Sack the people!

ralphg

Canada went through the same thing in the 1980s. The federal government tried to cheer-lead a new constitution through the voting process. The prime minster dared Canadians to read it.

So we did, and found that the bad parts outweighed the good. Despite all levels of government, the media, and all the higher-thinkers cheering for the change, it was rejected by the voters.

Perhaps voters rejected it because so many of the elite were in favour. No matter.

In Canada's case, a new constiturion has never again reared its head.

Dave M

The E.U. was a good idea but has now been taken to extremes. Such a culturally divided super-State alliance is never going to rival the future China. If the self appointed eilte who are now running the E.U. show push too hard, I imagine member countries will break away. It has become way too autocratic and it makes you also wonder how the E.U. can accuse only Putin of being anti-democratic.

George

This reminds me of the reaction of the Israeli Knesset member Itzhak Ben-Aharon (United Workers Party - a faction of the Labour Party) to the news in 1977 that Menahem Begin's Likud party had won the election, overthrowing 29 years of left-wing hegemony. "If that is the will of the people, then we need to change the people."

John

I agree there should be an entirely new Treaty, and I propose Helen Szamuly, Melanie and her husband be the ones to draft it.

Alcuin

I understand that when the EU was set up, the founders were worried that as the people had elected both Hitler and Mussolini, they could not be trusted with an entity as large as Europe.

That sentiment has led us to today. The EU is corrupt, bureaucratic, authoritarian and undemocratic. In its current form it can go no further. Milliband's stance that the process should continue but the Irish vote should be respected renders him ridiculous, but he is, of course, merely a mouthpiece for Broon who like the rest of the Eurocrats is a rabbit caught in the headlights of the people's gaze.

Time for the Tories to put away their Europhobia and come up with proposals that would make Europe work. That means the EC must be elected, the books must be audited, and the gravy train must stop.

Chris

MIlliband was quoted on teletext last night as saying (from my memory, but pretty close) that the members of the EU had 'no appetite for years of renewed constitutional negotiations.' Oops, bit of a giveaway there. One hopes that the Tories will quote this next time Labour say the treaty is nothing to do with the ex-constitution.

Observer

Under the terms of the proposed Lisbon Treaty, the European Arrest Warrant will grant to any judge, in any EU country, the right to issue an Arrest Warrant, against any "citizen" of the EU OR against anyone visiting an EU country and to issue a Warrant without description or definition of charges. The EU country in which the citizen or visitor is in residence (or temporarily visiting) is required to arrest that person and transport that person to the country whose judge issued the Warrant without any recourse on the part of the citizen to his or her own country's legal procedures. Only upon incarceration of the citizen in the Warrant-issuing country, will a judge of that country then define and describe the charges which led to the Warrant being issued. Under the terms referring to the European Arrest Warrant are the "crimes" of "racism," "xenophobia," "Islamophobia" and "computer crime". The particular reference to 'islamphobia' is part of the protected status of Islam in the European Union which is intended to be transformed into the Mediterranean Union as per the remarks of President Sarkozy of France a few months back. The Mediterranean Union will comprise all present EU countries and Moslem countries. Lurking in the background are the following facts: In 1997 the UN accepted the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam (1990) as a 'regional variation' on the UN-sponsored Universal Human Rights Declaration (1948). In the Cairo Declaration, Sections 19,24 and 25 define all crimes and punishments as only those determined by Sharia Law and that there is to be no authority above Sharia Law. The signatories to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights include also all those signatories to the European Union and to the Lisbon Treaty; they are, therefore, in agreement to also accept the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam. I enclose here links to both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam so that readers may compares the two fairly short documents; there are few comparisons, but many contrasts, and they strike at the very heart of our civilisation's concepts of justice and freedom: http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/Ohmyrus30816.htm If this proposed Mediterranean Union comes off, and the Lisbon Treaty is in place, then the mechanisms thereby exist which will enable any Moslem signatory of the Cairo Declaration to request from its co-member of the Mediterranean Union (including any EU country) an Arrest Warrant to be issued against any citizen, or visitor residing anywhere in this combined 'union' for the 'crime' as defined under Sharia Law which does include any criticism or presumed 'blasphemy' against "Allah" and its "prophet" Muhammad or of Islam itself as an ideology/theology. The EU is entirely undemocratic but what is planned for in the very near future is truly evil.

