According to his Telegraph blog,a senior EU Commission official admitted to Daniel Hannan this week, that there are five countries where he and his colleagues are determined to avoid a referendum, I assume on the EU Constitution, they are Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Poland. Of course all five could and some most certain would vote against the Constitution, this would obviously create even further obstacles as they attempt to find a way round the democratic votes in France and Holland.

As it is they have been spending an inordinate amount of time and energy concocting various theories as to why their first attempt to force their Constitution failed, and then working out exactly how they are going to circumvent the democratic blockage and guard against any chance that the people might  vote the wrong way again. Whilst at the same time making sure that only those with a certain yes are allowed to proceed with the ratification process.

Now of course they are claiming that even though two countries have voted against and they stooped the process to prevent a domino effect in the rest of countries who might have voted no, thus denying us a voice, that we cannot be allowed to stand in the way of the democratic choice of the others. Of course in truth only 4 countries have allowed a referendum two vote in favour and two voted against. As it is their democracy argument stinks, the ratification of the constitution is based on the agreements made in the previous treaties which make it clear that each member Nation State must ratify before the Constitution can have legal authority. That means like it not, each member has a clear veto on treaty change, and it has absolutely nothing to do with any other member states decision, it is up to each state to decide for itself if it wishes to pass more power to the EU, if they do not they cannot be forced to do so by being compelled to accept a treaty change.   

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In the last post I suggested the reason that the EU wanted to introduce its own Charta of Fundamental Rights was had more to do with the advancement of the political powers of its own institutions than any real concern that human rights were deficient in most EU States.

In fact the introduction of the rights the EU politicians have chosen to elevate will create a greater sense of injustice in the very areas they claim we need rights in the first place. Although the Charta gives so called human rights it gives conflicting human rights. Because it is based on a particular left wing secular view of the world and grants one set of rights, it therefore demands the subjugation of other rights and these rights are contradictory. How for instance can the right of freedom of religion be equated with the right of freedom of sexual discrimination, if that is to be interpreted to mean that because every woman has the right to an abortion, every Doctor must assist her in obtaining an abortion, where every homosexual has the right to stay in any B&B even if it is owned an run by a confirmed Christian or Muslim fundamentalist.

In Britian we have over the years been gradually moving away from demanding adherence to any particular standpoint on human rights. We did after all have a revolution to settle the argument (put very simply) between the Catholic theory of divine right of kings and the realm of the Catholic church the protestant claim for the equality of all humans. Of course if you speak to a fundamentalist supporter of the Irish Free State you will get a different perspective, and it is not untrue to argue that Britian today is a revolutionary state based on the laws passed by an illegal government.

Even though all that happened a few hundred years ago it has had the sobering effect of teaching us that to challenge the basic beliefs of a group of people has a divisive affect on the community. So we have over the years been moving slowly but gradually in the direction of allowing as much freedom as possible to the individual to live their life by their chosen path as much as possible without the interference of the state or the interference of any others. This has been achieved by removing political influence and religious influence from a large sphere of human activity. Ok so a homosexual couple might not be welcome in a Catholic B&B and woman seeking an abortion might get no help from a Catholic doctor, but the state allowed both the homosexual and the abortion, so there was still choice which did not intrude on another’s conscience.

The concept of international Fundamental Rights has changed all of that, and now we are on an area we have already learned is detrimental to wellbeing of the community, an area that will set one set of claimants for rights against another set. We do not yet know exactly how this will develop, but we can already see evidence that the interpretation of those rights is forcing those with a contradicting religious conscience to make unpalatable choices. Can we therefore claim to have improved matters, I think not why for instance should a homosexual have the overriding right to demand entry into someone home just because that person runs a B&B when they know that person considers homosexuality as a sin, why would they even wish to. Of course one of the arguments put forward against these universal rights oddly emanated from homosexual hotels which now find they have open their doors to heterosexual couples.

I have exchanged views with left leaning apologists of the concept of international human rights, and have found that even those who are supposedly liberal supporters of tolerance and freedom have demonstrated an outstanding level of intolerance to the idea that religious conscience should have any place in a modern state, or in fact to the idea of religion in any form.

