Ireland's 2nd Refererendum and Ever Closer Union

Guido is reporting that the EU has persuaded Ireland to have a new referendum in his own, inimical, style (my emphasis):

Reports from Brussels coming in suggest that Ireland's political elite are allowing their arms to be twisted by the EU into ignoring the "No!" vote in the referendum and having another one. This comes as absolutely no surprise - the undemocratic nature of the EU project has always been manifest. It has a semblance of voting but the outcome is as pre-determined as a Soviet-era party congress. On the rare occasions when the project comes off the rails, nothing, not even the will of the people will stop it.

Irish citizens were the only people in Europe allowed to express their democratic will. They said "NO!" The EU's dirty ratifiers won't accept that answer.

The BBC reports it a bit more sedately, pointing out that Ireland is seeking legally binding bribes assurances:

The mechanism for a second referendum is included in draft conclusions which are being presented by the current holders of the EU presidency, France, and which have been seen by the BBC.

According to the draft, the Irish government says "it is committed to seeking ratification" of the Lisbon Treaty by the end of October 2009.

What Guido misses and the BBC don't want to tell us that it is always inevitable that any country that rejects anything the slows down the integration of the EU will have to vote again and again until they get it right. There will be some tinkering for the sake of "face" but no Government can object and say No means No because membership of the EU obliges them to work towards "ever closer union".

The Treaty establishing the EEC calls for it as part of membership:

OBJECTIVES

After the failure of the EDC, the economy, which was less subject to national resistance than other areas, became the focus of consensus in the field of supranational cooperation. The establishment of the EEC and the creation of the Common Market had two objectives. The first was to transform the conditions of trade and manufacture on the territory of the Community. The second, more political, saw the EEC as a contribution towards the functional construction of a political Europe and constituted a step towards the closer unification of Europe.

In the preamble, the signatories of the Treaty declare that:

"- determined to lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe,

This is why Maggie always ended up losing and no matter what our politicians promise us they can't stop it. They can promise referendums in order to help win elections but they are meaningless waffle.

Although I voted to join the EC in 1975 I quickly became aware that something was wrong, but just put it down to empire building politicians and bureaucrats. I voted Tory partly because I thought that they could tame the worst excesses of the EC/EEC/EU only to see them embrace the EU.

It wasn't until I heard someone mention this ever closer union following the French No in their Constitution Referendum that I realised what was going on: we have been hoodwinked, conned or whatever phrase you prefer, into a position where we can't block the "progress" towards a United States of Europe. We were promised this wouldn't happen in 1975, they lied.

It is for this reason that I have moved from being a skeptic but accepting staying in and changing from the inside to outright hostility and a belief that we need to get out, immediately. I shall be voting, but not joining, UKIP at next summer's EU elections.

Those safe, conservative, European banks.

You know how we are always being lectured about how good europe is and how they don't go for this raw Anglo-Saxon capitalism. Well, it seems those good Europeans banks haven't been as safe and conservative as they would have us believe. According to this week's Economist:

Outside Wall Street US banks have lent 96c for every £1 deposited.
European banks have lent 1.4Euro for evry Euro deposited.

That doesn't sound very safe and conservative to me.

How can anyone doubt the evil consequences of the EU?

As it is always at the last moment that we get to hear about the flood of new laws from our masters in the EU in which they slip through some innocent looking but ultimately totalitarian laws and regulations. In this case we have a new Telecoms Packet being voted on today:

"The current fragmentation hinders investment and is detrimental to consumers and operators," says the EU document laying out the proposals.

What? We’ve gone from SFA to the Internet and WWW (yes, they are different) in less than 20 years without the help of single politicians, despite Al Gore’s erroneous claims, without their help, and now they want in on the act and the outcome is likely to be more wasted money. But this isn’t the problem, no, behind this innocent looking ideal is something quite sinister [my emphasis]:

Among the amendments are calls to enact a Europe-wide "three strikes" law. This would see users banned from the web if they fail to heed three warnings that they are suspected of putting copyrighted works on file-sharing networks.

Note that – suspected – not proven guilty, not even charged, just that some bureaucrat somewhere thinks you might be file sharing. It is very easy to suspect someone of file sharing, you just ask an ISP for a list of their top 10% highest users by data transfer and point the finger at them. You’d be surprised how much data people transfer nowadays, 100’s of gigabytes per month is not unusual.

So now we have the evil empire banning people from the web on the grounds that they transfer more data than everyone else and there is nothing they can do about it. No charge, no habeas corpus, no presumption of innocence, just bureaucratic sanction.

But that’s not the end. Having given themselves the power to ban people from the web they will control those who they permit to use it:

In addition it bestows powers on governments to decide which programs can be "lawfully" used on the internet.

