have not been elected and cannot be removed in elections. A Conservative government should regain the power currently vested in the European Union by a fundamental renegotiation of all the existing treaties. Central to this would be the removal of the supremacy of the European Court of Justice and other international courts, including the Court of Human Rights. This would entail the withdrawal from the Convention on Humans Rights and the repeal of the Human Rights Act which give excessive powers over British citizens to those who have not been elected. All existing EU legislation should be reviewed and unless an overpowering case can be made for its retention - in which case it should be re-enacted as British law - it should be repealed.

Parliament should not only be supreme but in respect of the actions of British citizens or legal entities in the UK, no institution other than a British court should have jurisdiction over them. In the application of law, British courts should be supreme, headed by the House of Lords which should be the sole, final arbiter of law. Furthermore, no British institution should have the power to levy fines or other penalties on citizens, without their having recourse to a court of law. As to our relations with other countries, we should look to normal government-to-government treaties”

At last some of our elected representatives are actually beginning to realise the present direction of travel along the internationalist road, will lead to the eventual destruction of this country as an independent nation state along with our democracy and are prepared to do something about returning the sovereignty to the people of Britian.

Trying to Make us all feel like nice little EUrooopeans
From Neil Herron

Christopher Booker’s Notebook
Sunday Telegraph
Sunday 02nd October 2005

The European Parliament is, as it likes to insist, “a rules-based organisation”, so its office in London was quick to comply last week when, following a complaint by the UK Independence Party, it was told to haul down the large EU flag hanging outside its Westminster premises as being in breach of planning law.

This followed a similar retreat by Wear Valley council in the North-East, which had been proudly flying the blue and gold “ring of stars” outside its offices, to honour the fact that its leader, Olive Brown, is a member of the EU’s Committee of the Regions.

On the advice of the North-East campaigner Neil Herron, a local resident, Jim Tague, pointed out to the council that, under the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) Regulation 1992, the EU flag is classified as “an outdoor advertisement” and requires planning permission. Wear Valley was thus forced to remove the flag. The parliament has now followed suit.

If similar actions are taken across the country, doubtless few will be more upset than Kenneth Clarke who, despite his efforts to downplay the “Europe” issue, is still a vice-president of the European Movement. This Brussels-funded lobby group urges the flying of the EU flag as widely as possible because, as it claims on its website, it “advertises the Union as a benevolent, familiar aspect of our country’s identity”.

Alas, the website does not advise Europhiles that this may be illegal, and that to display their “advertisement” without planning permission is viewed in planning law as no different from putting up a hoarding for Coca-Cola.

The Mail on Sunday
Harry Blackwood
October 2, 2005

Here’s how to haul down those EU flags

Although I’ve not been round to check, I’m told many town halls and civic centres across the North East are keen to promote European unity by flying the EU flag on their flag poles.

All very politically correct and New Labour. However, if you see the blue flag flying, you may to take a leaf out of Jim Tague’s book and pop in and ask themto take it down.

Jim, from Bishop Auckland, was incensed that Wear Valley District Council had the EU flag fluttering.

So he did some homework. He discovered the council was in contravention of the Town and Country Planning Act and also Section 19 of the Local Authority Guidelines on Publicity.

If councils fly any flag they first need planning permission.

Even if they’ve got that, they can’t fly the EU flag because they are not allowed to use public money to attempt to persuade the public to hold a particular view on a political matter.

So there you have it.

I suppose it’s hoping for too much for the Cross of St George to be given due prominence.

Press Release
The People’s No Campaign
23rd September 2005

First the Ashes…now another Victory for England
(Campaigners force Council to remove EU Flag)

Wear Valley District Council has been long flying the EU flag outside its council offices. Its Leader, Olive Brown is a representative on the EU’s Committee of the Regions. Neil Herron and Bishop Auckland and Wear Valley District Council resident resident, Jim Tague, decided action needed to be taken against this blatant attempt to promote the EU.