Of course any human right gifted by politicians can also be removed by politicians and chapter 52 of the EU`s charta of Fundamental Rights allows for just that; any right granted in the Charta can removed to “meet objectives of general interest recognised by the Union.” This is clearly a contradiction of its own terms, if a right is fundamental then it is fundamental at all times and cannot be removed in the interest of the European Union. Contrast that to concept of basic Human Rights as understood in English Common Law these rights predate political institutions and therefore cannot be removed by politicians, in fact it is the politicians duty to uphold those rights.

Thus by codifying these basic Human Rights the politicians are attempting to claim power over them and by adding Social Human Rights to the list they are diluting the power of the original rights. If they at some stage decide to remove for instance say the right to housing what is to prevent them from removing the right to freedom of religion or the right to life if they are all brought put together as if they are all equal.

Reacting to the News that the European Union has this week opened its Fundamental Rights Agency in Vienna with the stated purpose of collecting data on violations of the EU`s Charter of Fundamental Rights, provide advice to the EU and its member states and to raise public awareness.

The Times points out that many believe the agency should not have been opened because one of its core aims is to enforce the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which was explicitly adopted as legally non-binding but was then written into the EU constitution and that was voted down in France and the Netherlands so has not been ratified and can therefore have no legal standing.

But legal niceties aside, the agency now exists and will as intended take its place in enforcing the EU political aims.

The Charter itself was until the advent of the Constitution the most, explicit statement of the EU’s claim to direct legitimacy that has ever been produced. The idea being that the institutions and rights provided by the EU should in themselves provide the necessary basis for legitimate government.

There are several problems with the concept of International Human Rights, they are a direct attack on the sovereignty of the nation state, conflict with the ideals of democracy, they create tensions between different versions of human rights, create conflicts with religious doctrines, they are arbitrary applied to different states, many of the ideals are a sham and they are open to manipulation and interest-politics, and offer a disguise for power politics. The EU`s Charter of Fundamental Rights is a coup d’état, for the federalists, and by the left leaning Social Democrats who dominate the EU. They are using this document to permanently enshrine into law left-wing provisions such as the ‘right to strike’ rights to health care, education, and social and housing assistance.

The argument for the Charter runs something like this: The EU has clearly progressed beyond its initial stage of a purely voluntary association. It is an entity with strong supranational elements equipped with executive power. This is evidenced in the supranational character of the legal structure, which is supported and enhanced in particular by the European Court of Justice. In its rulings, it has long asserted the principles of supremacy and direct effect. National law gives way to Community law, and there is a need for safeguarding the rights of the citizens. Through its institutions, it forms a supranational regime with extended competencies for the ordinary man and woman in the EU

In the general scheme of the EU we have been forced to become citizen the Charter now gives us rights over and above our nation states, further diminishing our sovereignty and our choices. So the Charter process represents a very important development in the constitutionalisation of the EU.

The Charter was politically decided by those who stipulate that there must be international law to control excesses of previously sovereign national administrations, yet at the same time claims sovereignty for itself, so the Charta is an expression of EU power politics, and a maneuver to further advance the European Project. Of course quite how an external international agreement can be forced on a parliament which retains its own sovereignty is not debated, but it can only mean that the constitutional sovereignty can no longer reside in the nation states Parliament, which rather undermines Britain’s owns Parliaments assertion that it remains sovereign in all things.

As the EU seeks to turn itself into a single State, it is using common human rights standards, enforced by a central legislature and a Supreme Court, as a powerful weapon in imposing uniformity across the whole of the EU and subordinating national and local Courts and Constitutions to central rule, the Charter marks the EU as a polity with an extended sphere of competencies Giving the EU the powers to decide our rights would bring the EU Court of Justice into virtually every area of life and society.

For Britian in particular it is a very important development because the Charta curbs the power of judge made law, or English Common Law.

The growth of international law limits the principle of National Sovereignty because it forces recognition of equality of rights to non-nationals to those who have no duty to the nation state. Thus a Nation state will find it increasingly difficult to protect itself from those from outside the state who would work to destroy the nation state. This is all very fine for the EU which wishes to create a state of the regions, but it does not answer why the leaders of the nation state would wish to collude with a scheme that is specifically designed to remove the power of its citizens. It enforces a particular secular creed on nation states which are based on religious belifes forcing them to re-write their constitutions and to create laws forcing obedience to secular doctrines. In short it removes the powers of the people to choose their own rights according to their own societies norms.

This of course is why it was only ever adopted as legally non-binding and according to the EU minister of the time Keith Vas to be no more legally significant than a copy of the Beano.