Tuesday 8 November 2011

Coup - look at this!

That our Parliament, MPs and democracy is a sham behind the facade of which the first two condone, through what can only be described as a Quisling attitude, the undermining of the third, is ironically on show today.

Item 1: Today's Order of Business in the House of Commons contains a debate the EU budget for 2014 – 2020. The European Commission has called for a 5.9% increase in 2014-2020, but the BBC reports that the Treasury has estimated this amounts to an 11% increase on current contributions, thus increasing the UK’s annual contribution to the EU by £1.4 billion. The Commons will also debate a Treasury proposal to object to the EU’s proposals on capital requirements for credit institutions and investment firms, as it proposes maximum limits and wouldn’t allow the Government to impose additional requirements on UK banks. For our 'sovereign' Parliament to spend a maximum of 1½ hours debating the first matter - plus the additional time for the second - when, whatever their decision, they cannot affect any budget increase, or any change to capital requirements, proposed by the EU Commission only bears witness to the truth of the statement contained in the first paragraph of this post.

Item 2: Ian Parker-Joseph, in his post today, also illustrates the sham that our Parliament and MPs have become when he homes in on the editorial in today's Daily Telegraph which highlights the creation of what IPJ correctly calls a Politburo. David Cameron and George Osborne have been adamant that the eurozone countries should come together to resolve their problems - and that suggestion is, I would aver, about to come back and bite them.

Not known much is the fact that the The Lisbon Treaty, in addition to expanding qualified majority voting (QMV), substituted the current voting weights in the Council with new ones based on the population sizes of the member states. These new rules are not yet in force – coming into force in November 2014 (with an option for a state to request a vote follows the old rules until April 2017 - an option the UK may well take). In addition to changing the voting weights, to the benefit of the larger more populous states, the rules also reduce the qualified majority required to pass an EU law from 71% to 65%. These two measures mean the UK will no longer be able to muster a blocking minority with the help of smaller non-eurozone states when the 17 eurozone members vote as a 'caucus', as they surely will do. Under the new rules a group of states needs votes from countries representing 65% of the EU population and the eurozone as a whole already have 66% on their own, giving them a permanent inbuilt majority.

So our self-proclaimed voices of sovereignty wasting 1½ hours of their time - although it could be said that, besides wasting all of their time, they are a complete waste of time - discussing aspects of our governance over which they have no say is indeed ironic, but at the same time extremely sad to witness.


Update: IPJ also Mary Ellen Synon who gives further proof that the EU stinks - an aroma that is now permeating our own government!

5 comments:

The Gray Monk said...

Ah, the joys of living in a "Parliamentary" democracy, one which, once elected on the "first past the post" system, is "sovereign" and therefore answerable to no one - except of course, to those to whom it has rendered itself subject to - and that doesn't mean the voter!

As for the changes in voting brought about by the Lisbon Constitution - wasn't it that wonderful Mr Blair who told us that it was nothing to worry about? That it changed and contained nothing that affected Britain's "sovereignty?" Let's face afcts, Liebor have always been a part of the International Socialist movement whose stated objective is the bring all nations and peoples under one socialist government...

Funny that, Joe Stalin wanted the same thing.

Dave, Nick and the rest of the cabinet of buffoons don't really have much choice anymore, Blair and his buddies have seen to that.

PeterCharles said...

It is essential that all these measures are properly debated, how can we possibly keep the illusion that Westminster is in control and our sovereignty intact if we don't at least pretend?

Unless UKIP as the only consistent political anti EU voice can get a MSM voice of its own and the journalists to ask politicians the 'right' questions, like why debate matters we cannot affect? none of this will ever get properly debated.

Anonymous said...

Watched some of the fauxdebate on channel 81 this afternoon.
I counted 23 MPs in attendence, the coverage didn't allow long enough on the whole house shots to get an accurate count.
Either the absent MPs can't be arsed or they know that the debate is meaningless and that Parliament is obsolete.

cosmic said...

The caucus of 17 would have power over most of ten (most of which have a commitment to join the Euro) and in any case, there's nothing to stop them cooking up treaties amongst themselves sympathetic with EU objectives anyway.

Talk about playing with a stacked deck.

TGM, The Constitution/Lisbon Treaty was all a tidying up exercise and its only purpose was to make 'Europe' work more efficiently. Peter Hain said so, and it's not as if he's the kind of bloke to B/S anyone..........

WitteringsfromWitney said...

TGM: Fair comment......

PC: Agreed

Anon: Try the Parliament tv on the internet - tends to give slightly different coverage, picture wise

c: Exactly!