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Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu has issued a statement telling the EU that it is not amused by the EU interfering in internal Chinese’s matters. In answerer to the resolution on Tibet passed by the EU Parliament which urged European Union leaders to boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics unless the Chinese government resumes talks with the Dalai Lama.

China is resolutely opposed to and strongly indignant over the resolution, the Tibet issue completely belongs to China’s internal affairs which brooks no interference of any foreign country or international organization.

Jiang Yu said “We strongly demand the European Parliament respect facts, stop interfering into China’s internal affairs, give up provocation and antagonism, and discard double standards on human rights issues,”

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A comment on this blog has prompted me to argue against an EU wide referendum on the EU treaty, or anything else for that matter.
The EU treaty is called a treaty because it is an international agreement made between the member states, who are exercising their sovereign power.

The fact that EU treaties create a constitution of the EU and any debate about the ramifications following from the powers given to EU on our national constitution, are immaterial to the fact that calling for a referendum on a treaty from the body that is the recipient of the pooled powers, is both a waste of time and self defeating.

In the first place whether we are allowed a referendum is nothing to do with the European Union, a point confirmed more than once by the EU Propaganda Minister herself on her blog;

No doubt some readers will once again demand referenda but as I have said before that is a matter for each Member State.

Understanding that the EU is part of the decision making process when it comes to the treaties, but I would argue that they are overstepping their powers by interfering in these matters. And I would agree that the Propaganda Minister is being only legally correct when she makes her claim. As she is ignoring the interference emanating from the EU commission and the EU parliament. The EU Parliament for instance, was the first parliament to vote on and accept the EU constitution, just to get the propaganda ball rolling, they did this even though that parliament’s vote on the treaty has no relevance at all.

I recognise that that is a voice calling in the wilderness, because the EU Commission and the EU parliament are some of the main movers in the demands for more power to be invested in the EU, and the retention of the powers it already has. I know that the IGC of the heads of member states, is being conflated in the minds of many, with the Council of the European Union, and that the Council decided the details of the Lisbon treaty and mandated the IGC to agree those terms without change.

But in reality the EU itself has no legal power to force the member states to agree to anything relative to which powers they delegate to the EU. As those powers are delegated from the member state, it is a matter for internal debate and decision within the state.

So it is entirely a waste of time to build an EU wide pressure group in order to influence the EU on its constitution.

But worse than being a waste, it plays right into the hands of the federalists and helps them assuage their own desperation for a popular mandate. That is exactly what they need and all they will need to back their claim, that they have a popular mandate.

Because if the people can be persuaded to approach the EU that would be a tactic admission that we accept the EU as our government, that we accept that the EU has the right to speak for us to our own governments! we would be gifting the EU with its popular mandate.

That is why the EU Propaganda minister dismisses referenda within the nation state as being only a nationalist expression, but sees the possibility of an EU wide referenda having some benefit. The only benefit of an EU wide referendum or even individual state referenda all held at the same time, is to create a propaganda coup for the EU.

Now if you want a referendum in this country then I am behind you every step of the way.

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On this day when the Euro enthusiast are gathering to celebrate the 50th birthday of the European Project by patting themselves on the back for a job well done, whilst in the real world the real people of the European nation states have indicated in recent polls that they are not as enthused with the project as they are supposed to be. And in response to the silly 50 reasons to love the EU in the Independent this week, it occurred to me that now would be as good a time as any to post a few reasons why I oppose the EU.

1. It is undemocratic

http://www.teameurope.info/FSno1-whyundemocratic-FINAL.pdf

2. It has created a political elitist class which is increasingly insulating itself and its policies from public accountability.

3. It has removed the sovereignty of our Parliament in most areas of government power and has therefore reduced our national political debate to the few areas that are still within the remit of the people we elect, which is why the main political parties are so close on so many areas of public concern.

4. It has removed the sovereignty of British Citizens to elect and dismiss their own law makers, by passing so much power to the EU we the votes cannot choose between different policies because the political parties simply do not offer us the choice as they are bound by the EU.

5. Reduced consumer choice- with its bureaucratic mania for controlling everything it has removed choice by insisting that all products conform to it own rules. Instead of equal recognition of products to allow each state to sell into every other state the EU has defined what they may sell.

http://www.google.com/search?q=illegal+tomatoes+&hl=en&start=10&sa=N

6 Harmonisation: Reduces the available produce on the shelf- by listing only those products which may be sold and the cost of having a product enterd on the list is prohibitive. Thus we loose the richness of historic fruit and vegetable diversity and miss out on new products.

http://www.cen.eu/catweb/cwen.htm

7. Mass immigration: uncontrolled mass immigration has a detrimental effect on wages and increases the pressure on our housing transport hospitals etc.

8. REGIONALISATION: The regionalization of Britain has only taken the course it has because of EU influence trough its funding.

9. Take over of Higher education system:

SOCRATES, DELTA, REMTEX, TEMPUS and EUROCIS European Commission’s Human Capital and Mobility (HCM) programme, and funding from the Training and Mobility of Researchers (TMR) and NECTAR programmes CEMP (Creation of European Management Practice) The Jean Monnet Project CORDIS, EU-funded Academic Associations and Organisations

10. Propaganda: The EU using our money to promote its-self trying to convince us that the EU is a wonderful project to us when we do not have the choice in the first place

11. European Document Centres and high street shops in order to “promote and develop the idea of the EU as our nation state and study in the field of European Integration

12. No demos There does not exist a single group of people in respect of whom the EU could be a democracy there is not an EU wide political party, there is not an EU wide press.

13. No mandate: Even if there were or is a European demos, what is done by the Commission is not in response to any expressed or felt need of the citizens. In normal democratic politics you have occasional elections, during which time certain issues are publicly discussed. Whoever wins power has some justification for carrying out whatever programme they were proposing while trying to get elected.

14.Accounts: The EU’s accounts have not been signed off for several years by the EU s own accountants.

15. Lack of Transparency

16. ECJ partiality

The Court of Justice of the European Communities (ECJ) is not an independent court but owes a duty of loyalty to the EU Commission and has been used ion the past to extend the power of the EU beyond the agreed treaties.

17. CAP Common Agricultural Policy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Agricultural_Policy

18. CFP Common Fisheries Policy and the destruction of our fishing industry http://ec.europa.eu/fisheries/cfp_en.htm

19. “new approach” to technical harmonisation. I see the affect of this as totally ridiculous, My electricitian is about 55 years old has been to college to learn his trade and has kept himself up to date by studying the latest proposals yet he is forced to pay an inspector to check hi work for a period of six months so that he can continue in business, my previous electricitian decided he had enough and looked for another job.

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2004/11/more-hidden-integration.html

20. EU Arrest Warrant; now we can be arrested in our own home by our own police at the request of a foreign court and extradited to that courts jurisdiction without any protection from our own government even for crimes which are not recognised in Britian.

