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That the EU Referendum blog is unhappy at the latest turn of events in the UK parliament is an understatement:
In other words, in a very real sense – not at all an arcane, academic point – as Lisbon bites, it will no longer makes any difference at all who we elect. For sure, any new government will have some residual powers which it can call its own, but these will gradually be stripped from it as the EU starts to exert its newly-acquired powers.
It occurs, therefore, that the one thing we need to do is boycott the electoral process. If there is no point in having MPs, we should no longer partake in the charade that we have meaningful elections. There can be no better message to send to MPs than an ever-declining turnout. This robs them of even the pretence of legitimacy.
Quite so. It seems to me that we have the bizarre spectacle of MPs choosing to make themselves irrelevant. Perhaps they have reached the deep realisation that they are unworthy of being legislators, that their real role in life is to fiddle expenses, disport themselves on TV and go to foreign junkets. There is, quite frankly, no further use for them.
In moments like this, when so many powers are being transferred to a supranational entity like the EU with remarkably little democratic accountability, and on a scale that has no clear modern parallel, it makes me wonder what, if any point, there is in things like intellectual activism. Getting the message across in a national context is hard enough; trying to persuade Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, Dutchmen, Spaniards, Greeks, Portugese, Belgians and Finns of the case for less government is next to impossible. One of the reasons why I, as a libertarian, am broadly in favour of self-governing nation states is not out of some starry-eyed belief that they are always better than some broader alternative, but because experience teaches us that it is increasingly hard to make changes on a large, supranational level where there is not a shared culture or shared language.
The EU has had its merits, but I think the sad truth is, and has been for some time, that lovers of liberty cannot expect it to be reformed from within or turned into some sort of benign free trade zone. We have to get out.
The EU has determined that passenger flights by DC-3’s flown by Air Atlantique Classic Flight or any one else must cease when new regulations come into effect on July 16th of this year. These rules are imposed upon and override UK regulations, so even though the UK CAA is on the side of Air Atlantique, it will make little difference. Brussells, not London, is the capital of the United Kingdom.
The new rules require any aircraft with more than 19 passengers must have an armoured door to the crew cabin among numerous other modifications. They even demand an inflatable slide be added to the passenger door. There are no exceptions for classic aircraft and thus after July 16th the soulless gray men will make the European world that much more like themselves.
The EU Federal State is a special case of the general truth whose promulgation is a primary raison d’etre of Samizdata: The State is Not Your Friend.
Note: If you want to fly on a DC-3 before your betters prevent you for your own good, you had better hurry. You can reach AACF at 08703-304747 for reservations.
William Hague is on the money and bloody hilarious…
The European Union has its uses. While rootling around for stuff to link to from CNE Competition, I came across this:
Left-wing Labour MPs are girding themselves for a rebellion over a European Union plan which they say could spell the end of the National Health Service.
When left wing Labour MPs rebel, I at least hope for possible goodness.
The European Commission will publish its health directive next week and it is meant to make it easier for people to travel to get specific medical treatment in another EU country.
Ah, the age-old dilemma of the EUrosceptic. What do you think if the EU imposes something sensible?
British diplomats say that this is NOT the same as making sure that if you fall sick in Slovakia or have an accident in Austria you can get treatment straight away.
When British diplomats say that something is NOT something else, it means that they have been told to say that by their political masters and that the small print of their argument will be about a very small difference. The feathers on the other something will definitely NOT be the exact same colour, but the other something will otherwise waddle and quack in an identical fashion to the original something, and will in fact be just another duck. For “NOT”, read ” “, in other words.
It is what some people call “health tourism” and both critics and fans say it will allow people to shop around for health care.
Sounds great. So what if it is just a plan to sell Eurostar tickets; I still like it.
In the end, there is nothing like people preferring something else to whatever bogus nirvana is being peddled by the bogus nirvana peddlers. The one argument against the much vaunted Soviet Communist nirvana that the vaunters could never wriggle free from was the fact – for fact it was – that this was a nirvana that millions wanted to escape from, through minefields if need be, and with only the clothes they were wearing at the time of their escape if that was all they could take with them. A similar process is now under way with Britain’s similarly vaunted NHS, the best healthcare system in the world except for all the others.
Yes, it is true. I am going to go and sign the treaty for the European Constitution on behalf of Belgium.
