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No sooner has Perry reminded us that the Conservative Party are not to be trusted when it comes to liberty, than, as if right on cue, the buggers prove him right:
Patients should be issued with “entitlement cards” to stop illegal immigrants abusing the National Health Service, the Tories said yesterday.
Liam Fox, the shadow health secretary, said the cards, which would be issued to every UK citizen, would stop so-called “health tourists” being treated at the taxpayers’ expense.
Now, to be fair, the problem they are referring to is a valid one. It is an outrageous abuse of the already over-burdened British taxpayer to force them to pick up the healthcare tab for anyone anywhere in the world who happens to want it. However, the blindingly obvious way of putting a stop to this would be to deregulate health services and dismantle the Soviet-inspired monstrosity of the NHS.
But, no, the Tories would never dream of doing anything to upset the left. They would much rather that we were all issued with an electronic tattoo which is not only obnoxious and anti-British, it will also prove ineffective in solving the problem referred to. Within weeks of the introduction of any such ‘Entitlement Card’ the country (and possibly the rest of the world) will be flooded with forgeries and, even if that were not the case, neither the Human Rights regime, nor EU law will permit the NHS to discriminate against non-UK nationals. Added to that is the massive cost of administering and policing the system the burden of which will also fall on the taxpayers and probably prove more expensive than treating foreigners for their arthritis.
The Tories clearly have not thought this one through but ‘thinking’ is generally frowned upon in those circles. I expect very little from the British Conservative Party and I am rarely disappointed.
Sadly none of Britain’s mainstream political parties are, they just vary (slightly) in who they want to benefit from their regulation of civil society. When it comes from choosing amongst which tribal faction of statists will regulate your life, we are spoilt for choice.
So next time you have an earnest young Tory hopeful turn up on your doorstep asking for your vote and pledging to save you from those beastly Labour socialists, ask him where his party stands on the issue of ID cards, which will naturally start off as ‘National Health Benefit Cards’ and then very quickly become mandatory for pretty much anything you try to do, such as open a bank account or rent an apartment.
And then look ‘earnest young Tory’ in the eye, explain why his party is part of the problem rather than part of the solution and then tell him to fuck off. A choice between a party which brought us Michael ‘a touch of the night’ Howard and one which has brought us David ‘RIP’ Blunket is no choice at all. But if you cannot bring yourself to resist the syren call to the ballot box, vote UKIP.
Former Italian prime minister Lamberto Dini, one of the people drawing up the new European Constitution on the EU Convention on the Future of Europe, has flatly and explicitly contradicted British ministers who claimed that the new constitution is only a ‘tidying up exercise’.
Anyone in Britain who claims the constitution will not change things is trying to sweeten the pill for those who don’t want to see a bigger role for Europe
If this constitution is adopted by Britain, control of much of how the state intrudes into society will be placed in a power centre far more remote and less amenable to the British public’s democratic influence politically. It is nothing less than the wholesale disenfranchisement of Britain, talking a moderately effective democratic system of accountability (albeit a long decaying one) and replacing it with European-wide ‘democracy’ that in fact places vastly more power in remote bureaucracies.
Although I never doubted that Tony Blair was simply lying through his teeth, can anyone now doubt that what the Labour government is saying is intentional falsehood pertaining to altering the most fundamental underpinning structure of the British state?
If the Tory opposition was capable of rational analysis, they would start realising that Blair has torn up the rule book and soon rolling back the tide of statism will simply be beyond the legal power of British politicians. If the Conservative Leader was to stand up in Parliament and say “a future Tory government will simply abrogate this constitution on Day One and repatriate democratic accountability to the British people”, then there might be some grounds for thinking they had actually decided not to just be Labour Party Lite as they blather on about ‘good public services’ and tolerate the likes of Chris Patten in amongst their numbers.
What I find so exasperating is the Tory’s refusal to think outside the box. Will they just meekly accept that once the primacy of the EU is complete, they will just have to adapt into their allotted role as a European style ‘Christian Democrat’ Party of the statist centre in return for a place for their snouts at the Euro-trough? Perhaps so. The Conservative Party is a noxious organisation so I cannot say I am surprised, but unless they quickly rediscover their radical roots, Britain as a self-governing entity is finished regardless of the lies to the contrary (just see the remarks of our honest enemy Lamberto Dini).
Unlike most of continental Europe, there is a significant anti-statist element in the mainstream of British society… I don’t mean people like me, who are essentially out on the ‘lunatic fringe’, but the sort of people who Maggie Thatcher tapped into in her excitingly radical but maddeningly inconsistent way. Once this swathe of society finally realises that they no longer have any meaningful outlet for their political aspirations, I wonder if they will just be content to shrug and surrender to the Europe wide majority who favour regulatory top-down statism? I think not.
