eurealist.co.uk

An absolutely fantastic speech by Christopher Booker to the Bruges Group fringe meeting, at the Tory Party Conference, Bournemouth.

You can read the full speech on Eureferendum

For my money Booker should be on the main central stage in Bournemouth, the “Not the Conservative Party” really needs to hear this time and time again, until they realise that they are part of the problem and can not offer a solution, or any thing approaching a solution until they are prepared to talk about the most important aspect of British politics today.

The EU stupid!

Don’t talk about EU Dave and his school chums do not seem even capable of understanding the one main policy area where they have a stated interest the environment.

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

Like Regional Assemblies, HIPs have nothing whatsoever to do with the EU. Oh, and I saw Heath on TV a few years ago,
arguing on the same lines as Yvette Cooper, below, about metrication - it was nonsense to suggest that it had anything
to do with Brussels, because we started before we joined the EEC. Why do we keep voting for politicians who hold us in
such complete contempt that they have no qualms about feeding us on a diet of brazen lies, aka c**p, decade after
decade?

Christopher Booker Sunday Telegraph 22.01.06:

“This is a flimsy cover, however, for the real motive behind Mr Prescott’s HIP scheme - his obligation to comply with EC
directive 2002/91 requiring every home put on the market to have an “Energy Performance Certificate”, based on a formula
which measures the size of a property against recent fuel bills.”

Yvette Cooper Sunday Telegraph 29.01.06:

“The accusation that Home Information Packs are a “flimsy cover” to introduce energy performance certificates for
dwellings is pure fabrication. The Government’s intention to include an energy report in the packs was made clear six
years ago, three years prior to an EU directive requiring all homes to have energy efficiency certificates.”

Christopher Booker Sunday Telegraph 05.02.06

“Yvette Cooper denies that the need to include an energy performance certificate had anything to do with a Brussels
directive (Letters, January 29). Her officials, she says, were already discussing this three years before the directive
was issued. She omits to mention that officials in Brussels were discussing it even earlier.”

From Dennis Cooper

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.”

Christopher Booker’s Notebook
Sunday Telegraph
18th September 2005

Ministers are said to be so alarmed by the latest twist in the row over the legality of automatic penalties - the billions of pounds raised each year by parking fines, penalties for late tax returns and so forth - that they are considering emergency legislation.

This extraordinary story began with a ruling by Lord Justice Laws in the “Metric Martyrs” case that certain Acts of Parliament, such as the Bill of Rights Act 1689, are “constitutional statutes” which cannot be overridden by subsequent legislation, unless this is made “expressly clear”. It was on this point that the judge decided that the Metric Martyrs, including the late Steve Thoburn, should be found guilty.

But a central provision of the Bill of Rights is that no one can be fined except by the judgment of a court. For more than a year therefore, Neil Herron, the Metric Martyrs campaign director, has been questioning the legality of the automatic parking fines imposed by the 142 councils that operate “decriminalised” parking schemes under the 1991 Road Traffic Act, since motorists penalised under these schemes have no recourse to a court. Their only appeal is to the National Parking Adjudication Service, which is run on behalf of and financed by the councils involved, and which is anyway on record denying that it is a court of law.

Sunderland city council -which originally seized Mr Thoburn’s scales - had so many motorists using the “Bill of Rights defence” to justify non-payment of these automatic penalties that it sought legal advice. Eleanor Sharpston QC said that, since it was the intention of the 1991 Act that the Bill of Rights should be set aside, the penalties are legal.

Here, however, Miss Sharpston is impaled on a hook, because it was she who represented Sunderland in the metric case, which she only won because of Laws’s ruling; and Laws was unequivocal in saying that the Bill of Rights can only be overridden where Parliament makes this “expressly clear”.

The 1991 Act does nothing of the kind. The only way Miss Sharpston can defend her latest opinion is by rejecting the very ruling that won her the case. If she is right, the Metric Martyrs’ case should be quashed.

So many people are using the “Bill of Rights defence” to justify non-payment of automatic penalties - HM Customs has backed down more than once over refusal to pay surcharges for late VAT returns - that, according to Birmingham city council last week, Government lawyers are considering emergency legislation to override the Bill of Rights.

