Gordon Brown Wants 'Next' Democratic President to Submit America's Unique Constitution and National Sovereignty to Global Governance (UN/EU) Override

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7353824.stm

[READERS SHOULD NOTE THAT UK PRIME MINISTER GORDON BROWN HAS ALREADY GIVEN AWAY TO THE EUROPEAN UNION ANCHORED IN BRUSSELS, WITHOUT POPULAR DEMOCRATIC PUBLIC SUPPORT (e.g., A PUBLIC REFERENDUM) THE NATIONAL LEGAL, ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL SYSTEMS, AND THUS, THE NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY, OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. NOW HE WANTS THE UNITED STATES TO DO THE SAME...]

See: UK Labor Party Willing to Give-Away Country's Sovereignty to EU; Does the US Democratic Party Wish to Do the Same for America??, at: http://itssdpathologicalcommunalism.blogspot.com/2008/04/uk-labor-party-willing-to-give-away.html

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has urged a "new dawn" in co-operation between Europe and the US

All European leaders could work with the US to forge "stronger transatlantic links", he said in a speech in Boston on the last day of his US trip.


He urged them to work together to reform institutions like the UN, World Bank and International Monetary Fund.


They needed reforming to meet modern challenges, he told an audience at the John F Kennedy Presidential Library.

The tantalising possibilities of a world where as John F Kennedy put it, the strong are just, the weak secure and the peace preserved are matched only by the terrifying risks of us failing to seize this moment


Gordon Brown


Mr Brown, who is said to be angry that his trip to the US has been overshadowed by rows at home over his tax reforms, wants the UN to become more effective in conflict prevention and resolution.


He also wants the IMF to develop as an early warning system to prevent problems like the global credit crunch and the World Bank to acquire a new environmental emphasis.


He said: "Now is an opportunity for an historic effort in co-operation; a new dawn in collaborative action between America and Europe - a new commitment from Europe that I believe all European leaders can work with America to forge stronger transatlantic links.

[THIS TALK OF STRENGTHENING TRANS-ATLANTIC LINKAGES IS NOTHING MORE THAN NUANCED CODE LANGUAGE SERVING AS A FALSE PRETENSE JUSTIFYING THE SURRENDER OF U.S. NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY TO AN ELITIST, COMMUNITARIAN & UNACCOUNTABLE EU/UN GLOBAL LEGAL INFRASTRUCTURE & INSTITUTIONAL BUREAUCRACY OPERATING AT LESS THAN GUARANTEED U.S. CONSTITUTIONAL STANDARDS]

"For I sense common ground between our two great continents in the urgent need for renewal and reform."


'Truly global'


Continuing this theme, he called for "strong regional organisations, building up the African Union as we built up the European Union".


Gordon Brown called for global economic policies that benefit both rich and poor

[THE SHERIFF & TAX COLLECTOR OF DOWNING STREET, IN LONDON, ENGLAND, NOW WISHES TO HELP THE EU COMMISSION SHERIFFS & TAX COLLECTORS SPREAD THROUGHOUT THE STREETS OF BRUSSELS, BELGIUM TO ELEVATE THE UNITED NATIONS TO THE SHERIFFS & TAX COLLECTORS OF PALAIS DES NATIONS, IN GENEVA, SWITZERLAND, SO THAT THEY CAN ASSUME THE ROLE OF A GLOBAL ROBIN HOOD]

Ultimately, he called for established institutions to "bring to a troubled world the humanitarian and peacekeeping and the support for stability and reconstruction that has been absent for too long", all of which would be "built around the vision of a global society founded on revitalised international rules and institutions".

[THIS IS THE SUPERIOR MORAL, SENTIMENTAL AND POLITICALLY CORRECT JUSTIFICATION FOR TOP-DOWN CENTRALIZED GLOBAL GOVERNANCE - LEST ANYONE DISAGREES, THEY ARE LABELED REACTIONARIES, SOVEREIGNTISTS, OBSTRUCTIONISTS, RACISTS, FASCISTS, ETC. ]

He also said that emerging nations such as China, India, South Africa and Brazil should have a greater influence in organisations like the G8, the IMF and the World Bank.


We have the opportunity to come together around a global covenant [??]to reframe the international architecture

DEAR MR. BROWN, WE ALREADY HAVE A UN CHARTER AND THOUSANDS OF INTERNATIONAL TREATIES, DECLARATIONS, AND RESOLUTIONS THAT ALLEGEDLY GOVERN GLOBAL, CONDUCT - WHY DO WE NEED MORE LAWS, STANDARDS, REGULATIONS, AND PROSCRIPTIONS AT THE UN / EU LEVEL?? IS THIS WHAT EUROPEAN UNION REGION-DOMINATED NAPOLEONIC LAW TRULY REPRESENTS ELEVATED TO A GLOBAL LEVEL?? WHY THEN, SHOULD AMERICA, WITH ITS UNIQUE CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM, HARMONIZE WITH THE THE EU, IF EU, AND BY EXTENSION, THE UN SYSTEM YOU ENVISION, WOULD RECOGNIZE INDIVIDUAL FREEDOMS AT LESS THAN U.S. CONSTITUTIONAL STANDARDS??]

Gordon Brown


"Today - as we face these new global challenges - the tantalising possibilities of a world where as John F Kennedy put it, the strong are just, the weak secure and the peace preserved are matched only by the terrifying risks of us failing to seize this moment," he said.


"For the first time in human history we have the opportunity to come together around a global covenant to reframe the international architecture and build the truly global society."

[DEAR, DEAR MR. BROWN - THERE ARE ONLY THREE IMPORTANT COVENANTS: TO FAMILY, GOD & COUNTRY]

Mr Brown has met President Bush and the three presidential candidates, senators John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in private meetings during his three-day trip.


Tax protests

But it has been overshadowed in the US media by that of Pope Benedict XVI, and he is said to believe a row over his decision to abolish the lowest rate of income tax at home has been exaggerated by the UK media.


On Thursday he broke off from meetings to telephone Labour MP Angela Smith to persuade her not to quit as a ministerial aide over the issue.


Later Ms Smith issued a statement denying she was about to quit as a parliamentary aide to Treasury Chief Secretary Yvette Cooper.


But since then four more ministerial aides have joined protests at the abolition of the 10p tax rate - although none have threatened to resign.


In total more than 70 Labour MPs have signed one of three motions protesting about the tax move, which came into force this month.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1087948


British prime minister calls for global ’interdependence’


By Associated Press


April 18, 2008


British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in his first foreign policy address in the United States, called on the U.S. and Europe today to lead a new era of global "interdependence" aimed at solving international problems such as terrorism, poverty and climate change.

[IN OTHER WORDS, GORDON BROWN IS SERVING AS 'THE LEAD' FOR THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION IN PROMOTING WHAT IS NOTHING LESS THAN GLOBAL ONE-WORLDISM OR KUMBAYA, GO-ALONG-TO-GET-ALONG DIPLOMACY]

"We urgently need to step out of the mindset of competing interests and instead find our common interests, and we must summon up the best instincts and efforts of humanity in a cooperative effort to build new international rules and institutions for the new global era," Brown said in a speech to about 350 invited guests at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.


Brown cited Kennedy’s Independence Day speech in 1962, when the president proposed a "new and global declaration of interdependence." Brown said Kennedy’s call for public service "still reverberates around the world and always will."

[BUT, PRESIDENT KENNEDY PROMOTED NATIONAL PUBLIC SERVICE, NOT GLOBAL PUBLIC SERVICE - HE ASKED THAT THE CITIZENS OF THE WORLD ACT FOR THEIR OWN SAKE, AND THAT OF THEIR NATIONS, SO THAT THEY EACH COULD BENEFIT FROM WHAT WOULD EVENTUALLY CONSTITUTE FREEDOM GLOBALLY. GORDON BROWN, IN IS APPEAL FOR SUPRANATIONAL GLOBAL GOVERNANCE MISREADS WHAT PRESIDENT KENNEDY SAID. HERE IS THE ACTUAL QUOTATION:

"My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man. Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own."]

