Thursday, 9 October 2008


Thursday, 9 October 2008

 The UK-EU conspiracy of deception

From the moment the Ecofin meeting broke up earlier this week and the government subsequently announced it would reveal details of a taxpayer funded rescue plan for UK banks, it has been blindingly obvious that Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling were only acting following permission from Europe. This UK government does not have the cojones to act unilaterally, even when other member states are doing what they see fit regardless of European rules and laws. Now EU Referendum has had it...

confirmed beyond any doubt that the UK's bank rescue plan was not a unilateral action but – as we had suspected – part of a carefully structured and co-ordinated plan devised at Ecofin, building on the foundations laid at the "summit" in Paris on Saturday
our suspicions are found to have been correct. What does this mean? It is merely confirmation, as if any were needed, that the UK government does not act in the interests of the UK until it has been patted on the head and told by the European bureaucracy it can go out to play with our money. Once again the key decisions have been made behind closed doors in legislation-decreed smoke-free rooms far away from Westminster. The EU is struggling to keep a lid on unilateral actions elsewhere, but with the complicity of Gordon Brown it has secured a strong leash around the UK's neck to ensure we cannot walk our own path.

What Dr Richard North at EU Referendum goes on to argue is that our politicians and even our media refuse to acknowledge the EU 'elephant in the room' that dominates events and dictates the majority of our actions. Richard believes the refusal to acknowledge and explain the origin of our governance and its legislation amounts to active and collective denial of the truth. And he is right. He describes this phenomenon as the "politics of denial". Personally I believe it goes deeper than that and what we are experiencing is nothing less than a conspiracy of deception.

Pollsters tell us that people do not see Europe as being a major issue. Yes the majority are unhappy with EU interference in what they see as UK matters, but they believe other issues such as the economy, energy prices and immigration are far more pressing and have a more pronounced impact on their lives. Europe, they feel, is a pain but these other issues are of critical importance.

Herein resides the biggest problem of all; the fact that Europe steers or impacts, to a greater or lesser degree, UK policies and actions on those critical issues of the economy, energy prices and immigration.

What is missing in this country, thanks to deliberate obfuscation and the cowardice of the political class and our media's complicity, ignorance or incompetence - or a combination of all three - is clarity about the origin of the laws and regulations we are forced to live under. So it was encouraging to learn that a Conservative MP, Mark Harper, yesterday presented a Bill to Parliament under the ten minute rule to implement a law that would have meant in future all legislation would state whether it was introduced because of an EU decision. Such a simple mechanism would help ordinary people to quickly identify and comprehend the reach of the EU and the degree to which UK laws originate in Brussels / Strasbourg. Of course it could go further and denote all existing laws that have been implemented because of diktat from the EU.

The response to the Bill in Parliament tells people all they need to know about the conspiracy of deception in this country. The government took the unusual step of instructing Labour MPs to vote against the Bill, even though it had cross-party support. The result was Mark Harper's Bill was defeated by 202 votes to 169. As Harper explained afterwards (comment in red is mine):
“The aim of my Bill was simple: to improve openness and transparency in the way our laws are made. It is extraordinary that the Government are opposed to openness and transparency. It makes you wonder what they have got to hide.

"My Bill was not about being for or against the European Union, [more is the pity] but about ensuring that there is transparency and accountability in Parliament’s relationship with the EU. I had hoped that my Bill would have enabled a more informed debate about the EU and Britain’s relationship with it. Sadly the government seems to have other ideas.”
Quite. Almost as bad as the outcome of the vote is the fact it might not have been needed if politicians on all sides were frank and honest about the origin of our laws - and particularly if our media showed more journalistic rigour and explained how so much of our legislation is not created here, but enacted on orders from the EU. I mean, is it really more important for three journalists from The Times to include an observation that the Chancellor had tandoori chicken for dinner the night he initiated the part-nationalisation of our clearing banks, rather than investigate and reveal the true extent of EU control over the decision itself?