But, as Mr Herron points out, the Bill of Rights itself only enshrines the Declaration of Rights, which was a solemn contract between Sovereign and People, and which Parliament has no power to undo. When those Sunderland officials seized Mr Thoburn’s scales in 2000, they can little have guessed what a constitutional can of worms they were about to open.

EU Referendum is about the only place where you can get real information on the formation of the EU Army, the only other place I have seen any reference, is the Booker column in the Telegraph and Christopher Booker gets his information from the same source as Richard North, Here you can read the evidence which unequivocally points to the adoption of a “Europe first” policy on defence procurement, and a gradual, even stealthy reorganisation of British armed forces aimed at harmonising both doctrines and equipment with continental forces which are clearly set out in a “defence paper” researched and written by Dr North.

The items which have been uncovered by this investigation are completely off the scale of normal reporting which we get from the main media outlets, it is as if the major media live on a totally different planet.

It is clear that even as the evidence mounts for this ongoing defence integration that it simply cannot happen without the proper statutory instruments which allow the government to proceed.

EU referendum

“What we suspected was that, following the summit meeting between Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac in December 1998 at St. Malo - when Blair agreed to integrate Britain’s armed forces with those of the EU – there must have been a British government “directive” to the MoD telling it to adopt the new policy.

But, as we now learn, if there had been such a “directive” – and there surely must have been – this was not the primary executive instrument. This, it turns out was actually a new treaty, signed between the British government and five other nations – France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Sweden – on 27 July 2000.”

But I hear you say; this new treaty passed through parliament, the people we elect must have agreed to so what’s the problem?

”The treaty itself was signed on behalf of the UK government by the then Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, at the Farnborough Air Show, an event that was completely missed by the mainstream media and reported by specialists in the same misleading terms as the treaty title, viz: “Six European Nations sign defence industry restructuring treaty.”

“What happened then demonstrates much of what is wrong with our system of government and what passes for parliamentary scrutiny. To sign the treaty, Hoon invoked “Crown prerogative”, but it then had to be ratified. To do this, the government applied what is known as the Ponsonby Rule which simply means that the treaty is “laid” before parliament for 21 days and, in the absence of an objection, is deemed to be approved – the so-called “negative procedure”.

Read the full details and request a copy of the “defence report” EU Referendum

And what of the opposition in Parliament were they asleep, or perhaps the argument that the Tories are against further EU integration is just more misinformation.

EU Referendum looks into to this aspect as well: The dog that didn’t bark

“One of central tenets of Conservative Party policy on defence, most recently repeated in the 2005 election manifesto is that it supports European co-operation on defence but strongly believes that such co-operation should take place within the framework of Nato.

Yet, despite the dramatic intensification of European defence integration pursued by Blair’s Labour government – to which, it would seem the Conservatives are opposed in principle – the Conservative front bench has been mute on the developments which have occurred since Blair’s agreement with Chirac at St. Malo to re-energise the process.”

Last year the government held the first of a series of planned referendums on elected regional assemblies, in the area they considered the easiest target, the North East. They had hopped that getting a yes vote in one area would create a domino effect and eventually all the EU designated English regions would have their own mini parliaments dealing directly with Brussels and eventually bypassing Westminster. Thus they had planned the compleate break up of Britain as an effective political unit.

Unfortunately for them, but good for Britain, they had not counted on the opposition to these plans by a certain Neil Herron, who began to campaign vigorously against the NE elected assembly. Mr Herron facing the combined weight of the British government most of the media and Brussels backed local opposition, built up a widely supported non political affiliated movement against the EU plans. As the time grew near for the referendum a recently created Conservative backed No campaign was unaccountably selected by the governments Electorial Commision as the main opposition in the area sidelining the already existing No Campaign. And also putting a trump card into the yes campaign hands and allowing them to portray the no campaign as a conservative big business southern oriented organisation.