Miv Tucker

In Dick Tuck's famous words, "The people have spoken, the bastards!"

david skinner

In my view the Roman Catholic Church has some redeeming qualities, not least its defence of the family, however we must not forget it is also a political power that wishes to be at the heart of the European Union. The ambition, to be at the centre of power, is also shared by Tony Blair, which perhaps explains, against all reason, why they have welcomed him with open arms . Was some deal struck?

Norm

Just about the only thing left that the EU doesn't have is an army. Putting aside the trivial things like a constitution because they will just ignore that anyway, an army is required to subdue the people when they rise up, which they will at some stage.

Ann

Anyone still doubt what I have been saying for very many years, and always been derided, namely that the EU is essentially a fascist entity?

Jonathan

For anyone old enough to remember the Mike Yarwood Show at the time of the 1975 EEC Referendum, one episode included a mock-interview of Harold Wilson that went something like this:

Interviewer: Mr Wilson, what will you do if the people vote "no" next week.

Harold Wilson (M.Y.): We will have another referendum, and another referendum, and go on having referendums (?) after that until the people get it right.

(cue Studio Laughter)

michael

Ann

The EU is a facist entity?

What, you mean, like the Nazis?

What precisely do you mean?

Orwell Spinning

Two questions for Ms Phillips:

a) Has she read the Treaty?

b) Assuming that she has read the Treaty, does she think that the people of Ireland made the right decision when they voted "no"?

G Miller

Europe is at its limits.

It is easy for me to see the need to have close ties with our neighbours and, at a stretch, to include eastern european countries like the baltic states, Polish and Czech states.

But when we have to swallow Turkey, Albania and perhaps other muslim states that have NOTHING in common with us and much against us I say NO MORE!

If every state had had a referendum the overwhelming majority would have rejected it as France, Holland and Ireland already have.

Can the politicians not see where this is leading?

Do they not believe in democracy?

Do they have an ulterior motive?

peter

No one has focussed on the roots of disinformation that did the rounds in Ireland, playing the race, religion and abortion card.

We've all read about the mass conscription into an EU army, microchipping, limits on kids etc.

All of which were lies.

The Irish - who owe the EU more than possibly any other country, were spun a yarn.

Question is, by whom?

peter

No one has focussed on the roots of disinformation that did the rounds in Ireland, playing the race, religion and abortion card.

We've all read about the mass conscription into an EU army, microchipping, limits on kids etc.

All of which were lies.

The Irish - who owe the EU more than possibly any other country, were spun a yarn.

Question is, by whom?

London Calling

Inspectator Cluso, alias Melanie Phillips … a Cat amongst the Pigeons, Meow...

I hope your stay allows you some free time to unwind and reflect, for a mind full of words needs a blank page every now and then, as you know.

The Irish vote was not an Irish Potato and neither will their voice be silenced.

Ireland was the last pawn on the treaties chessboard, The queen triumphed, but as the Terminator warned...I'll be back and no doubt they will, but we shall be ready.

So Italy is deploying 2,500 Army
on their streets? Is President Bush visiting? Are the Mafia having a street party? Is there a Terror plot? No, No and No....

It is to control Crime, apparently
but if that’s the case why will the Guns be pointing at innocent civilians and not at the corrupt government instead?

Playing the Terror card is the Jokers Hangman, and as lose lips sink ships, be on your guard, for our ships are still mooring in shallow waters and the Sharks are hungry.

robbit

michael - since the parlour-pink left use the word "facist" with such complete indiscriminate abandon, so is Ann entitled to as well, and so are all of the rest of us "conservatives". When we use the word "facist" we are generally using it as a synonym for _totalitarian_, as I believe Ann is, and we are usually perfectly well aware that there are very slight differences between totalitarianism of the right (historic facism) and totalitarianism of the left - and the totalitarianism of what is simply a corrupt, unaccountable buereaucratic monstrosity, trying to arrogate absolute power to itself throught the back door and throuth a smokescreen of Euro-babble and phoney fine-sounding sentiments. These various totalitarianisms are in the end of the day the same thing
and so we describe the European Superstate project as fundamentally facist, yes, just like the Nazis, but using gobbldeygook, bribery wheedling and gerrymandering rather than jackboots... for the time being...

