eurealist.co.uk

In march An Englishman’s Castle noted that only one in Four new recruits to the Parachute Regiment are being trained to jump because of a shortage of planes. Today Documents leaked to The Sunday Telegraph reveal that no new recruits or even serving members of the Parachute Regiment or airborne forces will be trained in military parachuting from next year until 2011. The cost-cutting programme is being launched after defence chiefs warned that spiralling costs of complex equipment and the demands of military operations would create a financial “black hole” in the MoD of £868 million by the end of the next year.

Eureferendum has been saying for ages that something like this would happen because we are spending so much money on the big stuff we do not have enough left to finance the army for relatively low level operations. If I understand it correctly the big expensive complex equipment is not really going to be much use except in pitched battle situations even if it eventually works, and when it does become operational it will only be of use in operations with other EU states because the computer systems will not be able to talk to USA Forces.

The Telegraph says that Ian Andrews, the 2nd permanent undersecretary of state proposes measures including a “moratorium on recruitment” of civilian manpower and that all “existing contracts for agency or casual staff be terminated”.

Instead of flying to meetings around the world, senior officers should “encourage staff to consider video conferencing, e-mail or the telephone”.

Perhaps Tony and his clique could take the same advice and remain on British soil, at least then they might begin to appreciate that they were elected by the British people to run the British government. But then unlike the Paras and the SAS pigs might fly.

House of Lords debates

Friday, 15 December 2006

European Union (Information, etc.) Bill [HL]

Lord Dykes (Liberal Democrat) Link to this | Hansard source

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. We have just had a most important and lengthy debate on a crucial subject, to be followed by an important but comparatively very modest Bill. If I timidly suggest to noble Lords that the debate need not take too long, it is not because the subject is unimportant but because it is relatively uncontroversial. I say that as I gaze at the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, who has recently arrived in the Chamber, maybe to take part in the debate. He nods in affirmation. He is very welcome.

I hope that the Bill is uncontroversial. I remind the House that we have been members of the European Union for three decades and three years. There will be a major series of celebrations next year for the anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, to which we adhered in 1973. In those days it was a much less elaborate Community than it is now as a European Union.

Disturbingly and partly because of the often very negative newspapers in this country, which sometimes seem to have a disease of chauvinism that is very distressing to the thinking reader, the public—that includes all members of the public, not just those who follow European subjects per se—are often unaware of the many complicated details of our membership of the European Union. Under the Bill the information would be freely available in public libraries, town halls and similar public buildings, as well as in central and regional government buildings. If this legislation were enacted, access both to the paper media and to the electronic media would be enormously increased, and the learning curve would be accelerated and enhanced. I say that not as a criticism of the public, who often lead busy lives with their busy families, and who do not have the opportunity for access that should have been created and which is, I believe, available in some member states.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch (Conservative) Link to this | Hansard source

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, intimated, I am happy to support most of this Bill, although I imagine that the noble Lord and his supporters may not agree with me on what information and statistics should be published. Indeed, I must ask the noble Lord, and, perhaps, the Minister, how and by whom that information would be compiled.

I do not agree that the European flag should be compulsorily flown on public buildings and elsewhere. Will the Minister remind the House of the current status of the European flag? Is it still regarded merely as advertising, requiring a local authority licence, or has some order gone through that now makes the circle of stars official, to be flown on our buildings?

The information that the Euro-sceptic movement would like to see result from this Bill would start with the claim that the fundamental principle of our democracy—that is, the hard-won right of the British people to elect and dismiss those who make their laws—has already been betrayed by our membership of the European Union. We want to put it in front of the people that the majority of our law is now imposed by Brussels under an innately undemocratic system. We think it important to explain that system: how the unelected and corrupt bureaucracy, the Commission, has the monopoly to propose new laws, with the process taking place in secret. Then the Commission’s legislative proposals are negotiated, also in secret, by the shadowy Committee of Permanent Representatives—COREPER—bureaucrats from the nation states. Decisions are then taken in the Council of Ministers from the member states, again by secret vote, where the UK now has about 8 per cent of those votes. The treaties ordain that the resultant laws must be enacted by Parliament here, often on pain of unlimited fines in the Luxembourg court. Finally, the Commission then executes all EU legislation.

We would put at least three other features of this unfortunate system in front of the people: there is no appeal against the judgments of the Luxembourg court; once an area of national life has been ceded to control from Brussels, it cannot be returned to national parliaments; and no changes can be made to the treaties unless they are unanimously agreed by all the member states in the Council of Ministers, so renegotiation of the treaties to reclaim our democracy is not realistic—the only way out is the door.

We would also want the public to know that membership of the EU is a heavy and increasing drain on our economy. Independent analyses put that cost at anything between 4 per cent and 10 per cent of GDP. I am aware that the Government refuse to conduct a cost benefit analysis of our membership, but that situation can happily be set straight soon by a Bill that I have tabled, which I trust the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, and his friends will support in the same way that I have supported his Bill.

Finally, I want the people to be told that only 9 per cent of our economy trades with the European Union, that another 11 per cent is involved with trade with the rest of the world and that 80 per cent stays right here in the domestic economy. Yet the diktats from Brussels have to be obeyed by 100 per cent of our economy. Those are the sort of things that we would wish to be put in front of the people. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Watson, that we would also want an honest appraisal of how the constitution is moving forward illegally.