In the event the ground work done by Mr Herron and his team held firm and the government and the EU lost the referendum, by the biggest margin ever recorded. Completely demolishing any hope of an elected assembly, not only in the North East, but by forcing the government to shelve further planed referendums, in the rest of England. Any normally democrat would assume that this was the end of regionalisation in England, and would expect the government to accept its defeat. Not the case at all the government intent on the break of England have continued to keep the embryo regional parliaments in place, in the hope that they will eventually be able to force through their plans.

Again Mr Herron steps up to the plate as explained by Christopher Booker in the Telegraph today:

Prescott’s regional scheme is well and truly hoist on its own petard
An extraordinary impasse has arisen in the North-East, following the referendum last November in which voters threw out John Prescott’s plan for an elected regional assembly by an overwhelming margin of four-to-one. Last week the unelected North-East Assembly, made up of councillors and representatives of local bodies, announced that it was to set itself up as a limited company under a new name. The reason publicly given for this by the Assembly’s chairman, Alex Watson, was that they wished “to engage with the public better than we have done”.
What Mr Watson did not reveal was the real reason for this new policy. It is now more than a year since Neil Herron, the leader of the campaign against an elected North-East Assembly, uncovered the embarrassing fact that, since the unelected assembly was an unincorporated body, its members were personally responsible for all its financial obligations, including the contracts and pension rights of its employees. Between them they had thus unwittingly taken on liabilities amounting to millions of pounds.
Initially the assembly tried to deny this, but Mr Herron’s point was subsequently confirmed by lawyers, including those for North Tyneside council. Since this unfortunate fact came to light, the assembly has been seeking to set itself up as a limited company, in the hope of relieving its members of this burden of personal liability. But when they tried to set up the North-East Assembly as a company, they found that Mr Herron had got there first. He had already registered that name.
Worse was to come, because Mr Herron then pointed out that, under the 1985 Companies Act, for them to set up such a company would not absolve them of their existing obligations. And then Mr Herron produced his trump card. Since the councillors who were members had voted for their councils to provide the assembly with funds, they were in breach of the 1972 Local Government Act, because they had voted to give public money to a body in which they themselves had a financial interest.
So it appears that the councillors on the North-East Assembly have not only taken on a personal liability from which it is impossible for them to extricate themselves, but Mr Herron is now asking the police to investigate evidence that they also have been acting in clear breach of the law. Since it appears that similar breaches of the law have taken place in other English regions, he is also making available a set of searching questions (via neara@btconnect.com) for voters to put to their own councils.

When Mr Prescott sought to impose by stealth his scheme for elected regional governments, he could hardly have foreseen the tangled web in which it would end up being ensnared.

Eurealist :: Anything to declare, Mr Barroso?: “Anything to declare, Mr Barroso?
by Eurealist at 07:40AM (BST) on April 24, 2005 | Permanent Link | Cosmos
Telegraph | News | Christopher Booker’s notebook When it emerged last week that two EU commissioners, Peter Mandelson and José Manuel Barroso, the Commission’s Portuguese president, hadn’t declared hospitality received on the yachts of two billionaires, it was inevitable that British media attention would centre on Mr Mandelson. But far more serious are the issues raised by President Barroso’s admission that last year, just before he took office, he spent six days on the yacht of Spiros Latsis, one of the richest and most powerful businessmen in Greece. José Manuel Barroso José Manuel Barroso The previous week, all 25 commissioners had agreed that Mr Barroso’s holiday posed no conflict of interest. Yet what they may not have known was the substantial involvement of Mr Latsis’s group of banking, petroleum, engineering and construction companies in the new Athens International Airport, at £1.6 billion the most expensive airport project in Europe. This was constructed by a German company Hochtief, with the aid of nearly £900 million-worth of funding from EU taxpayers and the EU’s European Investment Bank (EIB). Although Hochtief and the Latsis group are partners in a series of part-EU-funded construction projects in Greece, the European Commission’s chief spokesman said last week that she was ‘not aware that the group had benefited from EU funding’. Even more relevant is the ongoing controversy over EU funding of the airport at Spata, near Athens, on which I reported here as long ago as March 2004, and in which it now emerges that the Latsis group has significant interests.”