Yes, the PC inspectors will be out in force making sure you have only approved software and that it hasn’t been modified. No doubt at some point they will pick up powers that give them unrestricted access to your premises to make sure, probably by bringing it under Revenue and Customs jurisdiction.

Why are they doing this? Apart from their inherent need to control every aspect of our lives and the way we think:

But, say digital rights campaigners, anti-piracy lobbyists have hijacked the telecoms laws and tabled amendments that turn dry proposals on industry reform into an assault on the freedom of net users.

The great alignment of vested interests and politicians strikes again and, as always, it’s never in our interest that they collude. I wonder how many boondoggles it took to get the legislation changed.

And how much will this cost? Why should they care, it isn’t their money after all.
H/T Devils Kitchen who makes the very salient point:

And, the key thing to remember is that, if this is passed, you can throw out every, single British government from now to kingdom come and this EU law will still apply.

If any Europhile can show how this is in my best interests or even needed I will make a £100 donation to their favourite, non-political, charity.

MP's mistake, our fault

I often joke with my team when something has gone wrong that its my mistake, their fault. It seems that Gordon is taking this literally:

Britons must stop wasting food in an effort to help combat rising living costs, Gordon Brown has said as he travelled to the G8 summit in Japan.

The PM said "unnecessary" purchases were contributing to price rises, and urged people to plan meals in advance and store food properly.

Something is going on and it isn't our fault. People didn't wake up last year and think that it would be a good idea to use their hard earned cash, well the bit that's left after confiscatory levels of taxes imposed on us,to buy more food and then throw it down the drain. That we waste food I don't dispute, but it isn't new.

Furthermore, we haven't suddenly found a couple of extra billion human beings to feed, let alone start to divert extra food to the poor and starving in the third world.

No, this problem is the direct consequence of the feeble minded thinking of our elected politicians*. They are the ones who set unproven biofuel targets without thinking about the consequences:

An internal report put together by the World Bank and leaked to the Guardian claims that biofuels may be responsible for up to 75 percent of recent rises in food prices.

We pay these people a lot of money and they spend even more on expensive consultants and they still can't work out that switching land from production from food production to fuel will cause a shortage in food.

And their response to this problem:

The EU says it will stick with proposals to expand the use of biofuels despite claims that the switch to green fuels is contributing to escalating world food prices and social unrest.

And of course we all know the reason for this Ostrich response - the great God, Global Warming. I won't there with this post, suffice to say that the scientific consensus is less than solid.




*I suppose the fact we elected them does imply some responsibility

The things we regret

There is a saying that at the end of your life you only regret the things you didn't do. Well there is one thing I did as an 18 year old that I suspect will regret to my dying day. Whats more, I am reminded it at just about every turn of a current affairs story, blog or page in the dead tree press.

Yes folks, in 1975 I voted yes. It was was my first election and I was seduced because all the great and the good were pushing the yes vote:

During the campaign, virtually all the mainstream national British press supported the "Yes" campaign. The communist Morning Star was the only notable national daily to back the "No" campaign.

The only notable person against was Tony Benn and even then I thought he was an odd ball. (I have grown a grudging admiration for his principled positions over the years, even though I think he's on the barmy end of wrong with most of them, but thats a different story.)

As we were going on exercise I even got to vote a week early, brilliant, it made me so proud.

Today my remindr of that mistake come from Trixy, via Tim Worstall:

I have, once again, been thrown out of the hemicycle because I am a girl who is not pro the EU.

I had the pass to get in there, I was sitting quietly at my seat, camera in a bag when a Huissier came across and told me to get out. He put his hand over my lense and told me I wasn't allowed in the chamber. I ignored him because I don't like to be bullied by fascists. He carried on trying to tell me that I was not allowed in there and then tried to break my camera. I was filming him saying this. Then he grabbed me and made me move. As I walked off I told him that this was supposed to be a democracy.

He tried to stop me going to the MEPs who had asked me to be in there and forcibly tried to stop me. I pushed past him and gave my camera to Nigel Farage. He then stood on my pashmina to stop me going anywhere, but I tugged it from under he cheap, plastic unpolished shoes. As he frogmarched me out, he stole the badge which belongs to the group. I asked him one again, how is this a democracy. He said it is, which is why I can throw you out. To which I replied, Dictatorship might start with a D but that's where the similarity ends. Then I asked for the bully's name. He asked what mine was, so I told him. He then refused to tell me his. His colleague came along and said, you don't have a hemicycle badge so you have to get out. I asked for the badge back, but they denied knowing anything about it.