Dave

I love this sentance;
"A German banker expressed the heretical view that the limits of integration in Europe had now been reached and that the problem was that no-one – not the political class, not the economic class – ‘owned’ the idea of Europe. I think what he was trying to say was that the idea of Europe was intellectually dishonest, politically dangerous and culturally totalitarian, but he didn’t quite put it that way."

A journalist might have asked him what he meant and reported it. Psychic Mel however is the blogger who can see into your mind.
Useful trick!

davod

Ot of sequence but appropriatel so:

"Ann
The EU is a facist entity?
What, you mean, like the Nazis?
What precisely do you mean?

"Under the terms of the proposed Lisbon Treaty, the European Arrest Warrant will grant to any judge, in any EU country, the right to issue an Arrest Warrant, against any "citizen" of the EU OR against anyone visiting an EU country and to issue a Warrant without description or definition of charges."

The Nazis used Interpol to track down its opponents.

EDDIE

I confess that I~ have not read the Treaty. However I thought that the EU was essentially a “good Thing” and was for it. Now `I am not so sure. I had hoped that the Bill of rights would work well but it seems now to be thoroughly abused in so many ways. There is gross corruption, not least by some of our representatives.. Worse still, no one is doing anything about it. In the U.S there is a direct relationship between the voters the congress. Namely that bad performance could mean that the elected leaders risk the sack. I can see absolutely no relationship between myself as a citizen and those who issue directives in Brussels. I have no say in anything because of the way the thing has been set up. If being a totalitarian state means that the electorate have no power, then perhaps we should consider the E.U. In that light. Politicians love it that way.

Kevyn Bodman

Observer's comment about the European Arrest Warrant is an important one.
And it's bad enough even without bringing muslim countries into it.
We've got to get out of the EU.

The reaction of the Eurocrats to the Irish vote demonstrates the level of respect those in the EU institutions have for the people.
We've got to get out of the EU.

Bureaucrats and politicians are just as self-interested as the rest of us,their desire is to expand their power and influence.
And it's clear that their interests and ours are diverging.
We've got to get out of the EU.

Here is a quote fom a book I was reading earlier this morning,
'A common market doesn't require centralized regulation;it only requires that national governments not prevent their citizensfrom trading with citizens of other countries.'
The EU project has left that idea a long way behind, and where they are heading now is not going to be to the benefit of ordinary citizens.
we've got to get out of the EU.

I have a nagging suspicion that there is something we are not being told about the EU project by its architects, but I don't know what that something is.
We've got to get out of the EU.

London Calling: I didn't understand your point earlier.

Ed Sligo

Michael,

you illiterate fool. The word is fascist, not facist

Sauerkrautmit beilagen

The trouble with the EC, or ES (European Superstate) as it should be called, is that it's ideal is based entirely on the inward-looking Europe of state-sponsored corporatism with decisions taken at supranational level, and sovereignty transferred to Brussels. Nothing must be allowed to get in the way of this unitary one-size-fits-all approach.

Therefore, the Irish will simply be bullied into line, as is the way with bureaucratic juggernauts. It is they, not the dissenters, who are the 'poisoned chalice' of Europe.

David Lindsay

David Skinner, I know of no seriously Catholic political movement that is in favour of the EU. On the contrary, becoming pro-EU is always a key part of pulling up a movement's Catholic roots.

The institutions of the Jacobin Republic of Europe subject us to the legislative will of Stalinists, Trotskyists, neo-Fascists, neo-Nazis, and various other undesirables.

And I know that I have made this point before, but it is vitally important to remember that the present President of the Commission is a product of the Maoist insurrection that brought down a Catholic bulwark against Communism, Fascism, and civil war between the two.

He is now a rabid "free"-marketeer and warmonger, positions as for from Catholic Teaching as Maoism, but at least the former (and thus necessarily the latter) at the core of the EU project.

Les Hardie

As the Declaration of Independence would be rewritten by the Eurocrats: "...whenever the People become destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the Government to alter or abolish the People..."