The Anglo Saxon Chronicle

Christopher Booker reports in the Telegraph today, on an interesting story as to why the wife of a British citizen is unable to practice dentistry in the UK. Read the full story here

The reason given by the junior health minister Rosie Winterton; Not my fault guv, honest, “its all down to EU regulations”.

Booker concludes: In other words, here is a British minister admitting that a serious injustice has been done to two British citizens but explaining there is nothing she can do to put it right. If ministers and MPs are so happy to admit that they no longer run our country, can she explain why we should vote for them?

“Britain Back” to rule from Westminster, not “Forward” to the rule of Brussels.

Telegraph | News | Christopher Booker’s notebook

Also from Booker Diplomatic “immunity extends to Eurocrats”

We have in Britain a rule of law which states we are all equal under the law that means that everybody no matter how high they may be are subject to the law of the land. This concept of freedom is now being undermined by the EU.

What the Government describes as “a small, technical and non-controversial” Bill now being nodded through Parliament will give the equivalent of diplomatic immunity to the employees of a range of “international organisations”, mostly organs of the EU. The “privileges and immunities” it grants will be enjoyed not just by staff members of these bodies, but by all members of their families and “households”.

Although questioning of this curious Bill has been led by a tireless Eurosceptic, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, it has raised the eyebrows of even such a committed Europhile as Lord Wallace of Saltaire. He was surprised to discover that, since his wife is a director of the Robert Schuman Centre, part of the European University Institute, he will share her “immunity from domestic taxation” and other privileges, as her “dependent spouse”.

The danger of this Bill, according to Lord Wallace, is that it will create “two classes of people – those of us who are subject to domestic law and pay our taxes and parking fines, and an increasing number of people who do not”. While insisting he is a “strong supporter of the further development of the European Union”, he regards “the powers, privileges and status of the Commission and many of its agencies with mixed feelings”, fearing that “there is a real danger of a popular backlash against the emergence of this privileged elite”.

I find this fascinating, it rather goes to the heart of the basic freedoms we have always enjoyed in this country and which are being infringed by governments who feel they can remove our rights simply because they gained more votes at an election than another political party.

I have heard that several motorist have refused to pay fixed penalty notices, because they claim that the Bill of Rights 1689 is fundamental to British law and says that no one may be fined or financially penalised unless they have been convicted by a court. Lord Justice Laws pronounced that there were certain “constitutional statutes”, such as the Bill of Rights, which cannot be set aside by subsequent legislation unless this is specifically stated. 1991 Road Traffic Act could not implicitly repeal the relevant clause of the Bill of Rights, because, as Laws stated, this was a “constitutional statute”. Either the automatic penalty system was illegal; or Laws was wrong, in which case the Metric Martyrs should not have been found guilty.

Mr de Crittenden refused to pay his fine unless Sandwell took him to court. Two years later they have still not done so. If we all demanded our rights to be found guilty before accepting punishment, the courts would grind to a standstill, after all why should we allow someone to simply declare we are guilty and deciding to punish us without offering any evidence to substantiate that claim.

Telegraph | News | Christopher Booker’s notebook:

“The dilemma facing councils is stark. If they obey the law as it stands, they cannot impose parking tickets on hundreds of thousands of motorists without taking them to court. But if they do so, the court system would rapidly collapse. Furthermore the same applies to all the other official bodies that have jumped on the ‘fixed penalty’ bandwagon, such as the Inland Revenue, which imposes an automatic £100 penalty for a late tax return.”

Telegraph | News | Christopher Booker’s notebook

America rises to the challenge

There was a striking contrast between the initial American response to the tsunami catastrophe and that of the EU. Although President Bush came under fire for promising “only $35 million” (subsequently multiplied by 10), the more immediate US response was entirely practical. Two US Navy battle groups were sent from Hong Kong and Guam, fully equipped to mount a major disaster-relief operation.

These units include scores of helicopters, some of which were already yesterday searching for survivors, and landing craft capable of delivering huge quantities of supplies, particularly food and fresh water, directly to otherwise inaccessible beaches.

A fleet of the giant C-130 transport aircraft has already landed relief supplies, including 80,000 body bags, in Sumatra and Thailand. Thousands of military personnel, medical specialists among them, are on their way to Thailand, Sri Lanka and India to assist in relief operations.