The Labour Party and all who support Euro-wide statism have seen the way to put all the bits about the role of the state they value beyond British politics: their vision of regulatory statism is about to be locked in and in future, politics will just be about factional pleading for a share of the monies appropriated from the remaining productive sections of the economy. The only antidote to this is for anti-EU politicians to simply refuse to cooperate. The Tory Party would be more useful if they simply walked out of Parliament and declined to return unless the constitution is completely gutted (which of course will never happen). After all, so what if Labour used that opportunity to pass all manner of nasty laws? They have such a large majority they can do that anyway and so it is only by radical action that the Tories can de-legitimise what is being done… i.e. by provoking a constitutional crisis because we are bloody well in one already!
2. The Member States shall facilitate the achievement of the Union’s tasks and refrain from any measure which could jeopardise the attainment of the objectives set out in the Constitution.
If anti-EU activists ever manage to start mounting effective resistance to the EU and actually undermining its authority, do you seriously doubt that laws suppressing what we say and do will not follow?
OK, so I Googled for federast too. And yes, we are the first result and we rock. Whatever.
But unlike this commenter, I looked beyond the second result and look what I found. A record of Parliamentary debates dated 20 Apr 1999 (column 687) that shows that “federast” was not used by David or Perry for the first time (sorry guys, but this is worth it).
I have reproduced most of the debate as I think it is interesting to see what discussions our ‘representatives’ were having in 1999 about the EU:
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Ms Joyce Quin): The Government are in favour of a European Commission that is efficient, transparent and accountable. The independent experts’ report revealed a catalogue of deficiencies in the Commission’s internal structures and practices, but the resignation of the Commission gives us an opportunity to ensure that, in future, the Commission carries out its functions more effectively and makes much better use of taxpayers’ money. The Berlin European Council took a decisive step towards that by agreeing the nomination of the new Commission President.
Mr. Blizzard: Does my right hon. Friend share my view that the only sensible words ever uttered by the noble Baroness Thatcher were that “advisers advise, Ministers decide”? That is the principle that underlies the civil service in this country; should it not also be true of the European Commission? Will the people of this country not accept more readily the institutions of the EU if they are confident that decisions are taken by democratically elected Ministers, rather than by unelected bureaucrats? Will my right hon. Friend use this opportunity to press for reform of the European Commission that brings about that state of affairs?
Ms Quin: The Government have tabled a number of proposals for reforms. It should be emphasised that, in European decision making, the elected Council of Ministers has the final say and is responsible for making final decisions; that is a system of which we approve. As for the accountability of the European Commission, a great deal can be done to improve matters in terms of its relations with both the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, and we have made proposals in that respect.
Mr. Bercow (Buckingham): In backing for the presidency of the European Commission Mr. Prodi, who says that economic and monetary union and political union are two sides of the same coin, why can the right hon. Lady not admit in Britain what is widely acknowledged on the continent–that Mr. Prodi is a committed “federast”, who is determined to create a single defence policy, a single economic policy, a single foreign policy, a single immigration policy, a single social policy, a single constitution, a single Government and a single state called Europe?
Ms Quin: First, I remind the hon. Gentleman that the appointment of Mr. Prodi at the Berlin Council was linked firmly with Commission reform, and that is why he received the support of all member Governments. Secondly, the hon. Gentleman obviously has a short memory. I am not sure whether he was in the House when Romano Prodi’s predecessor was appointed, but I remember the press coverage at the time about the fiercely federalist Jacques Santer, who was the Conservative Government’s appointee.
Mr. Bill Rammell (Harlow): Does the Minister agree that, in taking forward the essential reform process, we must establish a mechanism whereby individual acts of proven misconduct against individual Commissioners can result in their disciplining or dismissal? We should not always have to take the nuclear option of forcing the entire European Commission to resign.
Ms Quin: My hon. Friend makes a very important point. We must not only move ahead in appointing a new Commission, but consider the terms and conditions that govern such appointments in order to address some of the issues to which my hon. Friend referred.
Mr. Michael Howard (Folkestone and Hythe): Mr. Prodi has declared his intention to use his presidency to create a single economy and a single political unity; yet the Foreign Secretary said recently that the Maastricht treaty was a high water mark of integrationism. How can those positions be reconciled?
Perhaps, we should warn Mr John Bercow, MP about the company he keeps…
If there are any talented graphic designers out there perhaps they might want to grasp this opportunity to design a symbol that will, from now on, represent the ‘Country formerly known as Britain’.
The instrument of conquest, the draft EU constitution, was presented in Brussels today. For those of your with the time and fortitude all 148 pages (yes, 148!) of this document can be found here.
Fortunately, the Telegraph has an edited version which sets out the ‘money’ clauses (the ones that British federasts would rather nobody spoke about). Among these are:
Article I-2: The Union’s values
The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, liberty, democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights.
These values are common to the Member States in a society of pluralism, tolerance, justice, equality, solidarity and non-discrimination.
Meaningless, empty prattle that might have been drafted up by the editorial team of the Guardian. What ‘solidarity’? What does that mean? And ‘equality’? Does this mean Mao suits for everyone? If not, then what? And why on earth the prohibition on ‘discrimination’? Discrimination just means ‘judgement’. Are we supposed to live without it?