The Regulations for the flying of flags is controlled by the Department of Culture Media and Sport. The flying of flags other than the Union flag is regulated by the Town and Country Planning Act 1992 Regulations on the display of Advertisements.

As the European Union is a political project a Local Authority will also be in contravention of Section 19 of the Local Authority Guidelines on Publicity…ie. you cannot use public money to attempt to persuade the public to hold a particular view on a political matter.

So, any Local Authority flying an EU flag must be asked politiely to remove it as they will not have planning permission and are in breach of the Section 19 guidelines.

The request for an explanation as to whether WVDC had planning permission to fly the EU flag was made by Jim a couple of weeks ago and yesterday WVDC confirmed that they had no authority or permission to fly the flag.
This morning the Cross of St. George had been hoist on the flagpole in place of the EU flag.

Neil Herron states: “It is not acceptable for any Local Authority to be promoting the EU… a corrupt, undemocratic, unaccountable, profligate bureaucracy. The EU is a political project and cannot be promoted using taxpayers money. Flying a flag amounts to blatant propaganda. Within twelve months we will ensure that no EU flag will be flying from any public building in this country.Well done to Jim Tague for bringing the matter to a speedy conclusion.”

We now expect every other Council across the country to start obeying the law and remove any EU flags from public buildings.

ENDS

Contact:

Neil Herron

Office: 0191 565 7143
Mobile: 07776 202045

http://www.neilherron.blogspot.com/

http://www.thepeoplesnocampaign.co.uk/

Northern Echo
Saturday 24th September 2005
Fly the European flag? EU can’t do that…
by Dan King

A COUNCIL has been forced to take down a flag outside its headquarters - after learning that it was illegal.

And now councillors in Wear Valley face the embarrassment of meeting to decide whether they can grant permission for the European Union flag to be returned.

The council has had the flag on display for several years at its Crook Civic Centre base in County Durham, but yesterday replaced it with a St George’s cross after the error was flagged up.
Local crusader Jim Tague made a request under the Freedom of Information Act as to whether the council had the correct permission.

Government rules state that, although national flags can be displayed, flags for political projects can not, due to laws on spending taxpayers’ money to promote one side of a debate above another.

Mr Tague said: “My question was, prove to me that the EU is a nation state, or produce the planning documents. They could do neither.
“They will have to very careful about putting it back up.
“I don’t think you’ll find one Englishman in this country who wants the EU flag to be flown ahead of our own.”

Anti-European campaigner Neil Herron, from Sunderland, said it was a victory for campaigners opposed to European constitution and said it would set a precedent.
He said: “It isn’t a flag of a nation state - it is the flag of a political project. I object to the flying of an advertisement for an unaccountable, corrupt body.”

A spokesman for Wear Valley District Council said: “We are looking to get it put back up again - with the appropriate permission.”

From Neil Herron

Transport Committee
Dr John Patterson
Clerk of the Committee
Transport Committee
House of Commons
Westminster
London
SW1

mail to:

Submission by Neil Herron on behalf of the Metric Martyrs Defence Fund
30th September 2005

Transport Committee
Current effectiveness of Parking Provision & Enforcement Policy

I wish to make the following submission to the Committee but I also wish to make a formal request that further, more substantive evidence, either written or oral, may be submitted after the date October 3rd 2005.

The reason it will be necessary to do so as there are allegations of malfeasance, misfeasance and possibly more serious offences involving decriminalized parking enforcement in a number of local authority areas currently in the process of being uncovered. There are also serious concerns and possible legal action involving the National Parking Adjudication Service. The outcome of both of these will have fundamental and serious implications for the future of decriminalized parking enforcement across the country.