Verity

John - Seconded! (But don't forget the doughty Richard North!)

Ann 11:08 - I've been saying it for years, too. In fact, everyone who's not a foaming lefty has been saying it for years.

Michael asks what Ann means by "fascist". May I suggest that she means fascist?

G Miller asks: "Do they [the politicians] have an ulterior motive?" Oh, gosh! Ya think?

EDDIE - You seem to have come really, really late to the party.

Kevyn Bodman - Your suspicions echo my own.

Augustus

Following the creation of the European Economic Area (EEA) in 1994, which allowed member states of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) to participate in the Europen single market, I cannot see why Britain cannot revert back to its pre-1973 EFTA status, thereby disentangling itself from much of the political baggage of the EU. The four freedoms; those of goods, persons, services and capital, would still be in place. There would, however, be a cessation of EU development funds, but I would have thought that a rich country should be able to manage without these and build up its own development resources.

Commondog

Dave
June 17th, 2008 1:27pm

You have a very narrow idea of the journalist's profession.

If every word a journalist wrote, had to be the verbatim reports of interviews which you demand, then the newspapers would be very thin and extremely dull.

Journalists, when they have 'served their time', are entitled to put their seasoned minds to work on the commentary that is the real communication, and the real thing which we want to hear.

This must of course, at all times be firmly grounded. Otherwise we can find ourselves assailed by the twisted thought of the malcontent.

Such is available for those who care for it, and is easily recognised and usually comes under the name of one R. Fisk.

M Clyde

I think Brussels should step back from fast forwarding political unification and step up cultural initiatives.

When people 'feel' European, then the political process can move forward.

We do have a common and noble European culture (the Enlightenment; art; philosophy; music; literature) but all that is rather high brow, and thus distant from the philistine power hungry Eurocrats and the plebs alike.

When Europeans feel a sense of something in common to be proud of:
a) debate on political integration might actually move forward with some critical depth, and,
b) be a bit more popular.

The thing is there is an intellectual vacuum in the heart of Europe.

That's why the Irish (a highly educated people) have rightly stalled.

Verity

Augustus and others who see promise in the sunny uplands of Norway and Switzerland, it is not that easy. Do you really, really think these fascists are going to allow anyone to escape their empire?

Norway, which has had the good sense to keep its oil to itself, and Switzerland, ditto banking, are only associate members but they have to obey all the rules. They both have dedicated offices in all the EU capitals. (Another waste of taxpayer money.)

There are a few things they get a free pass on, but mostly, they have to obey every directive that Brussels commands.

The way forward for Britain is completely out. There is no option of returning to EFTA, although what we could do is begin a second EFTA-like organisation with Norway and Switzerland and sit back and watch it grow.

I guarantee you that if Britain walks out, Holland and Denmark will not be far behind. Ireland? Who knows? They've surprised us once. The Swedes, again, who knows, but the Swedish voters are probably as sick to death of their lives being messed up by the EU gravy train streaming through their bank accounts, as we are.

In my opinion, what would form - naturally, not in the daft construction that is the EU - is an equivalent of NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Association), except for Northern Europeans. NEFTA. Not Turkey. Not Albania. Not Romania. Not Hungary.

NAFTA works a treat - although I realise that Mexico, with its cheaper labour costs, has taken jobs away from the American rust belt. But rather than the lunatic cost of living, due to endless social programmes and hundreds of thousands of unelected bureaucrats on the payroll, N America has a much more reasonable cost of living. There are no cross-nation laws. It's about trade. Only. And it works.

(It works so well that when the beauteous Obama told the voters in the American rust belt that he would renegotiate it, he immediately ran up to Canada and told the Canadian prime minister he was just kidding.)

Dave

Commondog: Yeah, I kinda figured the point of journalism was finding the truth and presenting it to people in a clear way.
If Mel isn't psychic then perhaps the only conclusion here is that she's making it up?

Commondog

Dave.

Well, since you've had it pointed out to you, you now get it right in the first paragraph, then mess up with the psychic/fiction construct.

No smoke and mirrors here mate, just truth tracked down, evaluated, distilled and distributed.

Once experienced, not willingly given up.

Terry

If anyone ever wondered where robert mugabe learned to disguise totalitarianism as a distorted version of democracy, look no further than Brussels.