21. The Euro, although we are not a member of the euro region there is an ongoing attempt to create the Euro as the currency of the whole EU, if we remain in the EU at some stage we will have to convert to the Euro.

22. The EU Constitution, Voted down by the French and Dutch yet still in the background many EU based moves to represent it, either in is its entirety or piecemeal so that we do not get the chance of referendum. The Constitution refounds the EU as an international actor in its own right with its Constitution superior to member states Constitutions and for the first time recognises in a treaty that EU Law is superior to state law. The Berlin Declaration acknowledges the intention to refund the Union and has set a deadline goal of achieving a renewed common foundation for the European Union before the 2009 elections to the European Parliament. For we know that Europe is our common future. If we do then It would be very nice to actually have a voice!

23. Its anti Christian values : There is something fundamentally wrong with an organisation purporting to be democratic, when the view of the EU Parliament is that there is no place for the basic values of millions of its citizens.

24. Socialism; Nothing wrong with socialism but it should be recognised as only one form of political thought to place it at the heart of the constitutional settlement denies other political thought.

25. The cost of membership: The E U will cost every man, woman and child in Britain £873 this year the combined direct and indirect costs in 2007 will amount to £100,000 a minute, or £52.4 billion. Britain has given nearly £200 billion to the EU since joining what was then the EEC in 1973. Even the European Commission has admitted that excessive regulation could be costing up to 12 per cent of GDP. Put it into perspective, just £1 billion will pay for 222,000 hip replacements, or 46,893 nurses, or 38,782 teachers, or 34,585 police officers.

26. ID Cards

27. EU Passports

28. Forced Citizenship of the EU

29. Trade Deficit Before joining the EU the UK had a trading surplus with other EU countries. Today we have a visible trading loss of £100,000 million. Between 1973 - 1993 EU trade registered a £70,000 million loss.

30. Directives: It took 1368 EU Directives to create the Single Market. One directive can cost Industry £1,000,000,000 (e.g. Waste Monitoring. 94/62 - official estimate!). Such EU law is uniquely, and savagely, enforced by huge new armies of UK bureaucrats. Costs and threats of criminal sanctions ruin many small to medium sized firms. For example, 400 abattoirs (half the industry total) only serving local areas, never exporting, were forced to close! In 1973 there were 343 Regulations, 143 Directives and 194 ‘Other’ EU laws. By 1996 these figures were 3070 Regulations, 2964 Directives and 8037 ‘Others’. They bypass UK Parliamentary control using Statutory Instruments and Ministerial Orders. UK Civil Servants, “translating” EU law, always make things far worse.

31. EU Law corpus Juris

32. it can’t last

http://eureferendum2.blogspot.com/2007/03/success-of-eu.html

33. It is attempting to create an armed force I do not believe such an anti democratic organisation should control military force.

34. Massive overregulation, of just about every area of life

35. There is a distinct feeling of alienation between the people and the political leaders.

36. Federalism:

37. The break up of Great Britian as a political entity and the destruction of Britian as our nation state.

38. Lies and misdirection.

39. Fundamental Rights, I do not want the EU to gift me the right to life or the right to freedom of speech etc. Which I already have, only to retain the right to remove it in the interest of the Union.

40. Life has got much worse since we joined the Union.

41. The working time directive: I do not want a Eurocrat in Brussels to dictate how many hours I choose to work.

42. Border control immigration, it is our nation state we pay the bills and we should decide who comes to live and work in our country.

43. Turning our back on our Commonwealth friends when Britian was in dire straits in the last two world wars it was people from our Commonwealth who chose to fight for us, we traded across the globe with these countries.

44. EU Embassies and diplomatic service: The EU is not a nation state it is not my nation state and I do not want it to represent me or my country abroad, I do not want to be forced to use an EU embassy and I certainly do not want to see one in London. There is no legal power for the EU to even set up this service it was one of the proposals in the Constitution which has not been ratified.

45. EU waste management:

46. Road Pricing the Galileo space programme:

47. Rapid Reaction Force: we are spending so much on preparation for this futuristic battlefield force that we have little left to correctly supply our troops for the actions they are being asked to undertake now.

48. Pushing the secular adgenda: Conflicting values, the right to religious freedoms and the right to abortion or gay marriage are contradictory principles. By choosing to promote the secular view the EU denies its own fundamental rights.

49: No perceived limits to the power of the EU: The EU continually extends its power, cooperation in one area is deemed to require cooperation in others the Monnet Method. So an open border policy will eventually lead cooperation in criminal law because we cannot prevent even know criminals from entering the country. This is calculated to eventually lead to the creation of one nation state with one central government.

50: Treason: The crime that dare not speak its name; out ministers swear allegiance to the British state not to the EU, after all we elect them and we pay them and they could not hold their positions of power without taking the oath of allegiance. They should therefore work only for the benefit of the British state and the British people. Instead they agree to proposals in the EU forum which do not benefit the British people and they agree to pass powers away from the British parliament, and allow those we have not elected and cannot dismiss to influence our nation state.

Oh dear! David Cameron suddenly decides the Conservatives do “do the EU” after all. In a long batch of waffle in the Telegraph Mr Cameron assisted by the Prime Minister of the Czech republic sets out the Conservative vision for the future of the EU, a vision based on the formation of the new political grouping they are building in the EU Parliament the Movement for European Reform

There is nothing much to say about the Conservatives leaders thoughts on the subject that has not been said thousands of times before this does not prevent the commenters in both the Times and the Telegraph saying it.

No chance of the Tories winning the next election then!

Dream on Mr Cameron. You obviously don’t know your British history - still you wouldn’t as you’re only a boy!

I take it Cameron doesn’t want to win the election then. Most of us want out of the EU not in it in any way. I hope the people wake up and realise he is Blair MK2, he’s already been to the Bilderberg meeting,

Visitors from Mars would be bemused not only by the EU, but also by David Cameron’s policy on the EU.

Reform from the inside? We’ve been trying that for years and been ignored.

If he really is going to say these things then fair enough at least he has made a decision. That decision is one of closer EU integration, of accepting that parliament is no longer relevent and that his party will be no different to NuLab.

Maybe Mr Cameron, who incidentally isn’t a leader and may never be, seems to think that having 70% of law made by the EU and not able to be repealed by any national electorate is democracy.

Apparently the EU ‘has helped entrench democracy and stability from the Baltic to the Mediterranean‘.

An interesting point - though somewhat at odds with the fact that we are not permitted a vote on our membership of it.

The Conservatives have already had their time to change the EU, they did not change anything then and they will not do it in the future. The only way for Britain is to repudiate the EU Treaties and then celebrate Freedom and independence.