Meanwhile the EU, which initially promised 3 million euros and “a visit to the areas affected… in the near future” by Louis Michel, the commissioner for humanitarian aid, plans this week to host a “donors’ conference” in Brussels to discuss what to do next. As Dr Richard North observed in his daily EU commentary (www.eureferendum. blogspot.com), “the caterers are on high alert”.

As we enter Election year, when the British political parties will be putting out their hand carts to display their policy offerings for the discerning voter, and as the media begins to fill up with press releases and discussions on which party leader, or which policy will be best for Britain in the next five years.

As they rush around from one TV studio to another in an attempt to get their own message out to the voters in time for the six o’clock news, these British politicians know that without our vote they are no longer relevant, they a non persons, as far as the British Politics is concerned, unless of course they happen to be members of that a select elite who seem, no matter what the voters do, to be placed in position of power by those we do elect, the likes of Christopher Pattern who since being ejected as the sitting MP for Bath, has gone from one public paid top job to another finally ending up in the House of Lords with a nice big EU pension.

All of these politicos have one thing in common, and that is they are all playing their own part in a great charade, they all know that to take part in the game they must first secure our vote, this is the entry card that all must posses, and to gain that pass they must appeal to the real sovereign power, the people, every cross we place on the ballot paper in the privacy of the voting booth plays its part in the big sham. We all know who these people are what they have or have not done, which great positions of power they have held,the Tony Blair’s and the Michael Howard’s of this world are the recognised front men in the big debate, but Christopher Booker is asking us to pause for one moment, to stand back and look at who will really have the power to run this country, when the election has produces a winner, the media circus has left town and the dust has settled, he has a wish that in 2005 that we got a little more clued up as to who really runs the show.

Do you recognise your rulers?

How many of these faces of our government can you identify? A New Year resolution for 2005 might be for us all to recognise just where the government of our country now lies. If government is measured by who has the power to put forward the laws which rule our lives, then to a great extent our rulers are not Tony Blair and John Prescott but the 25 commissioners of the European Union. There are few people in Britain who have even heard of most of these commissioners.

It is astonishing how much power these anonymous officials now exercise, over ever more areas of our national life. Even the Cabinet Office website admits that “around half of all legislation with a significant impact on business, charities or the voluntary sector now originates in Europe”.

The true proportion is probably much higher. In the coming year, hundreds of new laws will come into force, costing us billions of pounds, over which our elected representatives in Westminster will have no influence whatever.

On paper, for instance, Margaret Beckett is one of our most powerful ministers, presiding over the environment, agriculture and fisheries. Yet in reality she exercises far less power than Stavros Dimas, the Greek environment commissioner, who alone has the right to initiate any environment laws – for example, those which produced the notorious “fridge mountain”, or last summer’s reduction in the UK’s landfill sites for hazardous waste from 218 to 10.

Britain’s fishing waters are now run by Joe Borg from Malta, our farming policy by Mariann Fischer Boel, a Danish farmer’s wife. In terms of real power, our energy minister is now Andris Piebalgs, a Latvian former Communist.

Other former Communists on the commission include Laszlo Kovacs, the Hungarian in charge of taxation, and Dalia Grybuskaite, a Latvian educated in Leningrad in Soviet times, now in charge of the EU budget.

Nothing better brought home how little all this is understood in Britain than coverage of l’affaire Barrot, which blew up around the commission’s vice-president, who had been convicted of illegally manipulating party funds in France. Even a senior Conservative MEP, Caroline Jackson, claimed that Jacques Barrot only occupied “the humble post of transport commissioner”. In fact his portfolio could scarcely wield more power.
Commissioner Barrot has control over all aviation policy in the EU. He presides over road safety policy, not least through the Galileo satellite programme, which will be used to run road tolls, congestion charging and even speed limiters on vehicles. He will be in charge of the EU’s proposed Railways Agency. He is also responsible for the Trans European Network scheme, supervising the spending of £400 billion by national governments, the most costly single investment programme the EU has ever undertaken,
Still the doings of our EU government are reported as “foreign news” and we go on pretending that our country is run by Tony Blair and John Prescott. It is time in 2005 that we got a little more clued up as to who really runs the show.