There is currently a serious internal and external investigation being conducted into the legitimacy of Sunderland City Council’s D.P.E. There has already been an admission by the City Council that over 20,000 pounds has been collected unlawfully from motorists with more to follow;.
1.Accrington Council have also been forced to repay monies to motorists who have received unlawful PCN’s

2.More evidence is being uncovered in other local authorities arising from incorrect Traffic Regulation Orders or misinterpreting or misunderstanding the legislative requirements with regard to DPE.

The implications of legal action being taken in areas across the country must be fundamental to the Transport Committee’s understanding of the serious concerns that are being raised with regard to DPE and the perception by the motorist of DPE´s legitimacy.

Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 vs Road Traffic Act 1991

The first series of problems arises because of the inequitous situation across the country whereby parking restrictions are enforced under two different pieces of legislation. The motorist does not generally become aware of this inequity until he has received a ticket…ie. after having committed an ‘offence’ (under the 1984 RTRA ) or a ‘contravention’ (under the 1991 RTA).
Surely this is fundamental principle. The consequences of this do not appear to have been addressed.

For laws to be accepted and understood by society at large, they need to be seen as clear, fair and just. However, with the case of parking offences, it is the case that access to justice for an alleged offender is potentially totally different in two neighbouring local authority areas. This is purely dependent on which parking enforcement regime a Local Authority is operating.
One enforcement regime, operating under the RTRA 1984, results in an appeal process which allows access to a magistrates court. The other, operating under the RTA 1991, does not allow access to a court of law but to an ‘independent’ tribunal.

Under the 1984 Act it is the driver who is responsible for the offence.
Under the 1991 Act it is the registered keeper who is responsible for the contravention. Hardly fair, just, transparent or acceptable and not apparent to the motorist until he receives a ticket.
We have actual cases ready to cite as examples of injustice.

Therefore, surely the best legislative provision would be to have one national parking law to ensure fairness, transparency and acceptance rather than the situation at present, where under the RTA 1984 the system has the necessary common law checks and balances yet the system operating under the 1991 RTA simply perceived by the public as a ‘revenue raiser’ with Local Authority’s simply incentivised by profit and no access to justice for the motorist.

A simple question to ask is… “As the number of PCN’s has exponentially increased have the towns and cities become clearer of traffic?”
If the DPE enforcement system works then the number of contraventions should decrease as funded alternatives increase.
This is not the case and there appears to be no evidence to support this, but the revenue raised from a more draconian enforcement regime seems to be the main driver, not the necessity to create a fairer parking enforcement regime for local businesses, customers and residents.

Legitimacy of DPE / Bill of Rights 1689

For the avoidance of any doubt in the following matter it is very useful that the Houses of Parliament Transport Committee Press Notice ( 04 / 2005 – 06, 9 August 2005 ) refers to ‘parking fines’.
There can be no argument. If the Committee, the public, the Bulk Traffic Enforcement Centre at Northampton County Court and the legislators consider parking penalty charges as fines then the attempted justifications put forward by local authorities that it is not a fine but an ‘excess charge’ or other play on words, it is clear to all that what we are dealing with here is a fine.

Therefore, I wish for the Committee therefore to now consider and address the legality of DPE itself in light of the following…

As no doubt members will be aware, on 21 July 1993, the Speaker of The House of Commons issued a reminder to the courts. Betty Boothroyd said: ‘There has of course been no amendment to The Bill of Rights…the house is entitled to expect that The Bill of Rights will be fully respected by all those appearing before the courts.’

There is a provision in the Bill of Rights Act 1689 which states;
“ That all grants and promises of fines and forfeitures of a particular person before conviction are illegal and void.”