So I have been listening to the speeches made on the computer in my office. I am, not surprised by what they said, they are EU nationalists who will stop at nothing. Some of them even had the audacity to say that one of our Irish MEPs did not represent the people of Ireland because she campaigned on the NO side.

Now, can anyone tell me why Labour, the Lib Dems, the Tories and the Greens want to be part of this organisation? An organisation which bends its own rules, which states that the voice of the few people who were allowed a referendum should be ignored?

This is the third time in four years I have been bullied and pushed around by Parliament security, who are authorised to do so by the President of the Parliament.

No, we can't just ignore them as we have been ignored. We have to leave the EU. You can't reform it, it doesn't want to be reformed. Did Stalinist Russia want to be reformed? No.

Wake up.

To make matters worse, The Great Wiseone voted against and necer tires of letting me know whenever a story of EU stupidty, intrusion of near fascist decision is reported by the MSM.

EU Leaders Confirm Their Incompetence

I would like to add my thanks to the Irish for showing their good sense; not only have they rejected this Constitution by any other name, they have further exposed the incompetence of the self selecting political class that govern us.

Having put all that effort, and our money, in to coming up with a plan for Europe they couldn't be bothered to consider risk management and have a contingency if something went wrong:

European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said 18 member states had already approved the treaty, and "the remaining ratifications should continue to take their course". But before the vote he had warned that "there is no Plan B".

Those of us in the real world who have to come up with plans and strategies have to think through all risks and mitigation steps. If we don't and the project fails at the first hurdle we would, quite rightly, have our competence questioned. If we didn't have a good explanation we would be out on our arses.

But not this lot, they'll just go for anther boondoggle, change a few words and start again without a hint of embarrassment. They will tell themselves it wasn't their fault, it is us plebs who are too thick to understand the greater cause, it was the fault of the Irish "yes" campaigners because they didn't explain well enough; anything but look at the real reasons. It will never enter their heads that there is an ever growing body of opinion that is fed up with their arrogant, corrupt, leadership and that we don't want their socialist claptrap which has been proven to be a failure so many times.

Lets leave now

Daniel Hannan on Today

Much has been said about Daniel Hannan's spat with EPP and EU Parliament, with Devil's Kitchen being amongst the cheer leaders, so I don't intend to comment further on the case itself. My ire is aimed at those imbeciles on the Today program when they interviewed him.

What little democracy there was in the EU Parliament is being stripped away on the whim of one person because they don't like being asked to justify their votes. Furthermore, the EU Constitution Lisbon Treaty is being rammed through against the wishes of the vast majority of the electorate n this country as as well as many others. I could go on but I am sure you are aware of it all. So, what do the beeb concentrate on in the interview? Hannan's reference to the way Hitler came to power by removing parliamentary rights and insisting he has offended people.

Well I hope he has because we need people to be offended so they might then look at what is really happening to our democracy and rights.

All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing. (Edmund Burke, although the exact words are disputed)

Anyone would think the beeb was funded by the EU the way they ignore breaches of EU Den=democracy and defend it at every step. Oh, hang on they are.

First piece of political activism

Only a small start but after years of sitting on the sidelines I've decided to get off my backside and do something. This bunch of cretins that pass for a Government have got me so incensed (see this post) that today I made a donation to



I know that technically I didn't get off my backside to do this but you know what I mean.

Next step will be to get involved with them I suppose, if I can work out some free time

Kafka: The Trial and The EU

The Telegraph brings us the latest EU piece of double standards and treachery by our own bunch of unprincipled bunch of cretins that form the excuse for a Government.

But first a piece of background just to set the scene, Franz Kafka wrote a book called The Trial in which the subject, named Josef K, awakens one morning and, for reasons never revealed, is arrested and subjected to the judicial process for an unspecified crime. When he declares his innocence, he is immediately questioned "innocent of what"? and the process continues with him never hearing a charge and being executed. (Apologies to the philosophers out there but this paraphrase is to set the scene)

So what has this to do with the EU? Well it looks like our craven politicians are about to cave in to EU demands to make extradition of people who have been convicted in absentia even easier - yes it already goes on now

A draft text, seen by The Daily Telegraph, notes that existing rules [on extradition]do not "deal consistently with the issue of judgments rendered in absentia". "This diversity complicates the work of the practitioner and hampers judicial co-operation," it states

These piece of EU bullshit means that they can't be arsed with normal extradition and we should just hand over people who have been convicted of crimes in other countries, even though they weren't there to defend themselves or may not have even known there was a trial.

