So Jack Straw and couple of Scotish MP`s think that the Tories proposal for English votes on English matters is” utterly disgraceful, anti-British, unpatriotic” and “would lead inexorably to the break up of the United Kingdom.”

One is tempted to wonder why it is that those same people do not see a problem with allowing Scottish Mps to vote on matters which do not relate to their own constituencies, that is also “utterly disgraceful, anti-British, unpatriotic” and “will lead inexorably to the break up of the United Kingdom”

Of course the EVoEM is an attempt to rectify the problem created by transferring powers away from Westminster to the Scotish parliament, if Jack Straw and co wish to prevent the break up of the UK perhaps they will consider taking back those powers so that all legislation passed in the UK parliament affects all of the people of the UK not just some of them.

Or they could set up an English Parliament.

Guardian

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat spokesman, on the new idea of super-Asbos

”a half-baked gimmick’ the Government is now suggesting using a system designed to deal with young tearaways to tackle international criminal rackets run by the Tony Sopranos of this world. It is based on a lazy view that the only way to fight crime is to circumvent the criminal justice system.”

Telegraph

Tim Worstall

I’m sure this will come as a surprise to the barrister who is currently our Prime Minister. There’s a reason that the standards of proof in civil and criminal cases are different. Civil cases are, for the most part, two citizens arguing with each other. The law is there, in all its Solomonic majesty, to arbitrate between the different claims.

Criminal cases are where the State, with all its might, resources, police, money, prisons and guns, deliberately attempts to take away the freedoms and liberties of an individual for transgression of the law.

That’s why we have different standards, see? Reasonable doubt in one, balance of probabilities in the other. We don’t take away those freedoms on the basis of the balance of probabilities: it took us a few hundred years to work it out but we got there in the end. Banging someone up because we think, but cannot prove, that they are a naughty boy just isn’t how to spread sweetness and light across a society. Indeed, it’s one of the attributes of an oppressive State that such could even be contemplated, let alone re-introduced into the system.

From Dennis Cooper

He may be VP of the EPP-ED, but at least this is one Tory who’s mentioned the EU Arrest Warrant.

The Scotsman

‘NatWest Three’ case shows government is failing to preserve rights of citizens

The extradition of the “NatWest Three” has rightly stirred the awareness of the public that the Labour government has no interest in preserving the rights of British citizens. It has become so obsessed with trying to protect the public from terrorist threats and kowtowing to President Bush, that it has started to oppress rather than defend.

Labour’s naturally statist and centralising tendencies mean that it is going down the dangerous road of trying to control the population to such an extent that it is systematically destroying hundreds of years of hard-won rights in a matter of months, in a futile and misdirected effort to win the so called “war on terror”.

Now, by cravenly signing up to a non-reciprocal treaty with the United States, any British citizen who has ever worked or even visited the US could be grabbed by American police and hauled over the Atlantic to face charges that they will be ill-equipped to defend.

It is immaterial whether the US Senate ratifies a reciprocal arrangement with the United Kingdom; the whole premise is wrong, and whether they are guilty or not, we should all be protesting in the street about this legislation.

We should also wake up to the fact that we have been placed in this appalling position not just with the US, but also with the entire European Union. With the establishment of the European arrest warrant, we are just as likely to be carted off to another European country as we are to the US.

Again, no proof has to be given of the alleged offence and it allows British citizens to be extradited for crimes - some of them vague and undefined (remember the UK plane spotters in Greece?) - that are not crimes in the UK. It also may lead to our citizens facing trial in other countries, some of whose legal systems operate on the presumption of guilt.

It is in this case, a reciprocal arrangement with currently seven countries out of the 25 member states, but will later expand to include all EU members, but this is cold comfort for someone trying to conduct their defence in a foreign language and within a very different legal tradition.

While I am, of course, in favour of extraditing hardcore criminals to face their accusers, the previous system meant that a prima facie case had first to be made before extradition procedures could begin.

The highest German court in July last year annulled the law of July 2004 which brought in the European arrest warrant as it held that the law applying the warrant did not respect fundamental rights and procedural guarantees and so was contrary to the German constitution.

It is a shame that the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and his colleagues are not as conscientious in the defence of British liberties as the Germans are of theirs.

STRUAN STEVENSON, MEP, Vice-president, EPP-ED group in the European Parliament, Rue Wiertz, Brussels

A war on terrorism, kidnapped soldiers, calls for defendants to be tried in their own country? Does this sound familiar? I am not referring to the “NatWest Three”, nor Guantanamo, nor even Hezbollah, but the trial of American terrorists who, on 10 June, 1772, burnt and sank the British warship, Gaspee, and took the crew prisoner.

And, what was the American response? To allow the trial to be removed to England where a hostile jury was bound to convict them? No, they went to war to uphold their right to have Americans tried by Americans and assert the right of all democratic juries to set free defendants whose only guilt was to break British tax laws. How things have changed. Is it time for a British war of independence?

MIKE HASELER, Poplar Drive, Lenzie, Dunbartonshire

Some time ago Eureferendum pointed out that there is a power battle going on at the heart of the EU between the Commision and the heads of states in the Council and that it would be a mistake to belive that the unelected Commision was the real power in the Union. (I paraphrase)

 Perhaps this is evidence of that power struggle  

Brussels anger over suggested Commission job cuts

EUpolitix reports that the European Commission has spoken out against Finnish presidency proposals to cut €56m from the Commission budget, effectively shedding 1700 Brussels jobs over the next seven years.  Helsinki also plans to scale back spending on foreign affairs, research and the communicating Europe programme.  Budget Commissioner Dalia GrybauskaitÄ— called the plan “unjustified”. Saturday’s Telegraph reported that Ed Balls, representing Gordon Brown at a meeting of EU finance ministers last week, has offered “strong support” to Finland’s proposal.

EUpolitix  Telegraph

From www.openeurope.org.uk

Sir - It is shocking that the European Commission has been able to impose a ban on New Zealand’s exports of butter to the European Union.

In view of our close historical ties with our cousins across the world, this has big historical resonance. So important is butter to the New Zealand economy that, when we were negotiating our entry to the Common Market in 1971, one of the very few sticking points on which Edward Heath was prepared to insist was the need to secure New Zealand’s right to continue exporting it to the UK.

It is shocking that we can now be prohibited from importing it. It is shocking that, as a nation, we no longer have the power to decide our own trade policy. It is shocking that it should be a British commissioner, Peter Mandelson, who has imposed the ban and that the ban arose, following a complaint from Germany, because the Commission had not done its paperwork properly.

Christopher Booker, Litton, Somerset

Telegraph Letters

Sir - While the group with which Conservative MEPs align themselves in the European Parliament is important, the more pressing issue surely has to be that roughly two thirds of all laws that take effect in this country come from Brussels, not Westminster.

It is very helpful that David Cameron allows backbench Conservative MPs to campaign freely for Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, as we believe that Britain would be much better off out of the EU.

Our prosperity depends on being able to trade freely with North America, the emerging markets of China and India and other Commonwealth countries; indeed, we built our wealth by being world traders. It is not in our interests to be part of an inward-facing, backward-looking protection racket designed to prop up inefficient EU farmers and businesses. Of course we want to trade freely with EU countries as well, but other successful countries have shown that you do not have to be in the EU to do this.

That is why we support the Better Off Out campaign run by the Freedom Association and the Campaign for an Independent Britain.

Philip Davies MP
Douglas Carswell MP
Philip Hollobone MP
Bob Spink MP
Ann Winterton MP
Sir Nicholas Winterton MP, London SW1

Telegraph Letters