Noting Kennedy’s creation of the Peace Corps, Brown called for the creation of "a new kind of global peace and reconstruction corps," which he described as an organization of trained civilian experts available any time to rebuild states.

[DEAR MR. BROWN, THE UN ALREADY HAS THE 'BLUE HELMETS' AND WE ALL SEE HOW EFFECTIVE THEY ARE IN PREVENTING GLOBAL CONFLICTS, LET ALONE, IN KEEPING THE PEACE ONCE THE BATTLES HAVE BEEN WON...]

Brown also talked about U.S. leadership following World War II, include the Marshall Plan that funneled millions in economic aid and technical assistance to help rebuild Europe.


"We must summon inspiration from the vision, humanity and leadership shown by those reformers to guide our actions today," he said.


Brown reiterated his call for reform of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and United Nations to give emerging countries such as China, India and Brazil more say in the international institutions.


He called on the World Bank to intensify programs to reduce poverty and said the institution should become a bank for both development and the environment by transferring billions in loans and grants to encourage the poorest countries to adopt alternative sources of energy.

[WHAT MR. BROWN REALLY MEANS IS TRANSFER/REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH, TECHNOLOGIES & KNOW-HOW AT CONCESSION-RATE OR ROYALTY-FREE PRICES]

The British leader, who has set a mandatory target in the U.K. to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent by 2050, insisted that a new global pact on reducing carbon emission must be agreed on by the end of 2009.


He said the deal, which would replace the Kyoto Protocol that was rejected by the U.S. and expires in 2012, should be led by the United Nations and needs to set binding targets for all developed countries.

[MR. BROWN SHOWS HIS TRUE COLORS HERE - TOP-DOWN CENTRALIZED UN-BASED GLOBAL GOVERNANCE OF THE ENVIRONMENT, AND ALONG WITH IT, ALL ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES AROUND THE WORLD]

Brown, who has overseen some U.K. troop withdrawals in Iraq and sought to soothe public anger in Britain over the unpopular war, did not mention Iraq directly. But he insisted he would support future military action to intervene in failing states.


He praised President Bush for leading the world in an attempt to root out terrorism and "our common commitment that there be no safe haven for terrorists."


Brown said the United States and Europe should act as "hardheaded internationalists," and use "diplomatic, economic, and yes, when necessary military action _ to prevent crimes against humanity when states can no longer do so."

[MR. BROWN DENOUNCES U.S. HEGEMONY, BUT FAVORS US-EU JOINT HEGEMONY. HIS HE NOT BEING HYPOCRITICAL???]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/04/19/ncrisis219.xml


Gordon Brown's US speech calls for new global finance rules


By Andrew Porter, Political Editor, in Boston

19/04/2008


An international early warning system should be established to ensure that future credit squeezes are identified and dealt with before the effects become widespread, says Gordon Brown.


In a foreign policy speech in Boston, the Prime Minister urged America to join him in pushing for reform of the major international institutions including the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.


At the end of his three-day trip to the US Mr Brown also said the world faced "terrifying risks" if countries "failed to seize the moment".

[MR. BROWN INTIMATES THE NUANCED MALTHUSIAN FEAR-BASED MANTRA OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, ENVIRONMENTAL ARMAGEDDON AND THE PREFERRED GLOBALIST SOLUTION: EUROPEAN STYLE, TOP-DOWN, UN CENTRALIZED, NON-SCIENCE & NON-ECONOMICS, PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE-BASED REGULATIONS]

Mr Brown told an audience at the John F Kennedy Library that globalisation should combine free trade and open economies with policies promoting fairness and justice.


He said: "My proposal is that we set new global rules for a new 21st century global system with: a global trade deal that benefits rich and poor countries alike; a new international financial architecture and economic institutions that end the mismatch between global capital flows and only the national supervision of them - with the IMF an early warning system for the global economy, focused on crisis prevention rather than just crisis resolution."


Mr Brown has used his trip to meet Wall Street bankers to discuss the credit crunch. Yesterday, in Washington he met Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve.


The two talked about what measures can be taken to alleviate the effects of the economic downturn. Next week, the Treasury is expected to announce measures to get the mortgage companies lending again, including taking on some debt in exchange for the lenders' co-operation with market liquidity.


Mr Brown also wants a reformed United Nations that is more effective and relevant to the 21st century that will give greater leadership and can give better assistance to poorer countries.


He told the audience, which included Senator Edward Kennedy: "During the year to come I want this debate about change to become a global dialogue about renewal as we embark upon a task perhaps more ambitious than even the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944 [which established international monetary rules]."


He added: "American leadership will be indispensable."

Gordon Brown Gives New Meaning To Marxist Central Planning in British Eco-Towns

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7311548.stm


15mph speed limit for eco-towns


BBC News

March 24, 2008

Vehicles driving on roads in planned eco-towns will have to stick to 15mph speed limits, it has emerged.


The restriction is among proposals designed to minimise the environmental impact of the settlements.


Government sources say the new town centres are to be car-free, and the 15mph limit will be enforced on "key roads" leading into them.

Environmental protesters have criticised the scheme for focusing too narrowly on carbon emissions.


'Revolutionary living'

More than 50 bids to create the zero-carbon developments have been entered by companies.
Housing minister Caroline Flint will set out standards expected of them later this week and the announcement of the shortlist of 10 new towns is expected in the coming weeks.


Ms Flint said: "These developments will be exemplars for the rest of the world, not just the rest of the country. It's critical that we get it right - and I make no apology for setting the bar as high as possible.


[ARE THEY KIDDING? EXEMPLARS?? FIRST PRIME MINISTER GORDON BROWN, DECIDING THAT IT IS IN THE PUBLIC'S BEST INTEREST TO EXERCISE, ERECTS STRICT REGULATORY 'GET-FIT' TOWNS. See(http://itssdeconomicfreedom.blogspot.com/2008/01/browns-get-fit-towns-kim-jong-il-would.html ). NOW, GORDON BROWN, DECIDING THAT IT IS IN THE PUBLIC'S INTEREST TO BECOME ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE, ERECTS STRICT REGULATORY ECO-TOWNS!! See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7266701.stm
("The towns are expected to have low and zero-carbon technologies, good public transport and extensive parkland"].


"We have a unique opportunity to deliver a programme which will genuinely revolutionise the way people live."


[THIS IS WHAT THE MARXISTS USED TO SAY WHILE THEY WERE PUTTING THE FINAL TOUCHES ON THEIR CENTRAL PLANNING PROGRAMS!]


Ms Flint has said she wants to see towns designed around pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users.


Protests


Environmental protesters say the plans do not give adequate consideration to other ecological issues, such as the impact building would have on wildlife.


Up to five eco-towns are expected to be built by 2016, and up to 10 by 2020.


They will have populations of around 5,000 to 20,000 and be linked to larger towns and cities.


There have been nationwide protests over the plans from residents who claim the schemes will put too much pressure on local services.


Opposition has been voiced in places such as Grovewood in south Derbyshire and Stoughton in Leicestershire.


Last month around 300 campaigners marched against plans for a 6,000-home development in Long Marston, near Stratford, Warwickshire.

Europe in the vice

http://igst.blogspot.com/2007/12/europe-in-vice.html


The structure of the European Union is such that power will ebb inexorably away from national governments and flow to Brussels. European Union laws supersede national laws and can be enacted to some degree free of control by national legislatures. This bodes ill for Europe.


Any hope that there are strong constituencies within the European Union willing to safeguard democratic control of government cannot but be dashed when there is such evident contempt for voters in European political circles as evidenced by the manner in which they are attempting to implement the defunct E.U. Constitution.