Fifty years ago the people were lied to about the European Community. They are being lied to today.

The UK has paid its dues to the EU and then some. We now have no fishing industry. We have little agriculture. Democracy is now under a set of higher powers which inch by inch take more and more power.

Oh dear, so Dave thinks he can change the EU. Since 1973, after Heath sold this country out, governments have tried to change the EU without success. All they have done is reduced our sovereignty and under Blair, made sure we pay more.

An EU to be proud of’? The only one I can think of is one which we aren’t in.

It is a scandal that 80% of British law now comes from Brussels where there is no effective power of oversight.

Not so much a vision as a blurry haze of catchwords and jibberish. There is not a single substantive policy view here, not a position or an attitude. This was clearly written by a PR, buffed by a committee, with every shred of sense or meaning ripped from it and buried in trash.

There are a lot of words here, and some loosely stated sentiment, but as usual with Mr Cameron there is a complete absence of substance.

For God’s sake how many more times do we have too suffer some Tory leader saying how he wants an EU of independant states when such a thing has never been on the agenda and never will be.

If you are against further integration and protecting of the ‘nation state” then why not simply pass a law that guarantees parliament supremecy?

This is just more Cameron tosh . When will he realise that we don’t want the EU with all its corruption and sinecures . We have enough of that in this country .

Hmm! An apparently attractive philosophy, but one with all fine phrases and no specifics - sound familiar does it?

All good - that is if it had been written 15 years ago. Cameron knows this, but apparently felt that it was time to spin a bit for the benefit of the real Conservatives. The EU has other plans and is well underway to implement the United States of Europe. It would take a Margaret Thatcher to reverse the flow.

Same tired old propaganda, these statements have been debunked so many times I can not beleive they are still trying to use them.

This ‘vision’ is just the old one dressed-up to make it palatable to the individual in each state. It is more than apparent that Dave is part of a socialist agenda by these words.

Hang on! Didn’t “Dave” trot out a
similar load of tosh a few weeks
back? What has changed
meanwhile? Talk about flogging a
dead horse!

Another new idea and a fresh leader -into the meat grinder they go! How long will it be before we hear “We’re winning the battle of ideas, no really, we’re winning the argument…” Such enthusiasm, such futility.

Building “an EU to be proud of”….an oxymoron, surely.
Thanks Dave, see you at the ballot box.

Dave, you jest surely.

There is this story in the Guardian also this from Euobserver

Socialist leader Martin Schultz is set to urge other political groups in the European Parliament to join forces and sideline the new far-right faction once it is formally confirmed next week, while calling for higher thresholds for deputies to form a new group.

The socialists have come out with an initiative to formally call their political counterparts to "keep them (the far-right group) out of decision-making" by ensuring their candidates do not get elected, the group’s spokesman told journalists on Friday (12 January).

I think socialists should accept the fact that these people have been elected, their politics might be at odds with those of the socialists, but that is what politics is supposed to be about. The conflict of ideas is the very meat of political discourse. What they seem to be suggesting is that they should be allowed to change the rules they have set up for the operation of the EU Parliament, for the benefit of their particular sect. Whether we agree with the Right Wing groups politics is not the point, many voters do, otherwise they would not have been elected in the first place. It is called democracy, and this instance characterizes one of my basic objections to European Project it is simply not democratic.

 
One could well argue that the right wing group is far more democratic than the socialists, their   priority, will be to fight any German-led attempts to revive Europe’s comatose constitution. Which has been democratically rejected by the French and the Dutch people, (the rules make it clear that all states must agree to treaty change). But the socialist led EU Parliament has decided to ignore the French and Dutch voters and is working to keep the Constitution moving forwards.

So the leader of the group is awaiting a court verdict for questioning the Holocaust, there is the argument that people should be allowed to debate anything openly and that is the basic condition for  democracy to exist, if you once start to define what can and what cannot be debated, you are defining democracy by a particular standpoint. If the situation were reversed and a law was introduced that anyone suggesting the holocaust happened should be punished, it imidiatly becomes clear that such a law is anti- free speech and anti-democratic. The truth of the holocaust does not affect the basic argument.    

 
I also do not see that the group leader awaiting a court verdict has any mileage in the state of affairs of the EU. Our own Commissioner has been dismised twice for misconduct, two or perhaps even three EU commissioners have been found guilty of misconduct,   Jacques Barrot, the EU transport commissioner has been convicted of fraud in a party funding scandal. The new leader of the EPP, the EU parliament’s biggest political group Frenchman Joseph Daul is under investigation for misuse of public funds in France. The EU President José Manuel Barroso  has some serious questions to address over his relationship with a Greek shipping tycoon whos company in receipt of large amounts of EU funding. It was only a few years ago that the whole commision resigned because of funding scandals the one person who was proved to have been misusing our taxes was eventually dismised but  still retain full pension rights, on the other hand those EU employees who point out these failures are vilified, sidelined, demoted or dismissed.   

The EU parliament is continuing to push its secular “religion” and for the destruction of the right to object because of religious conviction.

Last weeks report in The Christian Post says that clergymen across the United Kingdom have been left highly concerned by a European Union report which has recommended that clergy not be allowed a right of conscientious objection to conducting gay weddings if the Parliament (EU) decides to enact legislation permitting same sex marriages.

The EU ruling states that the rights of access to abortion, euthanasia, birth control and marriage trump the right of conscience to opt out of conducting gay weddings, The highly controversial report by the EU’s Network of Independent Experts on Human Rights said that where “euthanasia or assisted suicide are partially decriminalized, the right to religious conscientious objection, while it should be recognized to the medical doctors asked to perform euthanasia or to assist a person in committing suicide, should not be exercised in a way which leads to depriving any person from the possibility of exercising effectively his or her rights as guaranteed under the applicable legislation.”

The report also stated that the “right of access” should take precedence over the right for clergy or registrars to object to solemnizing gay weddings, where the law permitted them.

The Panel that made the ruling argued: “The right to religious conscientious objection may be invoked by an officer refusing to celebrate a marriage between two persons of the same sex or where one of the prospective spouses is a transsexual.”

It added, however, that “it would be unacceptable to allow this to result in marriage being unavailable to the couple concerned: any form of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation (as would result from the refusal to celebrate a marriage between two persons of the same sex where this institution is recognized), and any violation of the right to marry of transsexuals, should not be tolerated, and the public authorities should ensure in such circumstances that other officers will be available and willing to celebrate those unions.”

In the United Kingdom, doctors and nurses currently have the right under law to refuse to participate in abortions, while the Education Reform Act of 1988 gives parents the right to withdraw their children from worship at state-supported schools.

Clergy of the Church of England also have the right under the Gender Recognition Act 2004 to refuse to solemnize a wedding “if it is reasonably believed that the person’s gender has become the acquired gender under the Act.”

