Bruno Waterfield, Daily Telegraph, reports that lawyers in Brussels and New York have interpreted a move to give the EU special status in the UN general assembly as also applying to 35 committees, 5 councils or panels, 7 commissions and 14 working groups. The article contains a response from The Dummy, aka the Europe minister, who states that this ruling is a simple technical change and does not affect the UK's sovereignty, or its role elsewhere in the international system.
One would have thought that those 35 committees, 5 councils or panels, 7 commissions and 14 working groups were instrumental in the formation of foreign policy, so it is difficult to see how this ruling is just a 'technical change'.
No doubt we shall hear Hague, now reduced to his rightful status as Ashton's luggage porter, complaining that the Lisbon Treaty was entered into without any democratic legitimacy and that there is nothing he can do about it now.
Just what is the UK doing with it's continuance of membership of what is intended to be the United States of Europe. It is not as if our present day politicians were not forewarned by one of their predecessors, someone far more gifted intellectually than they will ever be.
"The relevant fact about the history of the British Isles and above all of England is its separateness in a political sense from the history of continental Europe. The English have never belonged to it and have always known that they did not belong."
The then Member of Parliament for Wolverhampton South West in a speech to The Lions' Club, Brussels (24 January, 1972), from The Common Market: Renegotiate or Come Out (Elliot Right Way Books, 1973), pp. 49-50.The fact that a referendum on membership of the EU is denied the British people is, all things considered, but the fault of the British people. One day the British people will wake up to the fact that general elections are presented to the electorate by our political elite as an opportunity to change their government, if they so wish - in reality, under our present political system, it is no more than an opportunity to decide under which slave-master they wish to continue their lives.
19 comments:
How about a tiny technical change in the election ballots. EU YES or NO.
Wouldnt cost anything. Do our politicians have the guts? How about it?
DP: Dream on........
It is truly impossible to understand our governments' (plural possessive intended) stance on Europe. On the one hand anyone who has read the EEC founding documents knows with absolute certainty that the Federated States of Europe is and always has been the ultimate intention. Anyone who has more than a passing acquaintance with any Belgian, Dutch, French, German or whatever national knows they know that is the final political aim.
There can not be a single shred of doubt about it.
On the other hand for the last 40 years our governments have assured us there will never be any possibility of a Federated States of Europe coming into being, that they will ensure the aims are changed to suit our vision of a free trade area, by working from within at the heart of Europe. OK that was just about believable if you were an unthinking idiot up until Maastrict but since then there has not been the slightest chance the 'project' can be made to change course. The very best that can be hoped for is to slow it down. The only thing that would stop it is Germany or France deciding they no longer wanted it, which isn't going to happen, or it collapses under its own weight, which admittedly is looking ever more likely.
Our governments know they can't stop it, but continue to try and slow it all down which only destroys any influence we might have had, minuscule though it would have been.
Why? Do they simply hope 'something will turn up' to tip the scales in 'our' favour? Are they just too arrogant to believe anything except their wishes will prevail? Are they playing a Machiavellian game waving the flag of opposition in our face while conniving with the Commission toward ever closer union? Are they simply so absorbed in their own fantasies they don't even recognise what is happening?
Too my horror I am tending to think the last is true.
DP: Sad to say I know, but I have for some time believed the cure to our predicament lies in the words wall, AK47 and queue.
Was it 1707 that we had the Act of Union of Scotland and England/Wales? The European Communities Act 1972 is another Act of Union.
S: True on both counts......
It's all about having a prime minister with the courage to stand in front of the other 26 leaders and saying "the party's over; Britain's leaving". I suspect we are so far in it now it is easier to just go with the flow. It would take another Churchill, Thatcher or Powell to get us out and there just isn't one.
k: Sadly I have to agree.......
If I may quote the excellent Peter Hitchens:
"We in Britain have constantly been warned that by staying out we would miss the European train - always depicted as a luxury express bound for a pleasant destination and more or less under our control.
Now, as the whistle blows, the doors are locked and the Eurotrain at last jolts out of the station, we look around us and see threadbare seats and through grimy windows glimpse an unfamiliar and unpleasant landscape, and when we ask where we are going, the crew tell us that from now on, that is their business, not ours".
k: Nice quote - must file that for future use!
It' those pesky Swiss again - part deux
Once again little Switzerland puts the EU in it's place, this time they have made it clear that they will not adopt any of the immigration laws of the EU.
This small article demonstrates just how much the Swiss politicians are respectful of the Swiss voter - in other words they are frightened of them and the power that the ordinary Swiss person has in the running of their country..
http://uppompeii1.uppompeii.com/2011/06/17/it-those-pesky-swiss-again---part-deux.aspx#Comment
WW
I have a dream..
PS
Switzerland has signed up to Schengen but yet manage to say NO to open immigration.
DP: Interesting link - thanks.
One might ask why we belong to the United Nations.
The UN is one of the most undemocratic organisations that one could imagine with its one country, one vote, arrangement. The vote of a country like Tulalu with a population of just over 10,000, counts equally with the major nations. Probably a majority of the countries are dictatorships and as far as I can see the UN achieves absolutely nothing.
If we were not a member, at least we couldn't be accused of going to war illegally unless the government somehow broke UK law! (no that I'm advocating war)
Still a little bit off topic I'm afraid, but I've just read in the Open Europe bulletin that the House of Lords have seriously watered down Cameron's "referendum lock" so that it would only cover joining the euro, a common armed force and open borders (Schengen). I was beginning to believe that the Lords were actually on the side of the people. Fat chance.
EP: Fair comment and no real disagreement here re the UN.
k: I did blog on this, including the Hansard link to the debate:
http://witteringwitney.blogspot.com/2011/06/why-we-need-to-change-our-political.html
EP
The UN is the body that oversees the IPCC. It is the prime source of the stealth taxes we are paying hidden within electricity and gas bills.
When the UN was created these little states were colonies of empires. Dissolving empires made the construct ridiculous but it was all Britain and France had left - Security Council seats to make them feel important
TT: Nice point
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