For fucks sake, whatever happened to habeous corpus? In this country we are entitled to now why we are being charged and to face our accusers, you would think that our politicians would at least have the balls to respect that and tell those toe rags in the EU to go fuck themselves. We have this right for a reason - to protect us from over bearing government, which should include the EU:

Britain does not convict people or hold trials in their absence but many EU countries, including Belgium, France, Spain Greece and Italy, do so on a regular basis

I don't give a toss what these countries do because, frankly it should be none of our business, but I do care that our tosspots Government follow the process that has protected us for 700 years and accept that these right aren't theirs to kill in the first place.

What makes this worse is it is already happening, all they want to do is make it easier:

Miss Daniels was extradited and jailed in Spain in 2005 after being sentenced, without the chance to defend herself, for cocaine smuggling. She has always protested her innocence and her lawyers in Spain have submitted an application for a pardon.

How did that one slip by without a great storm? I didn't read blogs then and relied on the MSM - more fool me!

Its not like we don't have extradition treaties so that people can be extradited to face trial, so why don't we tell them we have a process which works, thank you, now fuck off.

Someone fetch the rope, I know a few good lampposts

EU and Mugabe

I'm building up to a real rant on this one, but sdaly have meeting for most of the day so it will have to wait. Suffice to say its a fucking scandal that the EU is allowing him anywhere near us let alone talking to the fascist bastard.

And I won't be lectured by the EU about talking to fascists:

EU President Jose Manuel Barroso has criticised Mr Brown's decision, saying that leaders sometimes have to meet people they disapprove of.

No we don't, we tried that in '39 and it didn't work.

EU funding lobby groups

I first became aware of the story of the EU funding lobby groups so that they could then lobby it to implement the policies the EU wanted from Tim Worstall. It is quite nerdy so I assumed would pass the world by as these EU stories often do. However as Tim points out in this post the beeb are picking up the story.

Mr Eugenides has a great reference to the practice here, with his usual incise commentry, which has been picked up by the Economist's Brussels blog.

In short, the EU wants us all to be able to use any EU country's High Commissions and Embassies when travelling outside the EU. Member countries have objected for a number of technical reasons. Not to be deterred, the EU funded some of its pet lobby groups to lobby it saying what a great idea. Based on this the EU is now looking to implement the plan.

As the Economist blog concludes:

In other words, we are in the grand tradition of the EU funding bodies that then lobby the EU to overrule the objections of mere member states and impose grand schemes on them (which must be paid for by those nations). Makes you proud.

If you haven't read the beeb story yet you probably won't be surprised to learn that the EU doesn't know its arse from its elbow:

Siim Kallas, a vice president of the Commission in charge of the EU's anti-fraud operations, told Radio 4's The Investigation he had been assured this funding was not taking place.

He said: "The European Commission is not financing anybody to lobby ourselves - nobody is supported just for being there."

But the EC Environment Directorate has said it does give money to environmental groups to lobby.

As I will never tire of pointing out: the EU's defining principle of Ever Closer Union means that EU Bureaucrats feel they can ride roughshod over the rest of us, and the democratic process, with impunity.

As DK would say at this point: can we leave now?

EU Referendum Pledge

An interesting idea from The Sage King on how to get a referendum. The basic idea is to tell your MP you won't vote for them at the next General Election unless they vote for a Referendum on the EU Constitution. If the idea gets critical mass it will certainly scare the living daylights out a few MP's and it will be interesting to see how they react..


I don't tend to favour referendums but I make an exception in this case because NuLab is playing fast and loose with a manifesto commitment. I'd also like to see this idea take off, if only to see if it works.

Dealing with EU Bureaucracy

Charlemagne has a very thoughtful piece in this weeks Economist (Nov 3rd to 9th) that should be read by Europhile and skeptic alike. The gist of the piece is that Britain is turning its back on the EU by ignoring the need for sending our best bureaucrats. Indeed, some bureaucrats fear it will hinder their career to spend time there.

The piece concludes:

This may be bad for Britain, but should anybody else care? One answer is
that British influence has often been useful to others, and especially to
newcomers. Seasoned British officials may slow the rush to regulate, for
example, and they are usually keen on enlargement. The British can be awkward,
selfish and devious players of the EU game. But plenty of people would miss them
if they wandered off and forgot that Europe exists.

It is also dismissive of Gordon's approach to the EU

But Gordon Brown is said to regard the EU as, at best, another multilateral organisation (like the G8 or the World Bank) and, at worst, as irrelevant.

I would say it more important than that. We need to put a spoke in the move to "Ever closer union" which is the driving force behind all these bloody summits and treaties.

Like it or not, Gordon, the EU isn't irrelevant, they are taking ever more control of our daily lives so get you fucking arse in gear and either get us out, NOW, or engage our best bureaucrats to get stuck in and start fucking up the whole shebang whilst getting us the best deals available.