If Parliament decides to legalize same-sex weddings, clergy will, under the recommendations of the EU report, be forced to place the right of access to marriage of gay couples above their own moral convictions on the sanctity of the marriage.

My personal feelings are that homosexual couples who have committed to each other, should have the protection of rights as a couple from the state, similar to that granted to heterosexuals who are married. That a person should have the right to end their life if they wish, that a woman should have the right to abort. However I reconise that these are my personal belifs and they are not shared by everyone.

The EU rulling is about creating a new state secular religion, which says its rules trump those of other religions. We have learned to get along with peoples of other religions in the main, because we have not challenged their religious convictions, we thus have created a system which allows each of us to go their own way we do not force a Catholic to choose between the state and their religion (well not any more) because we have learned that to do so in the end leads to bloodshed.

Those in the EU Parliament should remember this and look to their histories to understand that forcing people to do something against their strongly held convictions has no future, and no place in a democratic state.

EU constitution is dead, says Dutch minister,

Federalist hopes of reviving the draft European Union constitution were snuffed out yesterday when the Dutch foreign minister, Bernard Bot, said the treaty was “dead”.

He swept away months of euphemisms and half-truths, as European leaders struggled to avoid being the first to declare an end to the constitutional project, after its rejection in referendums by French and Dutch voters.

Austria, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency for the next six months, has pledged to work on reviving the constitution.

Vienna said it would take soundings from the other 24 EU nations on how to “choreograph” its revival, in preparation for a June summit ending a year-long “pause for reflection”.

However, when Ursula Plassnik, the Austrian foreign minister, flew to The Hague to sound out the Dutch, Mr Bot poured cold water on the initiative.
Mr Bot, standing beside Mrs Plassnik, said: “We have discussed the constitution, which for the Netherlands is dead.”

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said: “Since the best that can be said about the draft constitutional treaty is that is in limbo, which is somewhere between Heaven and Hell, it is difficult to argue that it is not dead.”

One unnamed EU diplomat said: “It is hard to see any incoming French or Dutch government, in 2007, choosing to swallow the poison pill that is another referendum on the constitution, which they could easily lose.”

This is the headline news on Thursday but by Saturday we have a totally different story and one moreover which contains the answer to the federalists problems of getting each country to ratify the Constitution individually.

MEPs will next week debate a report that is aimed at salvaging the EU constitution, and forming a clear decision byt the end of 2007 on how its core parts should be ratified despite last year’s “no” votes in France and the Netherlands.

The two co-rapporteurs of the European Parliament’s constitutional affairs committee, the UK liberal Andrew Duff and the Austrian Green Johannes Voggenhuber, on Friday (13 January) joined the choir of EU leaders expressing their opinion over the fate of the text since the beginning of this year.

The MEPs described the interventions so far as “simplistic” and presented instead a report setting out a specific roadmap for the resuscitation of the constitution in a revised form.

The Duff-Voggenhuber report, on which the parliament will vote on Thursday, proposes to intensify the so-called period of reflection on the constitution, agreed by EU leaders after French and Dutch voters rejected the text in referendums last year.

According to the plan, the European Parliament will this year and next year together with national parliaments promote a series of parliamentary forums, which the MEPs hope will be echoed by a series of national debates.

The reflection period should then be “brought to an end in the second half of 2007 with a clear decision how to proceed with the constitution”.

And the kicker is…………….
After negotiations on improvements in 2008, a revised text should be put to European citizens in an EU-wide consultative referendum on the same day as the European elections in 2009.

There we have the EU`s answer to the democratic choice of the people, an EU wide Referendum will make it impossible for an individual state to veto the constitution.

Thus at a stroke undermining and reversing the French and Dutch votes and also violating the agreements made in all the previous treaties that each state would have a clear veto on any changes to the treaties.

I would suggest that as the EU Parliament wish to now unilaterally remove the power of the individual state to oppose treaty change, and as this is such an unequivocal contravention of the agreement undertaken by each state in agreeing to the original treaties, that those treaties have been broken.

The importance of this move by the EU Parliament cannot be overstated.

The Constitution sets the EU up as an independent actor, until then it is the creature of the States, it acts for the states, thus each state is still sovereign and has the right to decide or not whether it wishes to change its treaties, if it does not then no other agency can force it to do so. It was under this agreement that the EU gained power in the first place, it was this understanding that allowed each and every government to sell each treaty to their respective parliaments and or citizens.

In exactly this way we were told in 1975 that “all nine (then) member countries also agree that any changes or additions to the “Market Treaties” must be acceptable to their own governments and parliaments.

It was because we have a national veto on treaty change that our various Prime Minsters have been able to get the various acts that give the EU its powers through parliament. Would Major have sold Maastricht to the British parliament if there was ever any doubt in the minds of the MPs that they would not have the power to oppose any changes to that treaty.

Now the EU which is still, just, under the control of the states, wants to remove the sovereignty of those states to agree to changes to their own treaties.

It becomes clear exactly what Monnet meant when he said “We are not making a coalition of States, but are uniting people.” Perhaps he could have put it a little more succinctly
“We are Obliterating Nation States.”

EUSURF has just written a post about the pre-Christmas report from The EU Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights, an advisory panel to the EU. In the 40 page document they challenge the right to religious freedom if it conflicts with the European Charta of Fundamental Rights;

Their opinion considered the right to conscientious objection in light of a proposed treaty between the Vatican and Slovakia. This treaty would guarantee that Catholic hospitals and medical professionals would not be legally obligated to “perform artificial abortions, artificial or assisted fertilizations, experiments with or handling of human organs, human embryos or human sex cells, euthanasia, cloning, sterilizations, [and] acts connected with contraception.

While the Network acknowledged the right to conscientious objection,( that is nice of them) it warned that such a right was not “unlimited.” “Indeed, the right to religious conscientious objection may conflict with other rights, also recognized under international law. In such circumstances, an adequate balance must be struck between these conflicting requirements, which may not lead to one right being sacrificed to another.”

They say they are calling for a balance to be struck between the two rights, but that balance seems on further reading not to be a balance at all but rather the removal of the right to religious conscientious objection.

The opinion declares that the “right to religious conscientious objection” “should be regulated in order to ensure that, in circumstances where abortion is legal, no woman shall be deprived from having effective access to the medical service of abortion. In the view of the Network, this implies that the State concerned must ensure, first, that an effective remedy should be open to challenge any refusal to provide abortion; second, that an obligation will be imposed on the health care practitioner exercising his or her right to religious conscientious objection to refer the woman seeking abortion to another qualified health care practitioner who will agree to perform the abortion; third, that another qualified health care practitioner will be indeed available, including in rural areas or in areas which are geographically remote from the centre.”

