"When it came to his announcement, the Chairman of the Treasury Committee and others asked about how far the UK is now free to do as it wishes on banking regulation. The Chancellor explained that the EU was now considering the Vickers Report with a view to seeing how much the UK can do without infringing the EU’s growing mastery of financial regulation. There are queries about whether the UK is any longer able to impose its own capital requirements on banks, one of the three main recommendations of the Report." (My emphasis)Parliament maintains that it is 'sovereign', in other words having supreme, independent authority which must, surely, encapsulate the ability to decide, unhindered, the financial measures - or come to that any measure, not just financial - that it considers necessary for the good of the country. That it has to seek the approval for measures it wishes to take - and accepts measures imposed upon it, measures that cannot be altered one iota - from another body means, I would suggest, that it has suffered a 'significant' loss of power.
Perhaps our political elite need to amend the European Union Bill erasing the word 'significant' when talking about 'loss of power' and substituting one that more accurately reflects what is meant.
Just saying......................
8 comments:
We really need to get a crack team of pissed French Philosophers working on this thorny issue. At what stage does a corporeal entity (i.e a sovereign state) cease to be.
After putting up with this EU nonsense I have yet to hear a single member of the great and the good answer this basic question.
How can you exercise influence if you have ceased to exist?
Perhaps its me, has anyone ever heard a convincing answer from the EU stooges to this basic contradiction in terms?
Don't forget that the EU is implementing the Basel III agreement, which was negotiated at a global level. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_III
Effectively, the EU is the middle man, turning the Basel agreements into specific rules. This thereby conceals the true origin of the controls and the emergence of what looks very like global governance.
One wonders whether it suits the UK to have the focus on the EU, rather than reveal the darker role of totally unaccountable international agencies such as the Committee on Banking Supervision.
Richard has hit the nail squarely on the head there. Increasingly the 'legislation' required by the EU is merely the translation of UN decisions and Treaties. Amnesty International among others has frequently flouted the intent and will of Parliament and UK laws relying on "International" law as formulated in treaties we are barely even aware of and which, thanks to decisions made by our half baked judges, are now part of English Common Law and therefore binding on us.
Parliament ceased to be "sovereign" many years ago, quite possibly before the EU really got going. As Richard says, in many instances, they are now merely "middle men." The truth is that many of the laws we resent have their origins in the General Assembly of the UN and treaties drafted by that body and the various "agencies" of it.
Anon: Reasonable question.....
R: Point taken - should have mentioned that myself......
GM: Agreed, see my mea c above.
Northern Rock should have been nationalised immediately in September 2007 but the rabbits were frightened of making a decision and hid behind EU rules whereas Labour was frightened of nationalising a bank for fear of Clause IV being revived.
Lloyds TSB was not allowed to buy Northern Rock because they wanted a dowry, and there was noone left in the Treasury who could handle a banking crisis, so as Darling wrote in his memoir, they had to pull people off other jobs to create a Northern Rock Team - I know I have one of the business cards from the Treasury and it says just that
They were too chicken to make executive decisions because they are half-men, weak tacticians and frightened rabbits scared of blotting their copybook. They are totally useless in stormy seas and should stick to paddle boats on the lake
TomTom. You obviously know this subject pretty well so maybe you can answer a legitimate question for me; was Mervyn King prevented from having the Bank of England "quietly" save Northern Rock in 2007 because he had to comply with EU regulations on "openness", thus guaranteeing a run on the bank once the depositors had been informed of NR's difficulties? I had read this somewhere but haven't had any confirmation.
Better tyrants at home than in foreign lands?
Mervyn King did not have the power after Brown-Balls created FSA and split regulatory powers and the Treasury was "advised" by Shriti Vadera formerly of UBS
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