Christopher Booker in the Telegraph has a section about the restructuring of the British Army into new regiment formations of 1500, men thus destroying the traditional British and Scotish regiments.
Also they are eventually to be equipped with electronically-linked vehicles known collectively as the Future Rapid Effects System (FRES).

The reason we are not being told is because Mr Hoon last April agreed with his European colleagues that the EU should be able to deploy “battle-groups” of 1,500 men in international danger zones. The guiding principle behind Mr Hoon’s controversial restructuring of our Army is to make it compatible with the EU’s new defence force. Furthermore, since the Army will be equipped with FRES, it will no longer be able to work alongside US forces – which are planning a totally different system – but only with fellow members of the EU.

This has been fully discussed in several posts on Eureferendum which details of the likely horrendous costs of the FRES and explains that this system is not even off the drawing board, however it is supposed to up and running in 2 years time.

But the most interesting point Mr Booker makes is that “The Tory front bench was well aware of all this last week, but the word had gone out from their chief defence spokesman, Nicholas Soames, that it was not to be mentioned, because the party does not want the debate on Britain’s defences to become a potentially divisive Euro-row. Thus, without the usual White Paper, our most significant defence policy decisions for decades are taken behind the scenes, for reasons not even Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition is prepared to reveal.”

When our political parties get together in this way and purposefully keep what they are doing a secret behind closed doors, it is clear evidence that none of them are prepared to take a stand for democracy, but like the European Union itself, they will all shout from the rooftops that they have a democratic mandate from the people.

We the people need to remind ourselves that, if there is no choice there can be democracy, and when we have done that, we need to remind those whom we elect to represent our views that we want democracy returned to our government. There is only one way to do that, because they quite obviously will not listen, and that is to vote against any party or any candidate that refuses to openly discus the ramification of Britain’s membership of the EU, because no matter what these cretins would like us to believe without our vote they are nothing.

Telegraph | News | Christopher Booker’s Notebook:

Christopher Booker in the Telegraph asks the question who will arrest the “Who arrests the Prime Minister for this crime? A rather outrageous suggestion one may think, but one that is very much in the thoughts of many of us, as we see our politicians continually breaking, not only the British Constitution but even the laws they themselves made.

If we simply allow our rulers to rule with no respect for the law, then we are well on the way to tyranny. Someone, I forget who said that it is the electorate that keeps an MP honest, and the knowledge that they can be voted out of office at the next election, but I would disagree with that. In these days the top ones in the club all stick together and look after themselves, just look at the last two EU commissioners both now safely ensconced in the House of Lords, with their big fat pensions paid for by the tax payer, both of them were soundly rejected by the British electorate. Their rejection can only be view as a step in their career advancement certainly not something to be afraid of and certainly not something to keep them honest. The only way to keep politicians honest is to make them obey the law it is the law which must be upheld at all times by all members of parliament and every person who is in a position of power in this country.

The crime in particular that Christopher Booker is referring is the “extraordinary anomaly which arose during the referendum on a regional assembly for the North-East.

It may seem ridiculous, but if politicians are allowed openly to break their own laws, does it not become a rather serious matter?

Richard North at EU referendum points to Lord Pearson`s latest document which is called What is the point of the European Union? Dr North says it is a “brief summary of our relationship with ‘Brussels’ including the case for the United Kingdom to leave the EU, and the case to stay”.

I must admit that I had not read the document, but now I have and I found it a clear and concise evaluation of the case against the EU written in a light-hearted and easy to understand language it is well worth reading.

Dr North explains that “Lord Pearson enumerates the various aspects of the whole project and Britain’s involvement in it, attempts to calculate its financial cost on the basis of Ian Milne’s pamphlet A Cost Too Far?, and merely analyzes the price this country has paid in lost freedom, democracy and the lesser matters of economic competitiveness”

He also mentions a couple of jokes but I found that the whole document was written in a cheerful manner here are just a few gems.