This states that a conviction is necessary before a fine or forfeit can be imposed. As you will be aware, the Bill of Rights is a “constitutional statue” and may not be repealed impliedly. This was stated in the the case Thoburn vs City of Sunderland, the decision commonly referred to as the “Metric Martyrs” Judgment. This was handed down in the Divisional Court (18th February 2002) by Lord Justice Laws and Mr Justice Crane (I will paraphrase, but have included a copy of the judgment’s relevant sections 62 and 63):

62.”We should recognise a hierarchy of Acts of Parliament: as it were ‘ordinary’ statutes and ‘constitutional statutes.’ The special status of constitutional statutes follows the special status of constitutional rights. Examples are the … Bill of Rights 1689 …

63. Ordinary statutes may be impliedly repealed. Constitutional statutes may not…”

This was upheld by Lords Bingham, Scott and Steyn in an appeal which went to the House of Lords on Monday, July 15 2002.

I am not aware that the Road Traffic Act 1991 makes express reference to repealing the Bill of Rights Act 1689 therefore there can be no fine except for one that is imposed by a court.

It is therefore important that the Transport Committee considers the implications of any attempt to override the provisions of the Bill of Rights and the constitutional considerations of doing so. It will then be necessary to understand the constitutional considerations of ignoring the Declaration of Rights.

The Sunderland City Council Investigation

A specific case which has ‘implications’ for all other DPE’s across the country. The submission or application to the Department for Transport for approval by the Secretary of State to create the Special Parking Area to allow Sunderland City Council to create a DPE simply gave ‘reassurances’ that all necessary signs, lines and Traffic Regulation Orders would be in place when the DPE was to commence. If it is proved not to be the case and that the Secretary of State was misled into granting an SPA creating a DPE then there are very serious implications indeed as over 60,000 PCNs will have been issued unlawfully.

The investigation is ongoing but there has already been an admission to unlawfully receiving over £20,000 from PCN’s issued under non-existant TRO’s and the allegation is that none of the TRO’s are ‘in force’ thereby meaning every PCN issued has been done so unlawfully.
There appears to have been no checks by either the DfT or the Secretary of State regarding the substance of claims made by any applicant to have valid and accurate signage and TROs.

Evidence is coming to light of many other similar situations by other Local Authorities. It is in light of this that I stress the need for further, more detailed submissions to the Committee involving citing specific cases in detail.

NPAS (National Parking Adjudication Service)

Again, there is an ongoing investigation in relation to this body. It involves complaints to the Department of Constitutional Affairs and the Law Society.

NPAS is representing itself as a ‘ Court of Law ‘ on its website yet when questioned in writing it confirms it is not a court of law, but a tribunal.

However, the main concern is that NPAS is not ‘independent’ as it is scrutinised by a Joint Committee (comprising appointed members from participating LA’s ) and is funded solely by 60p per PCN issued.
There is no right of appeal except on a point of law.

If NPAS is not a court of Law within the meaning of Article 234 EC, therefore its decision will be in contravention of Article 6 of The European Convention on Human Rights

In order to determine whether a body making a reference is a court or tribunal of a Member State for the purposes of Article 234 EC, the Court takes account of a number of factors, such as whether the body is established by law, whether it is permanent, whether its jurisdiction is compulsory, whether its procedure is inter partes, whether it applies rules of law and whether it is independent (see, in particular, Case C-54/96 Dorsch Consult [1997] ECR I-4961, paragraph 23, and the case-law there cited, and Case C-516/99 Schmid [2002] ECR I-4573, paragraph 34).

Under the Court’s case-law, an arbitration tribunal is not a ‘court or tribunal of a Member State’ within the meaning of Article 234 EC where the parties are under no obligation, in law or in fact, to refer their disputes to arbitration and the public authorities of the Member State concerned are not involved in the decision to opt for arbitration nor required to intervene of their own accord in the proceedings before the arbitrator (Case 102/81 ‘Nordsee’ Deutsche Hochseefischerei [1982] ECR 1095, paragraphs 10 to 12, and Case C-126/97 Eco Swiss [1999] ECR I-3055, paragraph 34).

Therefore because of the rights of the individual are being removed in the name of parking ‘efficiency’ then the resistance to DPE will grow and as more and more motorists realise the illegitimacy of the whole operation and begin to challenge and clog the system then it will collapse under its own bureaucratic burden.