Back to EUSURF who says

So the EU in all its wisdom, wants to force doctors to go against their most deeply held beliefs, and perform procedures that they cannot do with a clear conscience.

Two points:
1) What happened to freedom of religion?
2) Do we really want these people telling us which rights are fundamental and which are not?

The answer to the second question is; whether we want it or not; we seem to have a new set of rights; which when forced on us, will overrule and overturn a basic right to live by the dictates of your own conscience and force the new secular religion on all of us. Thus it is a direct challenge to the settled teaching of the Catholic church, not that this should come as any great surprise after the Buttiglione controversy when the EU Parliament made it quite clear that Catholic teachings had no place in the EU.

Of course we do have freedom of religion, only it must take account of the new secular religion that resides within the EU. It would seem that not only are EU laws and the EU constitution (when it comes) to be superior to state law and constitution, but the Secularism in the EU is to be superior to religious teachings.

This Is Devon from Graham BoothWE CAN’T AFFORD SUBSIDIES FOR ALL

Your columnist Kate Ironside seems to have her morals all mixed up in her recent article. If you read my speech to the EU Parliament last month its contents may straighten out her muddled thinking.

It is very tempting to offer all of Europe’s poorer regions vast subsidies, but perhaps we should remember that West Germany has already spent some EUR 900 billion trying to create a level playing field for their relatively small neighbour, East Germany. That should ring serious alarm bells, but we are turning a deaf ear. The eight eastern European countries that have already joined the EU, plus Bulgaria and Romania, have been promised g139 billion out of the total structural funds budget of g336 billion for the period 2007 to 2013.

An exhibition that the Dutch Presidency put on in Brussels last December predicted that another ten impoverished countries will join the EU by 2022. Based on Germany’s experience, the costs will be absolutely astronomical and attainable only if the big three member states - Germany, Britain and France - are prepared to impoverish themselves in the process. It is about time we scrapped this whole crazy idea and helped out those poorer countries by creating opportunities for increased trade, tourism, etc.

I can well believe that Tony Blair will agree to impoverish Britain in his quest for European popularity, but I cannot imagine Mr Chirac doing the same thing to France.

The EU is a political experiment aimed at “ever closer union” of the member states that have largely been led into the project by the political elites in each country.

Certainly as far as the UK is concerned, neither Mr Blair nor any of his predecessors has the mandate to pursue anything other than a “Common Market”, which is what we voted for in 1975.

However, as a leaked memo from the Foreign Office - AKA the Vichy Brigade - shows, the UK will drop from being 20th out of 25 in the EU handout rankings at present to being 27th out of 27 by 2007 when Bulgaria and Romania will have joined the EU. At the same time we will, under Blair’s current proposals end up paying more than 50% more than at present.

I struggle to see any moral issue of the type claimed by Kate Ironside but not specified, in this disastrous condition.

The EU is a vast confidence trick aimed at stealing sovereignty and independence from free nations and is the most immoral issue I can think of.

Perhaps Ms Ironside could develop a proper moral case for the EU? Now that would be an interesting article!

Graham Booth MEP

Paignton

Many Thanks Dr Cooper

Immunity From What?
I read a News Release on 23rd September, “Government to end Crown Immunity from Planning Controls”. The list was quite long so I will mention only that “the Crown” includes Government Departments, Her Majesty’s private estates, the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall and also part of the Palace of Westminster is Crown land too.

All this information is held on the Deputy Prime Minister’s web site where it says quite clearly, that this matter also involves the ‘devolved’ bodies and they too will proceed on a similar timetable to that in England. For him to have to admit there is a Country called “England” is a turn around indeed for the Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. Of course this takes in compulsory purchase, applying for planning permission and under the proposed changes, Crown bodies would have to pay planning fees to the planning authorities in the same way that private developers do at present. Her Majesty, to the best of my knowledge has always been open to gentle persuasion in adapting to change without draconian legislation, and because of that, I strongly believe that Crown immunity regarding Planning Controls, should stay. What does John Prescott want to turn the Palace of Westminster into, for goodness sake? Or what will happen if/when the European Union takes over control of planning regulations and compulsory purchase orders or perhaps ask your selves has it not done so already through these proposals which are to go ahead to bring us into line with the rest of the EU?

Speculation! Could there be a compulsory purchase order on Buckingham Palace? What if the EU decides it would make a good “Head Quarters” for them here in what used to be the United Kingdom? Vivid imagination?

Here is the quandary as I see it. All this comes about because of the European Union’s Directive on “Environmental Impact Assessment” in relation to Crown development. The question is, how can we allow an outside body of people to decide to remove immunity from our sovereign Lady, Queen Elizabeth II? How can Members of our Government whose sworn allegiance is to our Queen allow this to happen?

It is ironic that successive Governments have used Crown Immunity, or Parliamentary privilege to protect themselves and to exonerate themselves from any wrongdoing. Now if Crown immunity was lifted from ALL Crown properties perhaps it will strip the government of their historic defence and maybe we will get genuine open Government at last. Another question that comes to mind is, how many organisations in the EU have Immunity? No one in this Country can remove “immunity” from any EU organisation.
Friends of the Earth in Northern Ireland want to end Crown Immunity in Court and have asked the European Commission to take legal action on the issue of Water Services’ Crown Immunity. Ministers have said that the Crown Immunity will be removed in 2006 when Water Service is “Externalised”. But how many more essential services left in British hands are to be “externalised”?

There is no doubt that there is need for change and I am thinking especially when people are injured or killed when working on Crown property.

I read that, and I quote, “Crown Immunity can mean, freedom or exemption from legal proceedings. Examples include the immunity of the sovereign personally from all legal proceedings. And in brackets (see Royal Prerogative and Parliamentary privilege)”

Government Ministers now use the Royal Prerogative for and on behalf of the Crown, but it must never be used in an innovative way. In ‘today’s’ world though, we have a Prime Minister that has signed a document in which he is actually prepared to hand over that precious gift of ‘Royal Prerogative’ to the European Union. His intention was clear when he signed his name to the Treaty ESTABLISHING a Constitution for Europe. Should we remain in the EU, eventually there will be the transfer of Royal Prerogative to the Union allowing them to have “legal personality”, to “Speak for all Nation States with one voice” and in all matters.

An example of this happened in 2003 when, for the very first time the European Union made an international agreement based on both the second and the third pillar. It was an “arrest warrant” between the USA and the European Union as a whole. There was no debate in our Parliament on the Arrest Warrant and neither was it debated in the EU Parliament. For proof of that, I will quote MEP Hernández Mollar in the EU parliament, “Now that we are drafting the new Constitution for Europe, how could we justify to the citizens of Europe that agreements impinging directly on their human rights come into force without being reviewed by the European Parliament?” As these arrangements in this case appear to have been done in secrecy, it should come as a warning that all is not as open and transparent in the EU as it should be.