First, the structure of the E.U. that facilitates centralization:


[L]aws in the EU are made by the Council of Ministers, i.e. the committee of 27 ministers for whichever subject is being voted on, EU integration means that governments receive wide-ranging law-making powers.


This is, of course, incompatible with the principle of the separation of powers. According to that principle, the executive power (the government) should be separate from, and accountable to, the legislature (the national parliament) and of course the judiciary. Dictatorship is precisely the form of government in which the executive is not so constrained, and this is also the case in the EU.


Because the EU represents a dramatic and constant transfer of legislative power from national legislatures to national executives (sitting in the Council of Ministers), it can also be dubbed “a permanent coup d’état”. . . . The fact that the Council of Ministers, the EU’s legislature, meets and votes in secret only makes the fundamentally anti-democratic character of the European construction even clearer.[1]


The structure of the European Union thus favors a dangerous transfer of power to a Council of Ministers meeting and voting in secret.


The conduct of the E.U.'s proponents, as opposed to its structure, shows similar contempt for democratic governance. Witness the underhanded way in which the previously rejected-by-voters E.U. constitution is being foisted back on the people of Britain and Europe by merely breaking apart the same constitution and attaching those parts to existing treaties. This is being done by a process of amendment, which amendments deliberately use impenetrable hypertechnical language and require the interested observer to plough back through the extant treaties to understand how a disembodied amending provision relates back.


Then there's always the aboveboard contempt for European voters. From Valery Giscard d'Estaing, former president of France:


The rejection of the constitution [by the voters in referendums] was a mistake which will have to be corrected [by more sagacious people].[2]


And:


"Public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly [...] All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way.[3]


This drift toward a powerful and unconstrained executive in the European Union is deathly serious. It is the opposite approach taken by our founding document, which should be as useful a guide to Europeans as it is -- or might be -- to us.


Alas, European political leaders now flirt with centralization of power in a manner demonstrating that the preeminent political lesson of the twentieth century was not learned. They thus risk laying the foundation for an oppressive superstate. How far this process will go before Europe slides back into black fascism or red fascism is no small question.


Tragically, at the same time, these political leaders remain blind to – or cowed by -- the totalitarian menace growing in their midst, but which has its roots not in the twentieth but in the seventh century.


Europe is now effectively caught between the arms of a vice.


Notes
[1] "Why Europe’s National Politicians Sign Away National Sovereignty." By John Laughland, The Brussels Journal, 12/19/07 (emphasis added).
[2] "The Betrayal of Freedom in Europe: Back in the EUSSR." The Brussels Journal, 12/19/07.
[3] Id. (Emphasis added.)

posted by Col. B. Bunny at 12/19/2007

Belien: Back in the 'EUSSR'

The following excerpt was taken from an article prepared by former George Mason University educator Eleanor Duckwall. It appears on “Eleanor Duckwall’s Spotlight” blog, which analyzes current events and exposes anti-Americanism of all forms.


http://sixthcolumn.typepad.com/duckwalls/2007/12/belien-back-in.html


http://sixthcolumn.typepad.com/duckwalls/2007/12/belien-back-inhtml#more


December 19, 2007


From an agreement on the coal and steel industries in 1951 to a totalitarian state, all within my lifetime:


Last Thursday, the heads of government of the 27 member states of the European Union convened in the Portuguese capital Lisbon to sign the EU Reform Treaty. That "Treaty of Lisbon" is almost identical to the European Constitutional Treaty, the so-called EU Constitution, which was rejected two years ago in referendums in major EU member states.


The EU rules stipulate that treaties only become effective when they have been ratified in all 27 member states. The "no" votes in the 2005 referendums killed the constitution, which would have transformed the EU from a supranational organization of 27 sovereign member states into a genuine single European federal state with 27 provinces. It was clear from the outset, however, that the peoples of the various European states were not willing to renounce their national sovereignty for a "United States of Europe."


Nevertheless, the European leaders are determined, no matter what their electorates say, to transform the EU into a USE. As Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg, said prior to the referendums: "If the vote is yes, we will say: We go ahead. If it is no, we will say: We continue." Or as the former president of France, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the chairman of the so-called convention, which drew up the constitution, said: "The rejection of the constitution [by the voters in referendums] was a mistake which will have to be corrected."


In order to correct the voters' mistake the reform treaty was drafted. This treaty is a copy of the constitution, with the articles in a somewhat different order, with many additions to deliberately complicate the text and without references to a national flag or anthem. As Mr. Giscard explained in June to the Paris leftist paper Le Monde: "Public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly... All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way."


Or as Guiliano Amato, the foreign minister of Italy and the former vice chairman of the convention, said about the document that the European leaders signed last week: "They decided that the document should be unreadable. If it is unreadable, it is not constitutional, that was the sort of perception."


The EU leaders agreed that none of the member states (apart from Ireland, which is obliged to do so under its own constitution) will hold a referendum about the new treaty. Instead, the national parliaments will ratify the treaty. "There is a cleavage between people and governments," admitted French President Nicolas Sarkozy. "A referendum now would bring Europe into danger. There will be no treaty if we had a referendum in France."


Once the Lisbon Treaty is ratified in all member states, the legal nature of the EU will change into that of a state. The national constitutions and the national parliaments will be subordinate to the EU, which will be enabled to unilaterally increase its own powers.


Europe's politicians are very eager to sell out their national sovereignty to the EU because the Brussels-based EU governing bodies are either unelected (the commission) or unaccountable (the council). Moreover, the European Parliament is not a real parliament. It cannot reject the so-called EU directives, which the national parliaments are obliged to incorporate into their national legislation. Even today, up to 70 percent of the legislation in the various 27 EU member states emanates from Brussels.


Former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky has coined the term "EUSSR" to refer to the EU. He claims Europe is on its way to developing into a totalitarian state. In the early 1990s Mr. Bukovsky was given permission to research the secret documents of the Soviet leadership. To his amazement he found a transcript there of a conversation held during a visit in January 1989 of Mr. Giscard to then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. In this conversation the former declared to the latter that "within 15 years Europe is going to be a federal state." The USE project was delayed a bit by the 2005 referendums, but European politicians have managed to get it back on track in Lisbon. "Today's situation is really grim. Major political parties have been completely taken in by the new EU project. None of them really opposes it. They have become very corrupt. Who is going to defend our freedoms?" Mr. Bukovsky asks...

Europe Lobs Another One Over to the 110th Congressional Majority: Will Big Brother Restrict Travel To "Save the Planet?"

http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/11/big_brother_in_your_gas_tank_r.php


By David Vance, 25 November 2007


Not so fast...have you exceeded your "personal carbon allowance?"


As Americans take to the roads and the airports returning home from their holiday, over in Great Britain, a new proposal on global warming could limit that freedom. Will the British become "the experimental rats in the carbon-mania laboratory?" asks David Vance. And if the experiment succeeds in the UK, could the US be next?


Global warming provides a perfect alibi for those who seek to curtail our essential liberties. Restricting the ability of citizens to travel is clearly an unpopular strategy for any politician to advance but if if comes from the left and done in the name of "Saving the Planet" then it is likely to win sympathetic media treatment and so become a real political possibility.


It is against this background that the British Government is introducing a "Climate Change Bill" which would make the United Kingdom the only country in the world with legally binding targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The implications are that the five-yearly goals outlined in the Bill would cost the UK up to $24 billion a year for the next 42 years and ensure that future governments are held legally responsible for what the current administration has embarked upon.


The Bill does not say how carbon dioxide emissions will be cut but simply commits the Government to a 60 per cent reduction by 2050. This colossal economic cost of trying to hit this target is glibly dismissed by the likes of UK Environment Secretary Hilary (a male Hilary, not female) Benn as an absolute necessity if Britain is to show the sort of "environmental leadership."


In fact he celebrates this prospect as it sets Britain "firmly on the path to the low-carbon economy". He believes that "We need to provide the framework that will give a clear idea of how we're going to tackle climate change. We also need to show that we're taking decisive action within our borders and not asking other countries, in particular poorer countries, to do what we're not willing to do ourselves."


