The infamous 'Sun Pledge' by David Cameron is, by now, well known and does not require repetition. What appears less well-known is a speech he gave just before the European elections held last year. On 26th May, in a speech entitled 'Fixing Broken Politics', David Cameron said:
“A progressive reform agenda demands that we redistribute power from the EU to Britain and from judges to the people. We will therefore hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, pass a law requiring a referendum to approve any further transfers of power to the EU, negotiate the return of powers, and require far more detailed scrutiny in Parliament of EU legislation, regulation and spending.”
That was a statement with no 'wriggle-room', to the extent that Mark Mardell, then BBC European Editor, remarked on his blog that “... Whether he meant it or not, it is now on the record: in government the Conservatives will hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, no 'ifs', no 'buts'.”
David Cameron has made what can only be described as a classic mistake for any negotiator, in that he has laid his cards on the table prior to any negotiations taking place. It hardly strengthens one's hand to inform those with whom you seek to negotiate that you will “not rush into some massive Euro bust-up", nor "frustrate or sabotage the operations of the European Union". It is a well-known fact also, that the agreement of the other 26 member states would be required for Cameron to succeed with his renegotiation. After thirty odd years, fighting to arrive at the present stage, is it likely that the other members would effectively agree to renegotiating all the treaties that have gone before? It is also obvious that, in the unlikely event that, were Cameron to succeed, other states would be queuing up to do likewise. That would result in the EU's reverting to an earlier stage of its evolution, which, it need scarcely be said, the federalists in the EU will never allow to happen.
The illogicality of David Cameron's policy and statement beggars belief. Take his Sovereignty Bill, which he asserts would: “make it clear that ultimate authority stays in this country, in our Parliament” - yet the Lisbon Treaty includes a Declaration confirming the primacy of EU law over national law! In any dispute arising between the EU and member states, it is the European Court of Justice, whose obligations include the promotion of European political integration, whose rulings prevail. This makes Cameron's Sovereignty Bill if possible more meaningless. David Cameron stands further condemned by his claim that 'ultimate authority stays in this country, in our Parliament'. In that case, how can he claim that membership of the European Union benefits our country?
Another contradictory aspect of David Cameron's statement is his evasive insistence that there are more pressing matters requiring his attention, in particular the economic state of Britain. It seems to have escaped his attention that, since so much of our economic policy is compelled to comply with EU regulations, regardless of whether they are beneficial to Britain's interests,he is severely constrained in what he can and cannot do. If he wishes to exceed those constricted parameters, he has no choice but to ask the EU's 'permission'. A humilating position in which to place our country – a Prime Minister happy to be denied free governance of his own sovereign nation.
The fact is, Cameron always lacked the courage to remain firm on this question. Like William Hague, he may make witty comments at the expense of the corruption and incompetence of the EU leadership in after-dinner speeches, but when push comes to shove the weakness of the man becomes all too apparent.
Further pretexts are sought in the reluctant capitulation of the Czech President, and the Irish vote in favour of the Treaty. It is hard not to believe that Cameron was throughout keeping his fingers crossed that these events would happen, providing him with the pretext for not honouring a pledge so glibly given, and so blithely discarded.
Had Cameron been a man of his word, and firmly reasserted his intention of sticking to it, the likelihood is that President Klaus would have felt in a strong enough position to continue intransigent. As in 1938, the Czechs were abandoned by a Tory leader. Similarly, knowledge that the likely next Prime Minister of Britain would call a referendum almost certain to result in a resounding ‘No’ vote would have given our bullied Irish neighbours room for manoeuvre.
The fact is that the Conservative leadership is profoundly uneasy about the whole concept of democracy. The people of this country have not been allowed a voice over signing away our independence and freedom since 1975, and then only in respect of the apparently innocuous issue of remaining in the Common Market. No mention was made of the plan to construct an unelected superstate, whose aim is extinction of the sovereignty of this country. Why is Cameron so hostile to the British people having a say in this most essential matter of their governance? His contempt for the electorate is patent.
In the eyes of Cameron, Clarke, Hague, Heseltine, and the rest of the Tory leadership, the people of this country are not to be trusted to decide their own destiny, nor even permitted formally to express a view on the matter. “We know better, proles, so shut up and accept what we tell you!”
Cameron seeks to cloud his betrayal by asserting, with a weak man’s parade of boldness, that he will henceforward stand firm over issues where the EU acts contrary to British interests, and seek the return of powers surrendered by our Socialist Government. He is well aware that both they and their Conservative predecessors have eagerly signed away the power to do anything of the sort. Besides, why should we believe him, now that we know just what his word is worth?