I read that, and I quote, “No state or international organisation may intervene in matters that fall within the domestic jurisdiction of another state. The concept of state sovereignty was outlined, among other things, in a declaration on Principles of International Law (Resolution 2625), proclaimed by General Assembly of the United Nations 1970”.

Other recent attacks on the Crown are in certain Private Members Bills, some put forward within weeks of swearing allegiance to Her Majesty in this present Parliament. The Crown Employment (Nationality) Bill. For the removal of existing nationality requirements. Yet we already have (I believe unlawfully) foreign nationals serving in our Police Force and as Magistrates- strictly against the Act of Settlement and Magna Carta.

Are these foreign nationals walking round with sub-machine guns? Protecting the Queen? Protecting our Prime Minister? In SOCA? Have they sworn TRUE allegiance to our Queen? Will it mean anything to them if they have?

There has been a Bill to separate the Head of State and Head of Church, but the Pope too is also Head of State and Head of Church, as is our Queen in the United Kingdom. Treason Felony, Act of Settlement and Parliamentary Oath Bill, to amend Section 3 of the Treason Felony Act 1848 in order to establish that it is no longer an offence to express an opinion in favour of republicanism or advocating the abolition of the Monarchy; to amend the Act of Settlement to provide that persons in communion with the Roman Catholic Church are able to succeed to the Crown; to amend the law relating to the parliamentary oath. A further proposal for the alteration of the Parliamentary Oath.

We have already had a number of Terrorism Laws, each one removes some of the long standing rights that we have enjoyed over many years and yes, they are the Rights many have given their lives for, so that we need not be ruled by others, other than by our own politicians.

Since 1997 we have had the Criminal Justice (Terrorism and conspiracy) Act 1998.
The Terrorism Act 2000,
The Anti-Terrorism Act 2001.
The Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, where for the first time in British history the Home Secretary gave himself the power to remove the British citizenship of a person born here in the UK, providing in so doing, it does not make anyone “stateless”. (As stated in international law)
The Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003,
The Extradition Act 2003,
The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (Not exactly a terrorism Act, but it sure terrified ME.
The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005,
And the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005
So many anti-Terrorism Acts yet we have never bothered to close even one the easiest borders in the EU to control, which of course is our own. This open door policy has encouraged suspected terrorists to live here and preach their evil messages of intolerance and hate to vulnerable and impressionable people, and to recruit them and train them for their cause.

Can we trust the police or Government to use terrorism laws wisely? Haven’t we seen 82 year old men manhandled and held under the Terrorism Act. We read of a 17 year old girl on her first protest march taken off, DNA taken and house searched. People stopped by police because they are wearing T-Shirts with words again the PM. And haven’t we seen an innocent young man shot dead because the police “THOUGHT” he was a terrorist?

The Blair Government is not a progressive forward looking, modernising Government, Mr Blair is destroying our Common Law Constitution so much, that he is taking us way back before 1215 and Magna Carta. And yes, we have to start fighting for those rights contained in Magna Carta and our Bill of Rights all over again. Another oppressive, intrusive piece of legislation which I place a long side of the terrorism legislation is my contribution in opposing ID Cards. Although I have forwarded objections to this bill, I will only quote one observation.

During the debates in the last Parliament, one well known Government Minister very generously explained in debate that Her Majesty would not need to have fingerprints, etc taken although other Members of the Royal Family would have to. This would mean that the next KING or Queen’s intimate details would be held on many Data Bases and could be flashed round the world with all the rest for anyone to read. I find the Ministers words demeaning, disrespectful, discourteous, and any other “disses” anyone can think of. Yet these Ministers speak of RESPECT!

Mr Blair delivered brilliantly, his speech at the recent Labour Conference but I have no idea which planet or country he was talking about because it certainly wasn’t this one. The Blair Government has succeeded in undermining the people’s trust not only in the Labour Government itself but almost accidentally, has lost the people’s trust in most politicians now. His tinkering of the electoral system, (once the envy of many countries) has left it wide open to abuse and fraud. Our Common Law Constitution has been thrown on to the bonfire of modernisation until only the ashes remain and now while we are in “a time of reflection” over the EU Constitution, the promise of a referendum on it broken, which gives the Commission time to activate many new Articles and Agencies contained in it, with his blessing. He is finishing the job Guy Fawkes started four hundred years ago.

Whether you agree or disagree with some of the private Members Bills or not, whether you agree with the removal of immunity from the Crown or not, I passionately believe that the European Union is NOT the body of people that should have a say in what our sovereign Queen Elizabeth II should or should not do and our Government should not be the monkey to jump through the hoop of their master’s command. Their sworn TRUE allegiance is to their Queen and Country. “The essence of the offence of treason lies in the violation of the allegiance owed to the Sovereign”. Our Common Law Constitution will rise again like the Phoenix out of the ashes of Blair’s ghastly legacy, for it is the people that are truly sovereign, they will indeed demand their true liberty and freedom back, and they will want and they will get, their country and the governing of it back in full.

Anne Palmer. October 2005..

by Eurealist on May 12, 2005 09:58AM (BST)

Now that the EU Parliament has voted to remove the British opt out from the Working Times Directive against the will of the duly elected British Parliament, perhaps we should consider if the agreement reached at Maastricht should be repealed in the British parliament.

This might seem to be an over the top suggestion, after all Maastricht itself has been superseded by a further treaty and we are now in the process of ratifying yet another treaty/constitution. The problem is that if agreements can be overturned by an outside agency be it the EU Commission, the Parliament or European Court of Justice then what on earth is the point of making agreements in the first place.

It was quite clear during the negotiations at Maastricht that some member states wanted to advance their dreams of a social Europe, it was also clear that Britian was not prepared for these steps to be taken and did not agree to them at all. But in order not to stand in the way of those states that wanted this policy the British agreed an opt out, thus allowing the others to go ahead but at the same time ensuring that social legislation which the British government considered placed unnecessary burdens on businesses and damaged competitiveness could not be imposed on the United Kingdom.

It is not a flight of Eusceptic fancy to suggest that Maastricht would not have not been agreed if the opt out was not forthcoming, this was clearly stated in the now famous letter from John Major to the President of the EU Commission 12 November 1996

When Major wrote

My intention in agreeing to the Protocol on Social Policy at Maascricht was to ensure that social legislation which placed unnecessary burdens on businesses and damaged competitiveness could not be imposed on the United Kingdom. The other Heads of state and Government also agreed that arrangement, without which there would have been no agreement at all at Maastricht

However, in its judgment today, the European Court of Justice has ruled that the scope of Article I 18a is much broader than the United Kingdom envisaged when the article was originally agreed, as part of the Single European Act. This appears to mean that legislation which the United Kingdom had expected would be dealt with under the Protocol can in fact be adopted under Article 118a.