In other words, the British government is quite prepared to wreck its own economy in the quest to appear environmentally progressive, even though economists warn that a sustained switch to a low-carbon economy may well trigger an economic crisis and substantial job losses.


This means nothing to those wrapped in the garment of the green gospel. When dealing with environmental fundamentalists, fiscal reason has little relevance.


The UK Government is not just interested in using global warming to raise new green taxes and to further hike fuel costs, but it is also contemplating allocating "personal carbon allowances." The way these work is that you will be granted a fixed amount of carbon to use each year. Each time you travel in a plane, buy petrol, go shopping or eat out would be recorded on a plastic card. The more frugal could sell spare carbon allowances to those who want to "indulge" themselves. But if you were to run out of your carbon allowance, you could be barred from flying or driving.


The government will thus be able to prevent its citizens from traveling both inside and outside the United Kingdom under the guise of managing carbon allowances.


For the first time in history we face the real prospect of having the fundamental right to travel prohibited by government. It is also said that reports are being currently prepared for the British government as to how and when carbon rationing might be implemented.


In this way the pursuance of the global warming agenda by scheming politicians can actually represent the greatest imaginable threat to the liberty of the people of the United Kingdom.


Overseeing all of this is Gordon Brown, the man who has succeeded Tony Blair as UK Prime Minister without the awkwardness of an election.


To get a sense of where Brown's loyalties lie, a few months ago when in the US visiting President Bush at Camp David, he made it a priority to see Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid on Capitol before directly going to the United Nations and inviting Bill Clinton to drop by. Brown is clearly hoping for a Clinton to be returned to the White House.


This begs the question as to what a future President Clinton might think about the fascinating experiment being conducted on the people of the United Kingdom by her good friend Gordon Brown.


We British are the experimental rats in the carbon-mania laboratory. If Prime Minister Brown can get away with stopping us traveling by car and plane - and doing it in the name of cutting carbon emissions - isn't it possible that the people if the US might also face the future prospect of also being issued with "personal" carbon allowances by a munificent President Clinton? Is it imaginable that someday US citizens could be prohibited from traveling how and when they choose - and all in the name of saving the Earth?

In Looney Britain, Citizens Don't Even Have 'Property Rights' in Themselves!!

[Property means] that dominion which one man claims and
exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion
of every other individual. . . . [I]t embraces everything to
which a man may attach a value and have a right; and
which leaves to every one else the like advantage. In the former
sense, a man’s land, or merchandize, or money is called
his property. In the latter sense, a man has a property in
his opinions and the free communication of them. . . . He
has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of
his person. He has an equal property in the free use of his
faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ
them. In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his
property, he may be equally said to have a property in his
rights.

JAMES MADISON, Property, THE NAT’L GAZETTE, Mar. 29, 1792, reprinted in 14
THE PAPERS OF JAMES MADISON 266-67 (Robert A. Rutland et al. eds., 1983) (emphasis added).


British PM Urges No-consent Organ Harvesting

By Patrick Hennessy

Article published Jan 14, 2008 January 14, 2008 \

LONDON SUNDAY TELEGRAPH LONDON —

Prime Minister Gordon Brown yesterday threw his weight behind a move to allow hospitals to remove organs from dead patients without explicit consent.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Mr. Brown said such a move would save thousands of lives and that he hopes such a system can start this year. The proposals would mean consent for organ donation after death would be automatically presumed, unless individuals had opted out of a national register or family members objected. But patients' groups said they are "totally opposed" to Mr. Brown's plan, arguing it would take away patients' rights over their own bodies.

There are more than 8,000 patients awaiting organ donation in Britain, and more than 1,000 a year die without receiving the organ that could save their lives. The government next week will begin an overhaul of the system, putting pressure on doctors and nurses to identify more "potential organ donors" from dying patients.

Hospitals will be rated for the number of deceased patients they "convert" into donors, and doctors will be expected to identify potential donors earlier and alert donor coordinators as patients approach death. But Mr. Brown, who carries a donor card, made it clear he backs an even-more radical revamp of the system, which would lead to donation by "presumed consent."

The approach is modeled on that of Spain, which has the highest proportion of organ donors in the world. "A system of this kind seems to have the potential to close the aching gap between the potential benefits of transplant surgery in the [United Kingdom] and the limits imposed by our current system of consent," Mr. Brown wrote. He voted against such a system in 2004 — but sources close to the prime minister said Saturday night that the measure proposed at that time did not allow families to have the final say.

Patients' groups said they are appalled by Mr. Brown's intervention. "They call it presumed consent, but it is no consent at all," said Joyce Robin, from the watchdog group Patient Concern.

"They are relying on inertia and ignorance to get the results that they want." She said the government has made little effort to recruit people to donate organs after death. "Where is the big media campaign? Where are the leaflets? Why, when I go to see my [doctor], doesn't he ask me about organ donation? These are the things they should be doing — not taking away our right to decide what happens to our bodies." Katherine Murphy, of the Patients Association charity, agreed. "We don't think a private decision, which is a matter of individual conscience, should be taken by the state. If people want to give the gift of life, that is their right, but it must be something that is a voluntary matter."

A task force report to be released tomorrow calls for a senior doctor to be appointed in every hospital as a "champion" of donation, along with a lay person to spread the message about the importance of donation locally. The task force, which is to publish a report on "presumed consent" this summer, hopes its 14 recommendations will lead to 50 percent more donations in five years.

Brown's 'Get Fit' Towns: Kim Jong-il Would Be Proud

By James Woudhuysen

Professor of forecasting and innovation, De Montfort University

Spiked Online

Monday 5 November 2007


Gordon Brown’s UK government will now try to design urban areas that force us to exercise more – and that’s official. To tackle obesity with what he called a ‘large-scale’ approach ‘across the whole community’, Brown’s health secretary Alan Johnson has said that he wants to ‘make physical activity a normal part of everyday life’. (1) So before you go to work, school or your leisure destination, remember that your personal trainer, Alan, has instructed you to walk, run or pedal there.

Johnson’s ‘fit towns’, as they have been called, are enough to leave you breathless. Yet although his announcement was picked up by mass media as far afield as China and India (2), it was – like so much of Labour policy – not entirely new. As spiked pointed out nearly six months ago, when Brown announced his plans for five eco-towns, the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) had committed itself to urban growth based on public transport, cycling, walking and a reduced need to travel, ‘especially by car’ (3). Moreover the CLG’s July Eco-towns Prospectus registered a desire to ‘deliver physical and mental health benefits’, offer ‘choices for healthy living’, and go about ‘encouraging healthy behaviours’ (4). So what has Johnson added? You could say that he has formally medicalised urban design, annexing it as a Department of Health issue, and you’d be right. But the real novelty of Johnson’s innovation is his drive to get us stretching our limbs at Labour’s behest.

Barely two weeks ago, Johnson insisted that Britain’s potential obesity crisis is one that’s on the same scale as the crisis of climate change. That comparison was ridiculous enough (5). Now, he has said that both Labour’s eco-towns and other urban areas should be adapted to improve people’s health. Through their layout, facilities and construction, eco-towns could also be ‘healthy towns’. If successful, such an approach ‘could also apply to areas undergoing housing growth and renewal’ (6).

This is a regime for national fitness worthy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. Not for nothing has Johnson claimed a past allegiance to Stalinism (7).




















In an absolutely illiberal and inhumane manner, Johnson wants urban areas designed so that people’s behaviour cannot at all consist of their own freely decided ‘choices’. Instead, behaviour will be relentlessly controlled by the state. What the Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov did to salivating dogs, or the stimulus-response experiments conducted by US psychologist BF Skinner did to hungry rats, Johnson wants to do to us. Johnson’s view of human freedom is degraded.