Perhaps the EU Commission is politically assigned to appease islamofascism because it has so much in common with it.

anglicus

The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.

david skinner

David Lindsey, The Roman Catholic Church far longer than any other political organisation has sought to claim Europe. Indeed it would justifiably be able to claim to have created it during the first millennium A.D., uniting it with a common language- Latin. It wants back its own. When you say that institutions of Jacobin Republic of Europe are subject to Stalinists and neo- fascists etc. you forget the involvement of the RC with both Hitler and Muslims in attempting the rid the world of Jewry. Even recently the RC has been involved in getting all protestant churches in France to be classed as cults and with the possibility of their being banned.

My numerous French in-laws are staunch, modern materialists who would never dream of attending a church service and yet when it comes to death and funerals it’s out with the candles, the incense and all the trimmings. Beneath the French materialist façade there run deep and ancient superstitions.

In the same way that opposing Sunnis and Shiites are united by Mohammed so Fascism, communism and the Roman Catholic Church stem from Greek humanism. After all were not the Spartans, the first truly communist state?

So I ask again, if after Tony Blair’s government has introduced one law after another that goes completely against Roman Catholic teaching and which is destroying Roman Catholic Adoption Agencies, why on earth would the RC welcome him with open arms?

David Lindsay

David Skinner, what on earth does any of that have to do with the EU?

The Irish have just voted against the enforcement of abortion and same-sex "marriage" by the EU (cheered on by their own secular elite), against the erosion of wages and working conditions by the EU (cheered on by their own secular elite), and against the homogenisation of their once very Catholic country by the EU (cheered on by their own secular elite).

Likewise, in Poland, France, Spain, anywhere you like, the more diehard Catholic a political movement is, the more hostile to the EU it is, just as practising Catholics are disproportionately represented among Eurosceptics on both the Tory and Labour benches in both Houses of Parliament.

david skinner

David Lindsey , You and I may not understand how the Roman Catholic can receive Tony Blair into its fold but it has :

http://aftermathnews.wordpress.com/2008/01/13/blair-kicks-off-campaign-to-become-eu-president/ ( Blair for EU President )

We may neither understand any of this :

http://www.reformation.org/holocaus.html ( Vatican’s holocaust)

Or this :
http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/p94.htm ( Roman Catholic teaching on evolution)

But we might understand this:

http://www.the-highway.com/eu_Bennett.html ( the Roman catholic church and European Union )

What do you make of it ?

David Lindsay

That you need to get out more, David.

david smith

In the current lifetimes of millions of Europeans the western European countries of Germany,Spain,Portugal and Italy have have been lands where our version of democracy and the rule of law have been conspicuous by their total absence.I say nothing of the eastern European lands deprived of freedom by Russian oppression and German militarism.is it any wonder the EU dominated by these countries has little understanding of what democracy really is.
The EU has never been or ever will be a democracy as understood by us or the USA and our erstwhile dominions.
Time to go and go quickly before it all ends in real tears.

381

Given that all opposition to the lisbon treaty has been sidestepped by the house of lords only Her Majesty the Queen stands in the way of this undemocratic and unconstituional act.

James C

David Skinner,

I’ve just looked at the websites which you reference in your reply to David Lindsay. One of them, the reformation.org website, is the most rabidly anti-rational, anti-Semitic piece of nonsense I’ve ever had the misfortune to look at. No one but a lunatic could take such things seriously.

First link: Claims that the US is using electric currents to bring about earthquakes.

Second link: claims that Jesuits control the Pentagon to secure world dominance, and that “the main reason for the aggression against Iraq was their refusal to acknowledge the claim of the people who call themselves "Jews" to the land of Palestine”

Third link: claims that the US is making war on Iraq to “Recover the lost Papal States for the Pope”, “Annex the U.S. and Canada to Mexico” and “Militarily maintain the state of "Israel" in order to stop the Protestant Christians from calling the Pope the Antichrist”

Fourth link: claims “The U.S. is paying a terrible price in the Mideast to militarily maintain the fake state of "Israel" in order to conceal from the world the true identity of Antichrist!!”