Neil Herron
Campaign Director
Metric Martyrs Defence Fund
12 Frederick Street
Sunderland
SR1 1NA

For the first time Margot Wallström has at last responded to some of the points we have been making on her Blog over the past few months:

Ok, let‘s talk about democracy: are you saying that democracy can only exist at nation state level? That a “demos“ can only be defined within national borders? To me this is outdated. And over time the definition of democracy has changed. Democracy in ancient Greece did not include women and slaves for example. (and by the way : did you know that the word “idiot“ was the Greek name for those (men) who did not use their vote in the “agora” – the public meeting place ?) The three most important differences between antique and modern democracy are that today we apply universal suffrage, representative systems and tolerance for the minority. The biggest challenges remain the same : ignorance and passivity.
You ask what would make me a Eurosceptic. Some of you call yourselves eurosceptics – but are you? Outright negative would be more appropriate in some cases. I am sceptical/negative towards bureaucracy and elitism and pompous people but I can also acknowledge the positive historical role – and I see a future role – of this European construction of cooperation. With all its successes and shortcomings (as with most human endeavours) it is still something worth fighting for and struggling to improve. I think that nationalism is a very dangerous phenomenon and offers no solutions to today‘s problems that travel across borders. In a globalised world States can no longer always act alone to solve problems. This is a challenge for democracy. The problem is not the integrated global economy; the problem is the lack of integrated global governance. Our institutions and political systems are still mainly national and not adapted to tackle the new circumstances. Global economic forces are a tremendous powerhouse of energy but it is up to global democratic politics to harness that energy and channel those market forces. Some of you think the EU should be just a free trade area. I disagree.I could say a lot more but I will leave it for another day.
There are many things wrong with this view of democracy, not least of which is the Commissioner herself has no democratic mandate from the peoples of Europe to represent them in any way.There are many comments arguing against the Commissioners view, but one pithy comment say all that needs to be said on the subject of democracy and the EU.
Margot:

Go away and get elected, then come back and try and tell us what to do. Until then: Get lost

This from Euan MacDonald TransAtlantic Assembly: “If you’ve nothing to hide, then you’ve nothing to fear” runs the popular, logically-suspect response to those who worry over the civil liberties implications of the current raft of new powers that have been awarded to police recently. This argument is, of course, as spurious as it is superficially rhetorically appealing; we should therefore be grateful that the UK force seems intent on doing its utmost to demonstrate this by making use of their new powers in situations that can only be described as absurd.

Tony Blair cannot have been pleased, for example, to learn that the public relations nightmare that surrounded the ejection of an octogenarian from the recent Labour Party Conference, for heckling the Prime Minister over Iraq, was to be made worse by the police reaction to his attempts to return to the conference hall. They detained him under the “stop and search” powers of the Terrorism Act of 2000; this, of course, was “intended” to allow police to detain suspected terrorists for the purpose of searching them. It was used, however, to stop an eighty year-old Labour Party member from gaining access to the Party Conference.

The Guardian reports also that another elderly protester was stopped, and searched, under the Terrorism Act. He was apparently wearing a T-shirt proclaiming that Bush, Blair and Sharon were leaders of “Rogue States” (an idea proposed by Chomsky, amongst others), and demanding that they be tried for war crimes. Police records indicate, apparently, that the grounds for intervening were given as “carrying placard and t-shirt with anti-Blair info”, the “purpose” of the search being, quite simply, “terrorism”. We really need no reductio here in order to arrive at the absurdum.

Of course, neither man was arrested following their brush with anti-terror laws; this, however, is beside the point. It remains abundantly clear that the police are prepared to use these powers in order to control, frustrate and intimidate those who seek to make their voices heard in exercising basic political rights. And this is a dangerous game; as, the more difficult and ineffective peaceful protest becomes, the more appealing - and legitimate - other methods of making a point inevitably appear.