The confusions within Labour’s urban policy, and the logic of Johnson’s approach, make his proposal ludicrous and unworkable. But that should not blind us to his authoritarianism.

For some time now, Labour has crammed what few new houses it has built into the same fenced-in urban areas, so as to keep the masses in their place, protect Britain’s rural spaces and lower vehicle emissions as a means of saving the planet. And Labour’s brownfield brutalism does not stop there. So ludicrously convinced is Johnson that architectural space really does determine physical slimness, we might expect him to contradict his boss, Gordon Brown, sooner or later.

When Brown first floated the idea of eco-towns, he said that their homes, roads and bus routes should be constructed ‘in the most environmentally sustainable way’ (8). But if obesity is, as Johnson says, on a par with climate change, then dispensing with roads and public transport altogether would be the best way to reduce people’s waistlines. And why doesn’t Johnson decree that the whole of Britain become a TV-free zone, too? After all, TV supposedly encourages us to be couch potatoes, so giving the National Health Service more fatties to treat.

In the walk-to-work office blocks of Johnson’s vision, perhaps there should be no lifts. Lifts would only encourage sloth – especially among slackers who are over 60. And surely doorways should be specially narrow, so as to encourage dietary restraint?

In announcing his intellectual breakthrough, Johnson made much of the flab-fighting successes of cities in Australia, Finland and especially France. Yet in fact Obesogenic Environments: Evidence Review, a highly relevant and recent report commissioned by the Foresight programme of the UK Office of Science and Innovation, makes no mention of either Finland or France. The report records that in Perth, Western Australia, there is evidence that, ‘after adjustment for confounding factors’, being overweight is associated with living on a highway and living on streets with no pavements and with a perceived lack of paths within walking distance. Being obese in Perth is likewise associated with perceived lack of paths within walking distance, poor access to four or more recreational facilities, and with a lack of pavements or shops within walking distance. But that’s about it. Indeed with regard to obesity, the report concludes that, ‘influences of the environment are probably small and mechanisms remain unclear… At present, there is scant evidence on whether the environment might have different effects on people with contrasting levels of physical activity and body weight.’ (9)

Clearly Johnson can’t be bothered with such a careful analysis. His intent, rather, is simply to stigmatise those who cannot afford to eat well and subject them to a kind of sweaty urban treadmill. The government’s attempt to make us live zero-carbon, zero-carbohydrate lifestyles squeezes two ridiculous aims into a failed policy – housing. Recently, Labour has engineered a decline in the number of new homes built in Britain; but its ambitions to police us all through social engineering know no limits.

The construction of towns around the tyranny of health is a frightening new departure. Yet we have not heard the last of the Johnson doctrine. Britain’s 2012 Olympics doesn’t just advertise itself as a low-carbon affair, but insists that it will increase Britons’ ‘awareness’ of cycling and walking as healthy means of travel (10).

In Labour’s camp, no aspect of our public or private lives escapes the government guards – or Alan Johnson, the demented doctor.

11/6/07 E-mail Correspondences Between Roger Helmer UK Member of European Parliament & Lawrence Kogan, ITSSD CEO

The following reflects a series of e-mail correspondences between Roger Helmer, UK Member of the European Parliament and ITSSD CEO/President Lawrence Kogan during November 6, 2007:

The Context:

The correspondences arose as the result of a recent UK Telegraph article entitled "Giscard: EU Treaty is the Constitution Rewritten". See: http://itssdeconomicfreedom.blogspot.com/2008/01/destaing-french-father-of-europe-admits.html .

The ITSSD believes it is critical to emphasize to the American people how the EU Brussels institutions and leadership tried to get the renegotiated EU treaty past the electorate without a referendum.

According to ITSSD CEO Lawrence Kogan,

"If, as is apparent, the EU governmental apparatus in Brussels, which includes representatives of the EU member states, would endeavor to deceive its own citizens in this fashion, what do you think it would endeavor to do to the United States as the result of entering into the Faustian bargain it appears to have concluded with the White House concerning the trade-off of EU support for PSI in exchange for US support of UNCLOS [United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea - See: "UNCLOS Alchemy" at: http://itssd.blogspot.com/2007/11/unclos-alchemy.html ] and other environmental treaties?"

In response to the UK Telegraph article and to this point delivered by an intermediary, Roger Helmer made the following Nov. 6 comment:

"...[A]ny number of EU leaders have been falling over themselves to say that the Treaty is 90%, or 95%, or 98% of the Constitution. It is quite extraordinary that Gordon Brown and his ministers can go round insisting that the Treaty is "a totally different document" in the face of all this publicity. You may like to know that the London think-tank Open Europe has done an excellent line-by-line comparison of the two documents, which makes the case beyond denial.


E-Mail Correspondences:

From: lkogan [mailto:lkoganlaw@msn.com]
Sent: 06 November 2007 15:10
To: HELMER Roger
Subject: FW: the Giscard D'Estaing's comment on EU treaty
Importance: High


Dear Mr. Helmer:

I was recently forwarded your note in response to our concern about the D'Estaing article appearing in a recent issue of the Telegraph. It is fascinating how, in this day and age of interconnectedness and immediate information that politicians would try to 'pull a fast one' over on the electorate as they seemingly have tried to do on both sides of the pond - the EU as concerns the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution; the White House as concerns the UNCLOS.

We have been tracking the EU constitutional debate most recently since at least June and have concluded that the failure to resolve the constitutional conundrum in the manner desired by the 'fathers of Europe' would deal a death-knell blow to the federalism concept and preserve England's national sovereignty.

We also found that the UN climate change debate which now focuses on preserving the marine environment with the US ratification of UNCLOS serves as another diversion from this constitutional dilemma. It seems that the Brussels' institutions need to 'project outward' their environmental concerns and proposed solutions in order to cure the failings within the union, even if it means infringing on fundamental human/constitutional rights, 'negative' exclusive private property rights chief among them. Please see:
http://www.itssd.org/White%20Papers/Europe_sWarningsonClimateChangeBelieMoreNuancedConcerns.pdf

Lastly, we are curious to know why D'Estaing 'outed' Brussels on the Treaty/Constitution. Was it merely an exercise of 'damage control' given that the information had been publicly 'leaked', or is there more to his confession???

We will soon highlight the parallel of these two situations to the American public.

Thank you for your consideration and interest.

Sincerely,

Lawrence A. Kogan, Esq.
President/CEO
Institute for Trade, Standards and Sustainable Development (ITSSD)

************************************************************************************


From: HELMER Roger [mailto:roger.helmer@europarl.europa.eu]
Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2007 10:13 AM
To: lkogan
Subject: RE: the Giscard D'Estaing's comment on EU treaty

Dear Lawrence,

Thanks for this: good to hear from you. Thanks also for your interesting comments, and for the link.

On your question about Giscard: we have a bizarre situation where European politicians not under pressure to hold referenda are actually proud of their achievement in retaining most of the failed Constitution. They feel they have solved a problem. On the Open Europe web-site you will find a whole series of comments from them, many containing numerical estimates. They seek to outbid each other, claiming 90%, 95%, 98% of the Constitution "saved". You will also find a point-by-point comparison of the clauses in the Constitution and in the "Treaty".

Giscard himself has a lot of personal capital invested in the Constitution, and its rejection was a huge set-back for him personally. So he is intensely proud that virtually every line has been saved.

But at the same time politicians facing pressure for referenda, like our own Gordon Brown, have no option but to insist that it's a quite different document. Indeed in terms of technical structure they have a point. It is an amending treaty, in kind like earlier treaties. It is not a Constitution, which would have swept away the confused dog's breakfast of the early sequence of treaties, while codifying all their substance into a single text.

But this is a minor technical point. In terms of practical effect, the governance of the EU and the independence of member states, it is identical.