http://reformation.org/pentagon-tesla-technology.html
http://reformation.org/jesuits-control-pentagon.html
http://reformation.org/smokescreen.html
http://reformation.org/synagogue-of-satan.html

With regard to the last link, I couldn’t be bothered to look at “http://www.the-highway.com/eu_Bennett.htm”l in any detail, but since it links to “www.pointsoftruth.com/beastarises.html” I suppose it’s more of the same. The occurrence of the word “beast” in the title of any non-zoological page is never a promising sign, unless you’re a psychiatrist.

david skinner

James C Thank you for the links . Irrespective of the source of information, are you saying that the facts presented by Avro Manhattan, concerning the Catholic Church and the holocaust are false?

phil

Having read all the responses to this thread so far, Observers detailed post has been ignored except by Kevin Bodman and it is the most important piece on this thread ,once again we have been regaled with religious arguments by the usual posters, which pale into insignificance compared to what Observer has said -I suggest you all read it again and comment on his information as if it is true ,and he seems to know what he is talking about ,we cannot afford to ignore it -We have already seen instances of judges issuing arrest warrants against politicians , and the ordinary citizen will be at immense risk -any comments ?

Observer

Thank you, Phil, and I sincerely hope that the readers of this thread will also take note of the following which refers to my posting on the European Arrest Warrant:
http://www.iheu.org/node/2949

Observer

Thank you, Phil, and may I draw the attention of the readers of this thread to a further link on the subject of the European Arrest Warrant:-

http://www.iheu.org/node/2949

Also, on 18 June the Dow Jones Newswires reported in the following article that "The top UN Human Rights official said Wednesday she was concerned at possible "taboo" subjects at the UN Human Rights Council after the chair blocked any discussion on Islamic Sharia Law...Her comments follow the decision of Council chair Doru Romulus Costea on Monday to cut off a speaker who raised the subject of Islamic Sharia Law in relation to human rights..." The short article is linked here and I urge all to read it

http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/newsStoryPrintVer.aspx?cpath=20080618%5cAC

David Vinter

In the 1970s I was invited to vote for A COMMON MARKET, nothing was said about politcal integration, nothing was said about bringing in countries where WW1 started! Wedgewood Benn said it was a ' Rich mans club' well I thought better be in a rich mans club than a poor mans club. But now the overpaid arrogant officials treat the rest of us as idiots.

David Lindsay

Then, David Vinter, you were not paying attention. There has never been any entity called "the Common Market". The first clause of the Act taking us in is a textbook definition of a federal state. Both of these things were made perfectly clear by Enoch Powell, Tony Benn and others, but they were shouted down by, among other people, Margaret Thatcher.

James C

I was referring to your dubious link. In the page you link to, “The Vatican’s Holocaust”, Avro Manhattan has a chapter referring to the massacres in Yugoslavia: “The true inspirer, promoter and executor of the religious massacre: the Vatican”. Now this may or may not be true – given that the Vatican turned a blind eye to a good deal, it seems not unreasonable - but when I looked more closely, I found that Mr Manhattan was not an academic but something of a conspiracy theorist, and that the reformation.org site is simply a repository for every loony and malicious theory on the web. Surely you can see that such a link is worthless as evidence? Incidentally, I don’t imagine for a moment that you believe the rest of the dross that is on that site.

Anyway, many Britons today are concerned about the EU because the people in power are, or at least seem to be, anti-democratic bureaucrats who are trying to advance their own vision of Europe whether the ordinary people like it or not. By contrast, most Britons are not concerned with the attitude of any of the established churches towards the EU because, like most organisations based on superstition, their influence has been massively diminished, and will continue to diminish so long as we teach knowledge rather than superstition in our schools.

John Montgomery

I agree with the comments about the EU having tendencies towards fascism - that is corporatist, statist, anti-free market, anti individual rights and anti-democratic. I'd point out, however, that Fascism evolved from the left - Mussolini was a self-declared life-long socialist - not the right. Conservatives believe in Parliamentary democarcy, wealth creation, individual rigts, checks and balances and the rule of law. In other words we seek to protect liberty. The left has always had totalitarian tendencies. The full name of the Nazi Party - strange that this is never mentioned - was the National Socialist and German Workers Party. Hitler also declared himself to be a socialist.