Now you might well ask yourself, why would Perry de Havilland have the right to sign the EU Treaty (do not worry, I intend to ‘accidently’ tip the ink pot over the foetid thing)? Simple… because clearly anyone can. There are many articles about what El Gordo is going to do and the long running weird protocol spat between Portugal and Belgium over where the treaty must be signed… but that should be academic to Belgium because Belgium still does not have a government, ergo there is no one who can sign on Belgium’s behalf… yet strangely that does not seem to be stopping the former government from doing just that.
If the people who were voted out of office in Belgium months ago can sign the treaty, then why not me too? They have no more right than I do to sign anything on behalf of Belgium. The fact that the Belgian establishment can and have simply banned popular political parties that do not play by the required consensus should indicate that to all intents, Belgium is not a democracy in any meaningful sense. This latest action indicates Belgium is in fact some sort of divine right oligarchy where being a member of the power elite is all the legitimisation you need.
Orwell imagined a political order that would try to change people by expunging certain terms from the vocabulary in order to make the very concepts those words represent un-knowable.
Of course Orwell had not heard of the European Union. To quote EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini:
I do intend to carry out a clear exploring exercise with the private sector… on how it is possible to use technology to prevent people from using or searching dangerous words like bomb, kill, genocide or terrorism
And of course this will also block anyone researching the history of Nazi German and all manner of other governmental action throughout history . It might be interesting to speculate on what the motivation of someone like the EU’s “Justice and Security” Commissioner really are.
(via Ben Laurie)
Now it might seem odd that someone on record as being as hostile to the EU as me might hope that Gordon Brown gets his way and just bounces Britain into adopting the resurrected EU treaty against what is quite obviously the wishes of the majority of politically active people in Britain.
But that is what I want. I want the EU to get its way and for there to be a dramatic shift in power from London to Brussels, with commensurate huge diminution in democratic control of the political process in this country. I regard the fact Gordan Brown can look the nation in the eye and utter such a naked lie that the current offering is not, to quote the Chancellor of Germany, “the new constitutional document is the same as the old constitutional document: the only difference is that it doesn’t have European Constitution as its title”, with pure delight.
In short I want Gordon Brown to strip away the myth of the democratic accountability. I want the system that has been so seriously damaged over the last ten years to be broken in such a visible way that even the most purblind self-deluding fool can see just what sort of country they really live in. Let all sixty million people on this island hear the stream of pork pies issuing from the gob of the man in 10 Downing Street, with the entire apparatus of power standing behind him nodding.
Although very worthy folks like the UKIP will argue passionately for a referendum, knowing that their position will almost certain win (which is of course why it will not be allowed to happen), in truth the long term position of a fringe party like UKIP will be vastly improved if the ‘nightmare scenario’ does indeed come to pass. To actually break the current political monoculture will require far more really pissed off people than currently exist in Big Bruvvah anaesthetised Britain.
The system needs to break and millions of people need to be confronted with their political irrelevance before anything really… interesting… can happen.
So good luck Gordan, I wish you great success in screwing over your subject people and locking in the centrist regulatory Big State at the more remote European level. More and faster in fact.
Well, that is probably inevitable anyway. Political honeymoons that last a long time tend to be followed by savage changes in fortune (Nicolas Sarkozy, please note). Gordon Brown enjoyed a bounce in the polls after he killed off, er, sorry, I meant took over from Tony Blair; he was able, however spuriously, to appear all statesmanlike amid the various natural disasters, almost-successful terror plots. But the shooting of the young boy in Liverpool, adding to a spate of gun crimes, has put crime higher up the political agenda, which may hurt Brown; the recognition that Brown has, after all, been finance minister since 1997 and therefore bears a fair share of the current difficulties, is starting to break into the public awareness. And the latest issue which could really wipe the smirk off his face is Europe. His attempt to slyly sign up to a EU Constitution in drag is unacceptable, and thank goodness if it is true that many Labour MPs and some ministers feel the same way.
Seeing is believing, of course. But somehow, I think life is going to get a lot rougher for the government. The question as always is whether the opposition will fully exploit it.
As people involved in this blog know I am not exactly shy about attacking Conservative party policy either nationally or locally. So it is only fair that I present good news when there is some.
The other night the MP for Kettering, Mr Philip Hollobone, was formally readopted as the Prospective Conservative Party candidate for election as member of the House of Commons for Kettering.
Why is this “good news” or a “reason to proud”?
Because of what he said.