Best regards.
ROGER HELMER
www.rogerhelmer.com

************************************************************************************


From: lkogan [mailto:lkoganlaw@msn.com]
Sent: 06 November 2007 16:24
To: HELMER Roger
Subject: RE: the Giscard D'Estaing's comment on EU treaty

Dear Roger,

Thank you for your most thorough reply.

Is there a way to create public demand in Europe for more referenda considering that the 'fundamental' right of Europeans 'to be heard' is being trampled on?

Perhaps we could coordinate some type of campaign on this bringing in an assortment of organizations to expose the old 'form over substance' shenanigan being employed at the expense of individual rights??? Will this be their future under a Brussels-driven technocracy of philosopher kings??

Would this hold any sway with the electorate at this point in history?

Best Regards,

Lawrence

************************************************************************************


From: HELMER Roger [mailto:roger.helmer@europarl.europa.eu]
Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2007 10:33 AM
To: lkogan
Subject: RE: the Giscard D'Estaing's comment on EU treaty

Dear Lawrence,

I really appreciate your offer of help, but we already have a series of campaigns focussed on demanding referenda both in individual countries and more widely. Anything you can do to raise awareness of the cynical and deceitful disregard of the European élites for public opinion and democratic values would be much appreciated.

Meantime you are right to point out to an America audience how quickly democracy can tip over into authoritarianism.

I never thought I would say this, but there is a fundamental flaw in our democratic process. Because the EU is a cross-cutting issue for our major political parties, it can leave the voter with no clear way of expressing dissent (except in euro-elections, where the share of vote for rejectionist fringe parties goes shooting up).

That is why various non-party organisations and movements are involved in the campaign. See www.tfa.net; www.betteroffout.co.uk .

Best regards. R.

************************************************************************************


From: lkogan [mailto:lkoganlaw@msn.com]
Sent: 06 November 2007 18:23
To: HELMER Roger
Subject: RE: the Giscard D'Estaing's comment on EU treaty

Dear Roger,

Would you be willing to permit me to quote any passage within your correspondence to me to show the authenticity of the democratic deficit in the EU and Britain?? If not, I understand and will respect your wishes to keep my comments general as to the issue without reference to you by name or position.

This may help to drive home the seriousness of what is occurring on both sides of the pond.

Best Regards,

Lawrence

************************************************************************************


From: HELMER Roger
Sent: Tuesday, 06 November 2007 12:47 PM
To: lkogan
Subject: RE: the Giscard D'Estaing's comment on EU treaty

Dear Lawrence,

Absolutely. Go for it. And also feel free to quote from my blog, which covers these matters in more detail, or to offer a link to the blog.

Best regards. Roger.

http://rogerhelmermep.wordpress.com/

Roger Helmer - UK Member of EU Parliament - "Straight Talking" Newsletter Nov. 2007

STRAIGHT TALKING November 2007

Roger Helmer's electronic newsletter from Brussels

roger.helmer@europarl.europa.eu

Quote of the Month

"(If we came to power after the EU Treaty was ratified) we would be in a situation where we had a new treaty in force that lacked demo­cratic legitimacy ..... this would not be acceptable to a Conservative government, and we would not let matters rest there". William Hague MP, Shadow Foreign Secretary, quoted in the Indy of Nov 13th. Well said William. I'll drink to that.

Pro Referendum Rally

Saturday Oct 27th saw public and politicians converge on Westminster to demand a referendum on the Renamed Constitution (pictures on the web-site). Addressing the crowd from an open-topped double-decker bus were Bob Spink MP (Con); Dan Hannan MEP (Con); myself; Nigel Farage MEP (UKIP); and Jens-Peter Bonde, a Danish sceptic MEP.

Parliamentarians representing around 30 million people placed voting papers in a symbolic Ballot Box. The message was clear: we demand a referendum. Is Gordon listening? It seems that only he and a few of his ministers still pretend that there's any material difference between the new Treaty and the failed Constitution.

I have recently made a submission to the House of Lords on this issue on behalf of The Freedom Association. See the text here.


Village referenda

Meantime we've been using the 1972 Local Government Act to force village polls demanding a national referendum. I helped at Loughton (Milton Keynes, just over the regional border) where Conservative Councillor Don Hoyle had set up a poll (95% voted in favour). Meantime in Broughton Astley, England's largest village, in Leicestershire, Ron Clements set up a poll on Nov 1st.

CO2 emissions from cars

The EU Commission has been proposing legislation to require average emissions from each car manufacturer to be reduced to 120 gms/km by 2012. I recorded a piece on the national BBC1 Politics Show on Oct 28th.

This proposal would do huge damage to the industry. But it's also rotten value for money. The European Climate Change Panel has established a series of cost effective measure that could more than achieve our Kyoto targets for less than €20 per ton of CO2. But the cost of the Commission's auto proposal is calculated to be between €132 and €233 a ton. It is amazingly wasteful, damaging and inefficient.

There will be those who say that this issue is so important, we should ignore the cost. But put it like this: if you have €200 to spend on the environment, would you rather stop one ton of CO2 with auto legislation, or 10 tons through more efficient projects? Energy conservation is a less glamorous but much more cost effective approach.

There are even initiatives which would save CO2 and money. For example, if we consolidated the European parliament on one site in Brussels, we would save €200 million a year, and 90,000 tons of CO2! If we built more nuclear power stations, we would save CO2 and save money -- because nuclear electricity is now significantly cheaper than power from fossil fuels.


Chris scores a big hit

Before a recent vote in plenary on pesticide legislation, Chris Heaton-Harris got up on a point of order and remarked that we MEPs had all received a flood of lobbying material from an outfit called Pesticide Watch -- an umbrella group for a bunch of environmental NGOs including Friends of the Earth (acronym "FoE", and rightly so!), most of which receive substantial EU funding.

So here we have the Commission spending tax-payers' money to lobby the European parliament to support the Commission's own legislation! How weird and wasteful and incestuous is that? Chris got some good press coverage on the back of it.

Environment spokesman Stavros Dimas responded that in order to remedy the admitted "democratic deficit" in the EU, it was necessary to support NGOs who could represent the public. Trouble is, they don't represent the public. They are mostly run by single-issue zealots whose first objective is to ensure their own future by exaggerating problems. If we're out to cure the democratic deficit, these NGOs are part of the problem, not part of the solution. There is more to democracy that having the Commission talk to pressure groups that it funds itself.

...Book Choice:

THE SKY'S NOT FALLING: Why it's OK to Chill about Global Warming.

By Holly Fretwell. ISBN 9780 9767 26944. Published by "Kids Ahead Books"

This is a great book for kids, if you want to counter the insidious climate hysteria propaganda in our schools. Described as "fact-filled, fun, apolitical, and optimistic about the future of our magnificent planet", it's aimed at the bright 8 to 12 year old -- but it looks like a good read for grown-ups too. See www.worldahead.com


Two other books...

Stuart Clark, a respected science journalist, has written "The Sun Kings". It raises the intriguing story of astronomer William Herschel, who noticed that the cycle of sunspots correlated with the price of wheat -- but was ridiculed because no one could see a connection. We now know that sunspots drive the Sun's magnetic field, which in turn affects the cosmic ray flux in Earth's upper atmosphere, cloud formation, cloud cover, climate, grain crop yields -- and hence the price of wheat. See link.

Meantime Christopher Booker and Richard North have written "Scared to Death", which deals with the psychology of the repeated media scares that emerge. Remember the Millennium Bug? Of course their big target is global warming, but they have fascinating chapters on other subjects -- including the reason why the rise of the speed camera seems to correlate with a rise in traffic accidents and road deaths. See link.

Roger Helmer - UK Member of EU Parliament - "Straight Talking" Newsletter Dec. 2007

STRAIGHT TALKING December 2007

Roger Helmer's electronic newsletter from Brussels

roger.helmer@europarl.europa.eu

...Germany brings back EU flag and anthem

Germany, along with 15 other member-states, has added a last-minute declaration to the Lisbon Treaty, recognising the EU flag and anthem. So one of the trivial changes between the Constitution and the Treaty, on which Gordon Brown relied for his U-turn on a referendum, is already falling apart.