“Please don’t be fooled by the propaganda which says that Parliament can scrutinise and debate EU legislation. Indeed we do, until the cows come home, but we cannot change a comma of it unless that change is unanimously agreed by all the Member States in the Council of Ministers”.

“The Project re-emerged after the Second War and its fundamental idea was (and, believe it or not, still is), that nation states were responsible for the carnage of two World Wars. They must therefore be emasculated, and diluted into a supra-national state, run by a Commission of wise and honest technocrats”.

“Anyone who doubts this should read a brilliant book by Christopher Booker and Richard North, entitled The Great Deception, and published by Continuum Books, which reveals the detailed history of how the people have been misled. The authors have unearthed several internal Foreign Office memos under the 30-year rule. There is one beauty from a senior civil servant in 1971 to a colleague, along the lines of: “Of course this is the end of British democracy as we have known it, but if it is properly handled the people won’t know what’s happened until the end of the century. With any luck, old boy, by then I’ll be dead.”

“It has always been essential to keep the true nature of the Project from the British people. They have to be slowly sucked into the embrace of the corrupt octopus, until it is too late to escape. That is the very essence of the Project, and I hope you will agree it is working pretty well”.

The real North East No Campaign is keeping up the pressure on the government which seem incapable of obeying even its own electoral rules.

Tony Blair is so frightened of loosing the first of his referendums on regional assemblies, that with only a few weeks to go before the people have a chance to decide the issue, he is sending in the big guns to bolster flagging support for Professor John Tomaney`s Labour backed Yes campaign. But as picked up by Christopher Booker in the Telegraph, by doing so he is breaking the rules for a fair referendum. As the body which is supposed to oversee the parties do not break the rules (the Electorial Commision) seem to be sitting on their hands, the job is being left to the NESN Campaign.

From the NENC Website

“Who paid for the Ministers to speak as Labour Party Members?”

If the Electoral Commission will not do their job and ask the difficult questions of the ODPM, then we will. We may have to go back down the legal route again, but it is important that this is exposed in advance of any referendum on the European Constitution. The rules MUST be clear, and since the Electoral Commission is spineless and useless, it is down to members of the public.
The ODPM, because there is a referendum very imminent have a duty to respond within 24 hours, especially as we are a Permitted Participant in the referendum.

Below is a link to the e-mail sent Friday afternoon.

E-mail from Neil Herron to Jessica Matthew
Regional Assembly Division
ODPM:

Christopher Booker’s Notebook: “Prescott flouts democratic rule

John Prescott is so keen to secure a Yes vote in next month’s referendum on an elected regional assembly for the North-East that, last week, he and two other ministers, Gordon Brown and Peter Hain, were out on the campaign trail. (As Mr Brown put it in Newcastle, ‘I believe that a Yes vote would be good for the people and the businesses in the North-East.’)

On Thursday Neil Herron of the North-East No campaign lodged an official complaint with the Electoral Commission. He pointed out that the politicians’ visit was in clear breach of the Referendums Act 2000, which rules that Ministers of the Crown may not actively campaign to promote a specific result within 28 days of the start of polling in a referendum. At the same time he asked the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to explain why ministers appeared to be breaking the law.

He was told that they were not campaigning in their capacity as Deputy Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House, but simply as Labour MPs (although this was not how their presence in the North-East was reported). When Mr Herron asked whether they had used ministerial transport to travel to the North-East, no explanation was forthcoming.

Perhaps the Electoral Commission, which has a statutory duty to ensure that the law is observed, would like to investigate, with a view to possible prosecution?”

And then again perhaps they would not?

Telegraph | News | Christopher Booker’s Notebook: “The invisible official campaign”

With only a month to go before the North-East’s referendum on an elected regional assembly, the disastrous result for the Conservatives at the Hartlepool by-election again highlights the curious decision by the Electoral Commission to designate as the official ‘No’ campaign a group known as ‘North-East Says No’ (Nesno), run by the Tories.

Last week Neil Herron of the rival and long-established ‘North-East No’ campaign - which, to the surprise of local people, did not get the designation - received a telephone call from the Electoral Commission in London. The caller had been told to travel north to hand over the commission’s cheque for �100,000. He had searched for ‘Nesno’ on the internet but all the resulting references had led him to Mr Herron’s ‘North-East No’ campaign. So could he please be told how to contact the now-official ‘No’ campaign?