Mr Hollobone informed the score or so people who had come for the meeting of the Executive Council, of the local Conservative Association, that he believed that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland should leave the European Union – and that he had said this publicly and would continue to do so (which is why I can mention it here) whatever Mr Cameron thought about this matter (although, in the interests of fairness, I must make clear that Mr Cameron has not said that a person may not hold this opinion).
Mr Hollobone then left the room and a secret ballot was held. It is a rule that numbers can not be given. However, in this case they are not needed – as there were no spoilt ballot papers and no opposing votes (work it out).
Both good news and a reason to be proud.
By the way, in case anyone thinks I had something to do with any of the above, I did not say a word in the entire Executive Council meeting. As the meeting was not public I will not mention what other people said. However, there were no comments opposing Mr Hollobone’s position.
The EU Referendum blog, a euro-sceptic site that I read regularly, has few doubts about a key part of Tone’s legacy:
There has already been a Cabinet reshuffle, in Europe. A new member has just joined the European Council. The shiny car in which he is driven to Downing Street should be bearing not a Union Jack but a ring of stars, to remind us of his coming servitude.
That also would be an acknowledgement of Tony Blair’s true legacy to this nation. Ten years ago, he entered Downing Street to a flurry of Union Jacks, waved by enthusiastic supporters. Today, he leaves – to an unprecedented standing ovation of the House – bequeathing his successor a blue flag with twelve yellow stars.
I would also add that a badge depicting Blair – and Brown’s – utter contempt for the traditional liberties of this nation, and our Common Law, might be appropriate. The trouble is, who among the broad British population would know what such a badge stands for?
Yesterday I happened to see the Sunday Telegraph and Niall Fergusson’s contribution was ‘interesting’ (in the sense of the old Chinese curse).
Niall Fergusson is a Scottish conservative who sold out and got a high paid job at Harvard (perhaps he just went along with the leftist stereotype of the conservative as someone who puts his personal financial interest above everything else). He sometimes still writes decent stuff, but normally his writings are designed to not offend his new ‘liberal’ friends (and employers) and today was no exception.
Professor Fergusson was not writing in support of Islamic terrorists in Somalia (which he has done in the past), or declaring that the West should submit to (sorry engage in ‘diplomacy’ only with) the Iranian regime (regardless of how many British and American people this regime kills in Afghanistan, Iraq and the streets of Western cities). No today he had a different subject – the European Union (remember in establishment circles in the United States wanting to take powers away from the EU is considered as wicked as it is in establishment circles here).
The great historian has decided to put his support behind the superstate and denounce its evil ‘nationalist’ foes.
Supposedly 30% of the population of the United Kingdom think membership of the EU has been harmful. I think it is rather more that 30%, but perhaps Professor Fergusson is correct.
What were Professor Fergusson’s arguments against those people who think that the tidal wave of EU regulations has been harmful?
He presented no arguments at all. It was just taken as obvious that anyone who opposed this layer of government was both stupid and evil.
Professor Fergusson is clearly a true establishment man and no doubt will continue to be welcome at all the social events in Harvard.
Simon Jenkins, the columnist and former editor of The Times (of London), is capable of making a strong argument at times and he tries to do so with his thesis that the Blair government continued much the same policy mix as Margaret Thatcher. Yes, really. Jenkins argues that in some ways, the Blair government was more enthusiastic in privatising certain industries than the Thatcher one (he says Mrs T. was opposed to selling off the railways, but I am not sure that is true). Even without the odd quibble, it is a quite persuasive piece of writing. However, in the light of this week’s events as related by Perry de Havilland below, Jenkins spoils his piece by this piece of utter nonsense:
Although Blair made a spirited bid after the 2001 election to make Europe, as he put it, ‘the cornerstone of the new parliament’, he found it merely a source of dissension with Brown. He signed the Maastricht treaty as promised in his manifesto but did not implement it and eventually ceded to Brown a de facto veto not just over the euro but over further European integration. Blair’s 2005 presidency of the council of ministers was a fiasco. Under him Britain remained semi-detached from Europe and beyond Thatcherite reproach. His glee at being let off the hook by the French and Dutch referendum votes against the 2005 constitution was ill-concealed.
I think even Jenkins probably feels a bit of a twit about those words. Because it appears Blair was pretty keen to transfer more sovereignty to the EU all along. The idea that he was pleased at the outcomes of the referendums in previous years is not borne out by his sly actions.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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