Admittedly the German declaration will have no legal force or practical effect. But then the decision to drop the flag and anthem from the treaty had no practical effect either.


Mass Lobby for a Referendum

The "I Want a Referendum" Campaign (backed by Open Europe) is planning a mass lobby of parliament early in the New Year.

If you are able to come down to Westminster on a week day, in either January or February 2008, to tell your MP in person why they should vote for a referendum, please e-mail lobby@iwantareferendum.com to register for the event. The precise date will be announced nearer the time.


Referendum Protest greets EU Charter

Wednesday Dec 12th saw the formal signing in Strasbourg of the EU's "Charter of Fundamental Rights" by the heads of the European parliament, the European Council and the Commission. But the formal occasion was overshadowed by a noisy demonstration by MEPs demanding a referendum for their constituents on the Renamed Constitution, due to be signed by Heads of Government in Lisbon on Thursday.

Around fifty MEPs, including myself, had come to the Chamber wearing T-shirts bearing the word "REFERENDUM!". We were a cross-party group from many countries.

As the three heads of institutions sat down on ceremonial chairs in the centre of the Hemicycle for the signing, we rose to our feet and raised placards with the Referendum slogan. And in four separate locations around the Chamber, we also raised ten-foot banners with the same word, in full view of the photographers and TV cameras assembled for the ceremony. At the same time we started chanting the one word "Referendum!".

The parliament's ushers made sterling but courteous and well-mannered efforts to remove the banners and placards, without great success, and after a while the protest subsided and order was restored. But as the main body of MEPs rose to applaud the signing, the protest and the chanting resumed, redoubling in volume as the EU's National Anthem was played.

After the protest, I was challenged to say why I had "sought to deny the speakers the right to be heard". I replied that the 75% of the British people who want a referendum also had a right to be heard, and I had been articulating their demand. I added that it was ironic for EU leaders to boast that the "Charter of Fundamental Rights" was guaranteeing freedom and democracy for European citizens, while member state governments elected on a promise of a referendum had broken their word. "What sort of human rights do we have if we're not even allowed to decide who governs us?" I asked. The determination of the EU to press ahead with the Constitution in the teeth of public opinion shows a huge contempt for democracy and for the people.

In a speech immediately after the protest, a leading Liberal MEP said it had been like "The storming of the Reichstag". In response, I quipped that the Brussels-based Fourth Reich was causing us nearly as much trouble as the Third one.

The MEPs demanding a referendum are in a minority in the parliament, but we represent a majority in many European member-states including the UK. As a British Conservative, I am delighted that our Party policy is to demand a referendum, and I am proud to have raised the demands of East Midlands voters for a say on the treaty on this high-profile occasion.


Apocalypse Cancelled

Finally some "cool thinking" on climate change. Read more here and here.


The Bali Conference on Global Warming

Bali Discovery Tours reports that because of the expected influx of private jets in Bali for the UN Conference on Climate Change, the airport will not have enough parking space for all of them. A great way to save the planet.

As a Telegraph editorial put it (Dec 3rd): "The Bali meeting is not really about doing anything. It is about feeling smug; and getting paid for it".

...Energy: Good News and Bad News

Good news: Labour set to go ahead with new nuclear build programme. David Cameron has said that when Labour get something right, we should have the courage to say so. The government is right to press ahead with a new investment programme for nuclear capacity, and I salute them for it. It will save massive CO2 emissions (if you think that's important), and it's vital for our economy and for energy security.

Bad news: New off-shore wind farms. These new wind-farms will deliv­er an unreliable trickle of very expensive energy. They will require conven­tional back-up on stand-by for when the wind drops, so the CO2 savings will be small. But the higher costs to consumers and industry will be very damaging. The Danes are already cutting back on development of wind-power because the variations in wind levels unbalance their electricity grid.

Wind turbines are garden ornaments, not power stations. They don't save the planet. They just ease the consciences of the middle classes.


...Well done Collingtree; well done Rod Sellers

On 15th November, a poll of electors in the little Northamptonshire Village of Collingtree, voted by a majority of 97% (152 - 5) for a National Refer­endum on the EU Constitutional Treaty before it is ratified by Parliament. Despite a wet and cold November night, 17% of village electors made the effort to vote in person, as postal or proxy votes were not allowed.

The Parish Poll had been called under the provisions of the 1972 Local Government Act which states that a poll must be conducted by the held when enough local electors in the Parish call for one.

Local electors voted on the question “Do you want a national referendum on the EU Constitutional Treaty? Yes or No?”

The Co-ordinator of the Referendum Campaign, Rod Sellers, said “We are delighted that once again when people have a chance to have their say – they say ‘We want a Referendum’. We know that national opinion Polls show that 75% of us want Gordon Brown to have the courage keep his manifesto promise”.


Non-British Citizens to Vote in British elections?

I would like to thank Roy Hewson for bringing an alarming new blog to my attention. It seems that increasing numbers of foreigners are entitled to vote in British elections, and are being encouraged to do so. See the blog for yourself here.

Will America Follow the UK Down the 'Slippery Slope' of Unaccountable EU-Driven Global Governance? UK 'I Want a Referendum' Campaign Instructive

IWR Campaigning Across the Country

http://www.iwantareferendum.com/PRDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1137

Press releases
16/10/07


...Why we need a referendum

EU leaders admit the new treaty is the same as the old EU Constitution

In the 2005 election the Government promised to hold a referendum on the proposed EU Constitution. Later that year, French and Dutch voters overwhelmingly rejected the Constitution in their own referendums.

But EU leaders refused to listen. They are now trying to reintroduce the rejected Constitution in the form of a new treaty. Although they have changed the name, the contents are almost exactly the same. This is a deeply dishonest process.

The author of the Constitution, Valery Giscard d’Estaing, says: “All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way.”

The Spanish Prime Minister Jose Zapatero admits: “We have not let a single substantial point of the Constitutional Treaty go… It is, without a doubt, much more than a treaty. This is a project of foundational character, a treaty for a new Europe.”

The German Chancellor Angela Merkel says simply: “The substance of the Constitution is preserved. That is a fact.”

To find out more about what people across Europe are saying about the revised EU Constitution download our pamphlet: "They said it".
[ http://www.iwantareferendum.com/publication/theysaidit.pdf ].

Only 10 out of 250 proposals in the “new” treaty are different from the proposals in the original EU Constitution. In other words, 96% of the text is the same as the rejected Constitution. Of the few changes there are, very few are of any significance – for example, the new version of the Constitutional Treaty no longer mentions the symbols of the Union, like its flag and anthem. However, of course these symbols already exist.

The think-tank Open Europe has produced a side-by-side textual comparison of the old and new versions of the Constitution. You can download a copy here.
http://www.iwantareferendum.com/case.aspx

They said it: What people are saying about the new EU Constitution
http://www.iwantareferendum.com/publication/theysaidit.pdf


The Constitutional Treaty – what does it mean in practice?

(2) Weakening our ability to say “no” to EU laws we don’t want

A new voting system would cut Britain’s power to block EU laws it opposes by 30%. The UK’s veto - our right to say no - would be given up in 60 new areas covering everything from employment law to energy policy.

This could mean, for example:

Higher fuel bills. The European Commission has proposed a huge increase in oil reserves, which would have cost the UK up to £3 billion to implement. Previously the UK was able to veto this proposal, but under the Constitution it could go ahead.

The Government was able to water down some of the most damaging aspects of the EU’s Financial Services Action Plan by forming a blocking minority with a number of small member states. Many of the proposals were purely intended to favour other EU countries over the UK, and could have cost the UK billions. With our power to block legislation cut this would not have been possible.