Mr Herron naturally obliged. But many people would like to know how the Electoral Commission came to give taxpayers’ money to an organisation so inept that it offers John Prescott his only hope of winning the November 4 referendum - and so obscure that even the commission has difficulty in finding it.”

A Little Local Difficulty
Here
I make no apologies for returning to this subject it is a subject of vital national importance. When a commission set up by the government to supposedly act independently have this much power to direct the outcome of a referendum, in a way that supports just one side, we should all be very concerned to ensure that they are in fact independent and are not just a front to push government policy.

The Electorial commission has been asked to explain the reasons it decided to award £100,000 pounds of public money to the Tory backed NESNO group (which is actually in favour of an assembly but feels it needs greater powers) and ignored the real no campaign that had already been established and was the only group actively campaigning with success against the North East assembly the only response was silence.

Then Christopher Booker in the Telegraph mentioned that “the Electoral Commissioners overruled the advice of officials in taking the decision to designate the lead campaign organisation for the “No” side, “in a way that plays into the hands of Government”

Which of course it does. Firstly because NESNO is a Tory backed group, and this has allowed the government to play the party card, as they did in the Welsh referendum. The deputy Prime minister was at it yesterday, portraying the debate along party lines. By making it a party dispute in an area of the country where the Tories do not have good support plays directly into the hands of the government, and the Electorial Commission were well aware of this fact before they made their decision to reject the broadly based group in favour of NESNO.

The other reason it plays into the governments hands is because the NESNO group are in fact in favour of an elected assembly in principal, and are only saying no because they believe the proposed assembly will not have enough powers; when you consider the present leader of the Conservatives was instrumental in setting up the assemblies in the first place this should come as no surprise.

The chairman of the Electoral Commission, Sam Younger, after choosing not to officially explain the reasons behind the decision has been stung into replying to the Booker comment….

Sir,
In his article on the proposed regional government for the North East, Christopher Booker suggests that the Electoral Commissioners overruled the advice of officials in taking the decision to designate the lead campaign organisation for the “No” side, “in a way that plays into the hands of Government” (News, Sept 19).

It had in fact been agreed before the referendum period that the commissioners would take that decision independently of staff, and no advice was therefore provided.

All information submitted by the potential designated organisations was given directly to commissioners. In the view of the commissioners, North East Says No Ltd represented to the greatest extent those campaigning for a “No” outcome.
From:
Sam Younger, Chairman,
The Electoral Commission,
London SW1

This of course opens up a new can of questions,

1. Who made the decision that the five members of the Electorial Commission would make their decision only on information submitted in the actual applications and the officials would be ignored?

2. When was this decision made?

3. Was the north east no campaign informed of the decision?

4. If the commission were going to take independent action, then why send their own officials to the north east to gather information?

5. Why did Doug Stewart, Head of Referendums say that there was no need to submit voluminous records of coverage in the press because the referendum team had already prepared all this for the Commissioners?

6. As Sam Younger is now claiming they made their decision independently, on what information was that based on, none of the claimants were interviewed, and as above at (5) the information the teams had collected, was supposed to be used in the decision making process, otherwise it would have been a pointless exercise collecting that information in the first place.

Perhaps Mr Younger would now like to back up his statement, with some facts that will explain the inconstancies of his argument. He might for instance also like to explain how it was that NESNO the BBC and John Prescott’s office knew of the decision 5 days before it was made, and what influence the Deputy Prime Minister had on the decision.

This is not just a little local difficulty the Electorial Commission will be involved with selecting the No groups for the other 7 regional referendums. So their working methods have got to be seen as completely above board and clearly based on correct information.

Of course the commission will also be involved in the Referendum for the EU Constitution, and if they are going to make “independent” decisions that play into the governments hands, then it is best we know that now, so the people can be informed that they are not independent but are in fact working as part of the government’s machine to force both regionalisation and the EU Constitution on an unwilling public.

The Booker comment
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/09/19/nbook19.xml