It was Cameron who brought the ludicrously overrated Kenneth Clarke into his shadow cabinet, in full knowledge that he would work flat out for a total surrender of British interests. Indeed, Clarke is at present engaged in secret negotiations with the EU, whose express purpose (we are not allowed to learn more) is to reassure the Brussels oligarchy that a Conservative Government will collaborate to the full.
A great deal of nonsense is talked in pro-Tory circles about the impossibility of disavowing the Treaty, which has now become absorbed into the superstate’s constitution. The fact is that ours is a sovereign state, whose governments may enter into whatever treaties they choose. At the same time, no government may bind its successor. In 1896 a great Conservative Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, pointed out to chancelleries in Europe that no British government could make an agreement with a foreign power so binding that it might not be disowned at any time by a sovereign parliament. Clearly, times have changed for the Tories. Cameron has renounced, without discussion or explanation, Britain’s age-old right to abrogate a treaty.
Finally, every voter must consider the wisdom of voting for a candidate prepared to issue a solemn pledge, which in the event he discards with the ease of a Zsa Zsa Gabor moving on to a new husband. To mask his easy abandonment of one pledge, he issues a flurry of new ones. When the independence of his country means so little to him, what value can be placed on his assurances regarding mere local matters? Fortunately, the electorate of Witney is not foolish, and will see the danger of voting for a man whose word is demonstrably worthless. The world of PR is a world away from that of statesmanship.
STOP PRESS!
On 12 April Cameron provided this response to a voter's enquiry:
'I know that people feel rather cheated that they did not have a referendum [on the Lisbon Treaty], and I am determined that we never let that happen again'. (Daily Telegraph, 13 April)
You can always trust truthful Dave.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markmardell/2009/05/cameron_tougher_on_lisbon.html
Friday 26 February 2010
Thursday 25 February 2010
THE JOYS OF UNION
‘Convinced that, while remaining proud of their own national identities and history, the peoples of Europe are determined to transcend their ancient divisions and, united ever more closely, to forge a common destiny’. (draft EU Constitution)
Given the difficulty of finding any logical argument supportive of the irreclaimably corrupt and authoritarian European Union, it is unsurprising how often one encounters variants of this bland assertion that unity is intrinsically beneficial. Although the "argument" is scarcely worthy of consideration, it may be worth drawing its proponents' attention to Chesterton's observation on the subject.
‘We might take, for example, the case of the strange class of notions which underlie the word “union”, and all the eulogies heaped upon it. Of course, union is no more a good thing in itself than separation is a good thing in itself. To have a party in favour of union and a party in favour of separation, is as absurd as to have a party in favour of going upstairs and a party in favour of going downstairs. The question is not whether we go up or downstairs, but where we are going to, and what we are going for? Union is strength; union is also weakness. It is a good thing to harness two horses to a cart; but it is not a good thing to try and turn two hansom cabs into one four-wheeler. Turning ten nations into one empire may happen to be as feasible as turning ten shillings into one half-sovereign. Also it may happen to be as preposterous as turning ten terriers into one mastiff. The question in all cases is not a question of union or absence of union, but of identity or absence of identity’. (Gilbert K. Chesterton, Heretics (London, 1905), p. 255)
Given the difficulty of finding any logical argument supportive of the irreclaimably corrupt and authoritarian European Union, it is unsurprising how often one encounters variants of this bland assertion that unity is intrinsically beneficial. Although the "argument" is scarcely worthy of consideration, it may be worth drawing its proponents' attention to Chesterton's observation on the subject.
‘We might take, for example, the case of the strange class of notions which underlie the word “union”, and all the eulogies heaped upon it. Of course, union is no more a good thing in itself than separation is a good thing in itself. To have a party in favour of union and a party in favour of separation, is as absurd as to have a party in favour of going upstairs and a party in favour of going downstairs. The question is not whether we go up or downstairs, but where we are going to, and what we are going for? Union is strength; union is also weakness. It is a good thing to harness two horses to a cart; but it is not a good thing to try and turn two hansom cabs into one four-wheeler. Turning ten nations into one empire may happen to be as feasible as turning ten shillings into one half-sovereign. Also it may happen to be as preposterous as turning ten terriers into one mastiff. The question in all cases is not a question of union or absence of union, but of identity or absence of identity’. (Gilbert K. Chesterton, Heretics (London, 1905), p. 255)
Tuesday 23 February 2010
FLASHMAN'S VIEWPOINT
In 1945, George MacDonald Fraser, author of the immortal "Flashman" series, was fighting as a young subaltern with the valiant Border Regiment against the Japanese in Burma. He concluded his moving war memoir with these words:
‘... they were Labour to to a man, but not necessarily socialist as the term is understood now. Their socialism was of a simple kind: they had known the ’thirties, and they didn’t want it again: the dole queue, the street corner, the true poverty of that time. They wanted jobs, and security, and a better future for their childen than they had had – and they got that, and were thankful for it. It was what they had fought for, over and beyond the pressing need of ensuring that Britain did not become a Nazi slave state.