That is contrary to the clear and express wishes of the United Kingdom Government1 and goes directly counter to the spirit of what we agreed at Maastricht. It is unacceptable and must be remedied.

All arguments as to the desirability of the working times directive the need for a social Europe to the side, they are not important, we are told that we must abide by our treaty agreement otherwise we risk breaking international law, the same must be true of the other party`s to that agreement, which were the other member states, in fact there is no place in this agreement for a third party the EU parliament to impose will on the member states and itself breaking international treaties, as they have done so it cannot be impossible to take the line that the agreement reached at Maastricht has been annulled by the other party`s to that agreement.

This from a new blog, to me, Democracy.me.uk

The Future is a Foreign Country

This week sees the EU Parliament host the “Third annual conference on federalism”. If you were unaware there had ever been two previous such conferences then you’re not alone
…
One of the ‘working papers’ issued to mark the occasion is ‘The European Union: A New Federative Project?’ Contrary to all of ‘New’ Labour’s lies, these federalists are not afraid to state the truth when they actively welcome the fact that the EU Constitution will strengthen their powers and thus move, ‘the European Union further away from a mere federative project into the direction of a federation. The main characteristics of this development are the following ones:

‘The name of the Treaty signalises a claim. No supranational organisation, let alone any merely international one, has hitherto called its charter a constitution. Up to present times this term has been reserved for states. By using it now for the European Union the Treaty has at least indicated that in many respects this Union has already state-like features, and it has established the further development of these features as a political programme for a federal state.’

…

The British House of Commons, British law courts, and British civil servants are still here, but they have all become agents of the European Union implementing European law. This is no accident. By creating common standards that are implemented through national institutions, Europe can take over countries without necessarily becoming a target for hostility’

Full post HERE

Eurealist Files

By Anne Palmer
Is the Treaty ESTABLISHING A Constitution for Europe, a “Treaty” or a “Constitution”?

What is a Constitution? I quote from the papers by Jean-Claude Piris, who was the Legal Advisor of the Council of the European Union and was the Legal Advisor of the intergovernmental conferences, which negotiated and adopted the Treaty of Maastricht and the Treaty of Amsterdam. He looked at Black’s Law Dictionary for the main elements of a Constitution.
• A constitution organises the government of the entity to which it applies; a Constitution prescribes the extent and manner of the exercise of sovereign powers.
• A Constitution is the absolute rule of action: any official act in breach of it is illegal (this presupposes a constitutional or supreme court)
• A Constitution frequently lists rights of the individual and guarantees their protection.
• A Constitution derives its authority from the governed and is agreed upon by the people;
• A constitution is the fundamental law of a nation of state. End of quotes.

Reading down those points, now begs the question, was our entry into the Common Market in 1972 illegal in the first place? From the reading of Hansard debates on the subject under the heading of “European Communities”, I believe it was illegal. These past few years, the ignoring of our Common Law Constitution by the Government, particularly where the British nationality is specifically mentioned for Magistrates and Police, has been ignored, yet Magna Carta, The Bill of Rights, The Act of Settlement and the Queens Coronation Oath remain the same for they cannot be altered, they are a contract between the people and the Monarch. I ask, are not these new Acts of Parliament illegal? Are they ultra vires? Can they be challenged? And can those that have fallen foul through the application of them, also challenge and overturn?

The EU Constitution is incorporated into our system by the “Treaty”, but once installed, the Constitution then takes over, in exactly the same way that using the European Communities Act to install the original Treaty of Rome, for once installed, the European Community’ laws overruled our Laws.

Some people have said that the Treaties that have gone before are “constitutional”, however, each treaty has been labelled quite clearly, a “Treaty”, the Treaty of Rome, the Treaty of Amsterdam etc. All previous European Community Treaties were developed through the usual diplomatic channels; finalised the same way and ratified by parliament (some through referendum) it has been suggested, (by the EU Parliament) for the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe, that the people should have a referendum. Even the title, makes clear that to “establish” something, is to set up something “new” “something different”. The Treaty “ESTABLISHES” a Constitution for the European Union as a whole.

By using a “Convention” that took eighteen months to come to fruition, makes the Constitution very different from all the other EU treaties. All the articles in it that gives itself authority, legal personality, etc, makes it different, it also makes very clear that “the EU Constitution, and law adopted by the Union’s institutions in exercising competences conferred upon it, shall have primacy over the law of the Member states”. There is no getting away from that. It has to be remembered also, that it IS one constitution for all its member states.
The European Union is lacking some essential elements for it to become the State it so obviously wants to become. And the United Kingdom still has not given away control of its economy, its sterling currency or reserves. But the EU Constitution will go a long way in allowing the Union to gather these elements together.
It is as a signal for the beginning of the end of the Nation States.
The dilemma of the High Court Judges and the Law Lords, the highest Judges in the land, now comes under scrutiny. As time went on our Judges must have known that their decisions would in the end destroy this County’s ability to govern itself, their decision in putting the European Union’s laws above their own country, as laid down in EU law, would remove the ability of this country’s Government from ever governing again, yet that is what they were doing, and that is what they were meant and had to do. As I see it, they had no option, they were putting into action what the politicians had bade them to do. That bidding was the acceptance of the European Union treaties, but who advised the politicians that signing these treaties would not remove sovereignty from this country? We now know the advice given to the then Edward Heath by Lord Kilmuir and I note that this advice was given to Edward Heath not to the Head of State, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

I pick out “Parliament would retain in theory the liberty to repeal the relevant Act or Acts, but I would agree with you that we must act on the assumption that entry into the Community would be irrevocable; we should therefore to accept a position where Parliament had no more power to repeal its own enactments than it has in practice to abrogate the statute of Westminster. In short, Parliament would have to transfer to the Council, or other appropriate organ of the Community, its substantive powers of legislating over the whole area of a very important field…..To confer a sovereign state’s treaty making powers on an international organisation is the first step on the road which leads by way of confederation to the fully federal state…..although the treaty-making is vested in the crown, Parliamentary sanction is required for any treaty which involves a change in the law or the imposition of taxation (to take two examples), and we cannot ratify such a treaty unless Parliament consents. But if binding treaties are to be entered into on our behalf, Parliament must surrender this function and either resign itself to becoming a rubber stamp or give the Community, in effect, the power to amend our domestic laws”. (End of quotes) The part that Her Majesty might have played in this, was not entered into. I hardly think that Edward Heath told Her Majesty, “We are going to sign this Treaty and by the time the end goal is completed, there will be no Country left for you to be Queen of”, was ever mentioned to her. After all, we are talking of honourable important influential gentlemen that WE, the people, have put into Government. Did our politicians tell us the terrible awful truth? If they could not find the guts to tell the ordinary people, I doubt very much they found the courage to tell her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Did they tell us two years after when we were asked to vote to remain in this living lie?