Inevitably even more regulation would be passed. According to the Government’s own figures EU regulation since 1998 has cost the UK £40 billion. The Constitutional Treaty would mean even higher costs. No wonder that polls show that 81% of UK firms want the EU to do less, not more.
http://www.iwantareferendum.com/case3.aspx


The Constitutional Treaty – what does it mean in practice?

(1) Making it harder to fight crime

The Constitutional Treaty would give the EU considerable new powers over crime, policing and the law courts.

EU judges would gain power over justice and policing for the first time. The European Court of Justice would become the highest court in the land and would begin to set the UK's substantive criminal law. The Government has admitted that this would be a fundamental transfer of “national sovereignty”.

It would become illegal under EU law to try someone twice for the same crime. This would mean that criminals like Billy Dunlop, who was successfully convicted of murdering Julie Hogg when new evidence came to light 15 years after he was originally acquitted, would not have been convicted.

The Constitutional Treaty also states that “the severity of penalties must not be disproportionate to the criminal offence”, which could undermine the discretion of British judges to keep infamous killers like Rosemary West in jail permanently.

EU officials have already told a BBC reporter that they will use their new powers to pass judgement on the UK’s anti-terror laws. The BBC’s Europe Editor reported: “A Commission spokesman was telling me, “Well we’d want to look at things like Belmarsh, can you hold foreign suspects indefinitely?” The Commission don’t like it, so Britain could get hammered.”

The EU would gain other new powers over criminal justice. The EU’s police force, Europol, would be able to initiate investigations on British soil for the first time, making it more like a European version of America’s FBI.

This could have worrying implications. Unlike British police forces, Europol’s officers are largely unaccountable. They cannot be compelled to testify in court and are immune from prosecution for acts performed in the course of their duties. Europol also has its own problems with corruption – for example its offices were raided by Belgian police as part of a fraud investigation.

The European Prosecutor “Eurojust” will also get sweeping new powers. Johannes Thuy, a spokesman for Eurojust, confirmed that “We could compel the British police to make a prosecution.”
Next page
http://www.iwantareferendum.com/case2.aspx

The Constitutional Treaty – what does it mean in practice?

(3) Less control over asylum and migration

The European Court of Justice would gain substantial new powers to determine the rights of migrants. There would be far more rulings like the recent Chindamo case, in which the UK Government found itself powerless to deport the convicted murderer of school headmaster Philip Lawrence.

The Government has admitted that the proposals in the Constitutional Treaty will mean even more costly asylum and immigration appeals. In November 2006 Geoff Hoon said: “there is clearly a risk that adding what is in effect an avenue of appeal at a very early stage in the process might be an opportunity of further complicating our existing asylum and immigration processes.”

The Charter of Fundamental Rights, which would become legally binding under the Constitution, could also complicate attempts to deport terror suspects and other foreign criminals. This could lead to increased costs for UK taxpayers as migrants claim benefits while they wait for their case to be heard. It currently takes two years before the ECJ even begins to hear an appeal.

New rights set out in the Constitution are likely to erode the current strict limits stopping EU migrants from claiming benefits in the UK if they have not worked. A new “burden sharing” requirement means that UK taxpayers will have to pay for the upkeep of migrants even in other countries. The UK Government initially opposed most of these new EU powers – but it later gave way.

While there are a range of views about all these issues, most people think they should be decided in the UK by accountable politicians. But under the Constitutional Treaty the European Court of Justice would end up making what are essentially political decisions. If British politicians disagreed with these judges, it would be impossible to get the rulings overturned.
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The Constitutional Treaty – what does it mean in practice?

(4) More EU powers over our foreign policy and defence

The Constitution sets up an EU Foreign Minister, an EU Diplomatic Service, and gives the EU the right to sign treaties – just like a single country. It introduces majority voting into all kinds of foreign policy questions.

The Spanish Prime Minister has predicted that “We will undoubtedly see European embassies in the world, not ones from each country, with European diplomats and a European foreign service. We will see Europe with a single voice in security matters. We will have a single European voice within NATO. We want more European unity.” The British Government opposed many of these proposals, including the automatic right of the new EU Foreign Minister to speak on our behalf in the UN Security Council, but later gave in.

The Constitutional Treaty also sets up a “structured cooperation” group, in which the UK will participate. It states that members will have to achieve “approved objectives concerning the level of investment expenditure on defence equipment” and “bring their defence apparatus into line with each other”. A research paper by the European Federalists notes that “Structured Co-operation in the field of Defence is a significant step towards a Single European Army.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel also said earlier this year that “Within the EU itself, we will have to move closer to establishing a common European army.”

Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi has said “When I was talking about the European army, I was not joking. If you don’t want to call it a European army, don’t call it a European army. You can call it ‘Margaret’, you can call it ‘Mary Ann’, you can call it any name.”

The Spanish Prime Minister Jose Zapatero has said that “Europe must believe that it can be in 20 years the most important world power… The Constitution is an important step in this direction.”

What this grandiose vision means in practice is that while British soldiers are being undermined in Iraq and Afghanistan for want of basic equipment, the EU wants us to divert billions of pounds to wasteful projects like the Galileo satellite system - because of its desire to play the role of a “superpower”. Regardless of what you think about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this is bad for our armed forces.
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The Constitutional Treaty – what does it mean in practice?

(5) New EU powers over our public services

Health and education:

The Constitutional Treaty puts the EU in charge of public health, and ends the right of veto in this area. The EU would in future regulate medical standards. A new “right to preventative healthcare” could open the NHS up to a slew of costly ambulance-chasing lawsuits. The Constitution ends the veto over trade agreements in public services like health and education. So our Parliament would no longer have a say over deals which determine how these services are managed.

Public spending rules:

The UK Government has rightly criticised the EU’s public spending rules for discriminating against long term investment. But instead of fixing this problem the Constitution means that the EU’s guidelines on public spending would be more tightly enforced, as no member state will be able to vote against being censured under the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines.

Transport:

Under the Constitution, Britain gives up the veto in transport. Jacques Barrot, EU Transport Commissioner, recently said that the EU wants to run EU wide road-pricing operations. The AA have warned that this would lead to a loss of privacy.

Public service management:

Equally importantly, the Constitutional Treaty does nothing to rein in the European Court of Justice, which in recent years has produced a string of rulings which make it difficult to prioritise NHS spending, and allows those who are willing to threaten legal action to jump the queue.
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The Constitutional Treaty – what does it mean in practice?

(6) It doesn’t sort out the EU’s chronic problems: cost and waste continue

Cost:

Britain is paying £10.5 billion a year into the EU – more than we spend on the police. We have to pay in roughly twice as much as we get back, while countries that are richer than Britain take more out than they put in.

High prices:

The EU’s farm subsidies and trade barriers cost the average family of four £1,500 a year in higher prices and tax. The Constitution could make reform even more difficult by giving the European Parliament new powers over spending.

Fraud:

The new treaty does nothing to sort out the EU’s chronic problems with fraud. According to its own figures, the EU loses £1 million every working day to fraud. Its budget has not been signed off by its own auditors for twelve years in a row.

Hurting poor countries:

The EU’s protectionist trade barriers and farm subsidies cost the poorest countries in the world billions every year.

Waste:

The EU now has 63,000 civil servants working full time churning out new laws. It spends £200 million a year just ferrying euro-MPs back and forth between its two parliament buildings in Strasbourg and Brussels every month.

Help us make politicians keep their promises

Gordon Brown is determined to stop you having a vote on the EU Constitution – despite being elected on a manifesto that promised the British people a referendum. If we are going to persuade him to change his mind, we need your help. This is your last chance to have a say…

Unlike previous treaties, the Constitutional Treaty would be self-amending. This means that in future the powers of the EU could be increased further without the need for any new treaty. Further vetoes could be given up by the Government without the permission of our Parliament.

Because EU leaders could vote to incrementally give the EU more powers, the constitutional treaty would reduce the level of scrutiny of future changes. If the Constitutional Treaty goes through, this could be the last ever opportunity to call for a referendum.
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