‘Still, the Britain they see in their old age is hardly “the land fit for heroes” that they envisaged – if that land existed in their imaginations, it was probably a place where the pre-war values co-existed with decent wages and housing. It was a reasonable, perfectly possible dream, and for a time it existed, more or less. And then it changed, in the name of progress and improvement and enlightenment, which meant the destruction of much they had fought for and held dear, and the betrayal of familiar things that they had loved. Some of them, to superficial minds, will seem terribly trivial, even ludicrously so – things like county names, and shillings and pence, and the King James Version, and yards and feet and inches – yet they matter to a nation.
‘They did not fight for a Britain which would be dishonestly railroaded into Europe against the people’s will; they did not fight for a Britain where successive governments, by their weakness and folly, would encourage crime and violence on an unprecedented scale; they did not fight for a Britain where thugs and psychopaths could murder and maim and torture and never have a finger laid on them for it; they did not fight for a Britain whose leaders would be too cowardly to declare war on terrorism; they did not fight for a Britain whose Parliament would, time and again, betray the trust by legislating against the wishes of the country; they did not fight for a Britain where children could be snatched from their homes and parents by night on nothing more than the good old Inquisition principle of secret information; they did not fight for a Britain whose Churches and schools would be undermined by fashionable reformers; they did not fight for a Britain where free choice could be anathematised as “discrimination”; they did not fight for a Britain where to hold by truths and values which have been thought good and worthy for a thousand years would be to run the risk of being called “fascist” – that, really, is the greatest and most pitiful irony of all.
‘No, it is not what they fought for – but being realists they accept what they cannot alter, and reserve their protests for the noise pollution of modern music in their pubs’.
(George MacDonald Fraser, "Quartered Safe out Here: A Recollection of the War in Burma" (London, 1993), pp. 177-78).
‘... they were Labour to to a man, but not necessarily socialist as the term is understood now. Their socialism was of a simple kind: they had known the ’thirties, and they didn’t want it again: the dole queue, the street corner, the true poverty of that time. They wanted jobs, and security, and a better future for their childen than they had had – and they got that, and were thankful for it. It was what they had fought for, over and beyond the pressing need of ensuring that Britain did not become a Nazi slave state.
‘Still, the Britain they see in their old age is hardly “the land fit for heroes” that they envisaged – if that land existed in their imaginations, it was probably a place where the pre-war values co-existed with decent wages and housing. It was a reasonable, perfectly possible dream, and for a time it existed, more or less. And then it changed, in the name of progress and improvement and enlightenment, which meant the destruction of much they had fought for and held dear, and the betrayal of familiar things that they had loved. Some of them, to superficial minds, will seem terribly trivial, even ludicrously so – things like county names, and shillings and pence, and the King James Version, and yards and feet and inches – yet they matter to a nation.
‘They did not fight for a Britain which would be dishonestly railroaded into Europe against the people’s will; they did not fight for a Britain where successive governments, by their weakness and folly, would encourage crime and violence on an unprecedented scale; they did not fight for a Britain where thugs and psychopaths could murder and maim and torture and never have a finger laid on them for it; they did not fight for a Britain whose leaders would be too cowardly to declare war on terrorism; they did not fight for a Britain whose Parliament would, time and again, betray the trust by legislating against the wishes of the country; they did not fight for a Britain where children could be snatched from their homes and parents by night on nothing more than the good old Inquisition principle of secret information; they did not fight for a Britain whose Churches and schools would be undermined by fashionable reformers; they did not fight for a Britain where free choice could be anathematised as “discrimination”; they did not fight for a Britain where to hold by truths and values which have been thought good and worthy for a thousand years would be to run the risk of being called “fascist” – that, really, is the greatest and most pitiful irony of all.
‘No, it is not what they fought for – but being realists they accept what they cannot alter, and reserve their protests for the noise pollution of modern music in their pubs’.
(George MacDonald Fraser, "Quartered Safe out Here: A Recollection of the War in Burma" (London, 1993), pp. 177-78).