The politician’s of this Country entered into a Treaty which they knew from before joining, was incompatible with our Constitution. Cases proving this fact had already made this very clear. Yet still they joined. They knew also that joining the Convention on Human Rights would be incompatible with our Constitution, yet still they joined. The politician’s put their ambitions before their Country. They kept the awful truth of the situation away from the people, and I believe it was also kept away from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The arguments back and forth in the 1970’s were between the politicians in the same way that they were during the debates on citizenship (a momentous decision that affected every one of us) at Maastricht, and now in this present day, we have the same false pretences, that all is well and that the EU constitution is nothing for us to worry our little heads about.

The Cabinet Papers of 1949 released under the thirty year rule, only five years after world war two in which so many people died fighting for this country to remain free of German domination, prove beyond any shadow of doubt the true nature in what form the creation of the proposed forming of the European Community would be. Recorded in Hansard on 16th November 1966 by speaker Mr Stanley Orme MP, “At a private meeting in the House, M Spaak, who was prominent in the setting up of the Community, explained his concept of what the European Community should be and what it should entail, and his explanation sent shivers down the spines of some of my hon. Friends who are very pro-European. M Spaak’s political concept is that of many statesmen, particularly among the five, excluding France. It is a political issue which we must seriously consider. M Spaak is against the entry of neutrals. He regards the Community purely as an extension of the military based NATO., a further extension of a military alliance. I do not attribute those views to all of my hon. Friends who faviour our entry, but I know that there are many hon. Members on both sides of the House who are interested in the Community not just as an economic unit but as a political unit too. They regard it as a supranational authority of which Britain should be part.” I have read hundreds of such pages and I wonder how any politician can still hold their heads up for they should hang them in shame forever more. And “today’s” MP’s want to strip Lord Archer of his title? He at least served his sentence.

I will end with Lord Kilmuir’s warning, “I must emphasise that in my view the surrenders of sovereignty involved are serous ones and I think that as a matter of practical politics, it will not be easy to persuade Parliament or the public to accept them. I am sure that it would be a great mistake to under-estimate the force of objection to them. But these objections ought to be brought out into the open now because, if we attempt to gloss over them at this stage, those who are opposed to the whole idea of our joining the Community will certainly seize on them with more damaging affect later on”. We were not told. And I come to the conclusion that the price for remaining in and accepting the EU constitution is far too high a price to pay.

It was an absolute betrayal of all the people’s trust, it was sheer treachery then and it is absolute treachery now. The Politicians are right in one thing only. Politicians have not changed, only their names have changed, and I am left feeling very sorry that Guy Fawkes was not successful in his gunpowder plot.

“The EU Commission is conducting a consultation to receive input regarding the priorities of the next community action programme to promote active European citizenship.” The Commission has launched an online consultation to receive input from citizens and interested organisations for the next action programme aiming to promote active European citizenship.”
“The current programme runs out on 31 December 2006 having allocated 72 million euros over a three-year period.”

Which means in short the EU is going to be continuing their effort to persuade us all that the EU is a wonderful project and not only that but they are going to use our money to continue with this endeavour.

First they force us to accept EU citizenship then they force us to pay for their own propaganda to assist in our indoctrination into the benefits of that citizenship and the EU.

“The objective of the 2004-6 programme was to support bodies which actively promote European values and to foster projects whose aim is to involve citizens in discussions about the EU” This is now set to continue with the next round from 2007.

Perhaps this web site should apply as we involve citizens in the discussions about the EU, or perhaps as we don’t actively support “EU Values” that would rule us out. Unfortunately of course we do have to contribute to the EU coffers, which enables the Commision to then spend our money promoting itself and its values to the determent of our values.

These are not small insignificant amounts of our cash the EU is proposing to spend on our re-education, according to the web site of the Slovakian EU Commissioner Jan Figel who is responsible for Education, Training, Culture and Multilingualism.

Not there is anything wrong with any of these but why do we pay our own government large amounts of taxes to enable them to do these things.

There are four proposed programs with total budget for these programs alone for the 2007-2013 is just below 16 billion
Integrated Action Programme in Lifelong Learning, budget is € 13.62 billion
Youth in Action, budget is € 915 million.
Culture 2007 budget of € 408 million
MEDIA 2007 budget of € 1.055 billion

Then there is the
“The future Programme for Active European Citizenship” which supports
The Community Action Program to Support Bodies Working in the Field of Active European Citizenship
Support to non-governmental organisations and associations and federations of European interest 2005 €2,459,113.57
Support to cross-industry trade unions participating in European social dialogue 2005
€1,494,542.10
Support to Trade Unions
€5,652,708.52
Grants for Town-twinning N/A

The EU wishes to bring its citizens closer to the project
“One of the main challenges facing the European Union remains how to bring the EU closer to its citizens and have them more involved in the development of Europe. This is a huge task, requiring action on a variety of fronts and at many levels, where national and local authorities have a major competence (notably in education policies). The Commission believes however that it has a complementary role to play by proposing a specific and ambitious programme for the promotion of an active involvement of citizens in the development of Europe. This participation could take the form of a direct involvement in the political life of the Union, in particular via citizens’ organisations, or develop itself in a more indirect way, via concrete opportunities to act, share experiences, exchange ideas among citizens (individual level)”.

One could suggest that allowing free and fair elections to the EU Parliament and the wining party to form the government would go a long way to achieving their stated ends, but of course this would not guarantee the integration processes so that’s out.

We feel we are citizen of Britain because we feel we have a united foundation not because the British Government spends inordinate amounts of taxpayers money trying to get us to feel as one nation.

The EU on the other hand wants us to stop feeling British and transfer our allegiances to the EU, that is why they are going to be spending our money on a massive project to make us feel all warm and woolly about our new country, why they are going to be using money to indoctrinate our young people, why they are willing to give large handouts to any association which will help then in their project. Why, because they know that unless they can achieve this aim the union is doomed to failure because we the people who are paying into the EU coffers will eventually get fed up with them transferring our hard earned money to other countries.

The Amsterdam Treaty
There is in Article 209a, a one-line statement that “such measures shall not concern the application of national criminal law and the national administration of justice”.

The British Foreign & Commonwealth Office, during the Amsterdam treaty debate, told British MPs that it was relying entirely on this safeguard to stop Corpus Juris.

However, on 11 February 1998, in a report presented to the EU Parliament by Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, M. Bontempi, described quite clearly and exactly how they intend to get round this statement. “if the matter is disputed it will be sent for adjudication by the European Court of Justice, where Britain has no national veto”.

Now how might they actually do this to be fair “ such measures shall not concern the application of national criminal law and the national administration of justice” is pretty clear and not in the least ambivalent.