UKIP
The United Kingdom Independence Party is the only major party working for the restoration of British independence, unlike Conservatives, Labour, and Liberals. All three of those parties promised a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, which in everything but name provides a new constitution for Britain, which will absorb our country into the planned European superstate. Unsurprisingly, all three broke their solemn promises.
In last year's elections for the European Parliament, UKIP came second, both nationally and locally in Witney. It is now no longer possible to dismiss UKIP as a minority party. With an overwhelming majority of the British people consistently declaring itself opposed to membership of the corrupt EU, all that is needed to restore our national freedom is to translate that wish into votes for UKIP at the General Election.
In last year's elections for the European Parliament, UKIP came second, both nationally and locally in Witney. It is now no longer possible to dismiss UKIP as a minority party. With an overwhelming majority of the British people consistently declaring itself opposed to membership of the corrupt EU, all that is needed to restore our national freedom is to translate that wish into votes for UKIP at the General Election.
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
In November I attended a conference in Slovenia, convened to examine new mass graves of helpless victims of Tito's British-assisted terror in 1945. Here is the interview I gave on Slovenian television (in English):
http://tvslo.si/predvajaj/vecerni-gost/ava2.51084587/
http://tvslo.si/predvajaj/vecerni-gost/ava2.51084587/
WAR CRIMES
I have devoted much work to investigating and exposing war crimes. In 1989 Lord Aldington sued me for libel, after I accused him of being a war criminal. It was this case, at which it was subsequently discovered that Aldington had perjured himself throughout, which first opened my eyes to the extent to which corruption has taken over much of English public life. Judge Michael Davies, whose open bias throughout the trial was subjected to considerable adverse press coverage, lived within ten miles of Aldington's home! Not only this, but they were fellow-members of the small and exclusive Rye Golf Club. Needless to say, this was kept secret during the trial.
Still more sinister was the activity of leading members of the Conservative Government, who secretly arranged the removal of files essential to the defence case from the Public Record Office. This scandalous conspiracy was exposed by the Sunday Times in a major feature article by Tim Rayment: "The Massacre and the Ministers" (7 April 1996).
I was enabled to survive through the support of public opinion in this country and abroad, but I have often reflected on the fate of less high-profile figures who cross the Establishment.
Still more sinister was the activity of leading members of the Conservative Government, who secretly arranged the removal of files essential to the defence case from the Public Record Office. This scandalous conspiracy was exposed by the Sunday Times in a major feature article by Tim Rayment: "The Massacre and the Ministers" (7 April 1996).
I was enabled to survive through the support of public opinion in this country and abroad, but I have often reflected on the fate of less high-profile figures who cross the Establishment.
YOUR UKIP CANDIDATE
An author and historian, I am proud to be UKIP parliamentary candidate for Witney. Having joined the Party at the time of its foundation, I have contested one by-election (Barnsley East), and two General Elections (Wantage). I have lived at Southmoor, on the border of Witney constituency, for thirty years.
I am an author, and have written a number of books. History has been my lifelong love, and I have written on Russian and Soviet history, the Arthurian legend, and Celtic studies. I have also written two novels, the first for children of all ages ("The Founding of Evil Hold School") and an historical novel about Merlin ("The Coming of the King").
My stepfather was the well-known novelist Patrick O'Brian, whose "Master and Commander" was made into a brilliant film starring Russell Crowe. I have published the first of a two-volume biography of Patrick.
My wife Georgina has been a wonderful support to me, chiefly of course in bringing up our family, and also by wholeheartedly supporting my writing and political activities. We have four grown-up children, Alexandra, Anastasia, Dmitri and Xenia.
I hold British and Russian citizenship, and with our family spend time each year at my mother's and stepfather's house in France, which has been our home since 1955. So I fancy I am as European as David Cameron, or even Kenneth Clarke.
I am an author, and have written a number of books. History has been my lifelong love, and I have written on Russian and Soviet history, the Arthurian legend, and Celtic studies. I have also written two novels, the first for children of all ages ("The Founding of Evil Hold School") and an historical novel about Merlin ("The Coming of the King").
My stepfather was the well-known novelist Patrick O'Brian, whose "Master and Commander" was made into a brilliant film starring Russell Crowe. I have published the first of a two-volume biography of Patrick.
My wife Georgina has been a wonderful support to me, chiefly of course in bringing up our family, and also by wholeheartedly supporting my writing and political activities. We have four grown-up children, Alexandra, Anastasia, Dmitri and Xenia.
I hold British and Russian citizenship, and with our family spend time each year at my mother's and stepfather's house in France, which has been our home since 1955. So I fancy I am as European as David Cameron, or even Kenneth Clarke.
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