2 The Union shall offer its citizens an area of freedom, security and justice without internal frontiers, and a single market where competition is free and undistorted.
Which means that Anglo-Saxon common law and Habeas Corpus are out to be replaced by Napoleonic Code and Corpus Juris.
The Union shall work for a Europe of sustainable development based on balanced economic growth, with a social market economy aiming at full employment and social progress.
Semi-planned economies with rigid labour laws and an omnipresent dead-hand of state.
It shall contribute to peace, security, the sustainable development of the Earth, solidarity and mutual respect among peoples, free and fair trade, eradication of poverty and protection of human rights and in particular children’s rights, as well as to strict observance and development of international law, including respect for the principles of the United Nations Charter.
Euro-sclerosis for the whole world!!
Article I-5: Relations between the Union and the Member States
1 The Union shall respect the national identities of its Member States, inherent in their fundamental structures, political and constitutional, including for regional and local self government.
2 The Member States shall facilitate the achievement of the Union’s tasks and refrain from any measure which could jeopardise the attainment of the objectives set out in the Constitution.
The potemkin clause. This is the one the federasts will refer to in an attempt to rebut concerns over loss of sovereignty. As per usual, they will be lying. It only says that ‘national identities’ will be respected, not sovereignty which is clearly abolished by Part 2 of the clause.
Article I-6: Legal personality
The Union shall have legal personality.
So no question that this is any longer about ‘co-operation of sovereign states for mutual benefit’. The EU will exist as a formal entity separate from the national governments. → Continue reading: And this is how it ends
The Ministry of Defence is leaving no stone unturned in its investigations of the allegations against Colonel Tim Collins:
The Ministry of Defence said an inquiry into the death raised issues about the “wider military culture” within the unit which demanded further investigation.
Say it isn’t so!! A ‘military culture’ in the British Army? Has the world gone stark raving mad? ‘Military culture’ has no place in our armed forces and it must be rooted out forthwith.
Britain has no future outside of the European Union. That’s what the federasts keep telling us. That is the specious lie they’ve been peddling for years now. I can only assume that these people manage to sleep at night by consuming a quantity of sedatives fit to bring down a horse.
We have touched upon this issue before, but it is so significant that it bears practically no end of reiteration. Put simply, the EU is dying:
2050, the working population of the USA will have increased by more than the entire present working population of Germany.
EU 15, in contrast, will have lost almost as much working population by 2050 as the entire present working population of Germany.
Remaining EU 15 nations are projected to suffer losses in working population ranging from the manageable (France, minus 8%) to the catastrophic (Spain, minus 35%, Italy, minus 41%).
Tell me, what future is there in marrying a corpse?
[My thanks to Emmanuel Goldstein for the link.]
Sometimes the views of Britain one reads in the American press suggest to me that the authors must have visited Britain in some parallel universe rather than the one I live in.
Every now and again however, I read an article that suggests not just that there are indeed commentators in the USA who understand Britain just fine, but that some of them understand the truth about Britain a great deal better than many British journalists and the majority of Britain’s dismal political class.
The sad truth is that British journalists who are not sounding shrill and alarmed clearly have not grasped the magnitude of what is about to happen to the British people’s remaining ability to live under accountable governance and accessible law. As a result, the only voices in Britain which seem to be aware of the rapidly approaching blackhole that the United States of Europe represents are the perpetually shrill and alarmist tabloid newspapers like the resolutely low-brow Sun newspaper.
Thus it is this tabloid rag that Washington Times journalist Paul Craig Roberts quotes extensively:
Next month, Mr. Blair intends to give his approval to a new European Union constitution, which would create a United States of Europe and turn Parliament into the equivalent of a local council.
Trevor Kavanagh, political editor of the Sun, Britain’s largest newspaper, says Mr. Blair’s decision signs away 1,000 years of British sovereignty and hands “control of our economic, defense, foreign and immigration policies to Brussels. The EU will also gain authority over our justice, transport, health and commerce systems and dictate the strength of union power.”
Mr. Blair has ruled out a referendum or vote on his decision to terminate the existence of Britain as a country. He says the issue is too complicated for voters to understand.
Think about that for a moment. Do you think it is too difficult for people to understand the difference between being an independent country and a province in a European empire? Do you think voters can’t understand the difference between electing a government that is accountable to them and being ruled from afar?
[…]
Britain’s unique legal system, with its habeas corpus and double jeopardy protections, would cease to exist. Native Britons could be imprisoned for voicing opposition to their cities being overrun by Third World immigrants. But Mr. Blair thinks these changes are too difficult for British voters to evaluate.
[…]
Britons can be arrested for self-defense. Imagine having to decide whether to submit to rape, robbery or assault or face arrest for responding with excessive force. Force capable of driving off an attacker is likely to be “excessive,” especially if accomplished with use of a weapon.
[…]
Habeas corpus and protection against double jeopardy mean little when criminal sanctions apply to self-defense and to children playing with toy guns. It might be that, practically speaking, the British have already lost the protection of their law. In choosing Mr. Blair, perhaps the British people showed an indifference to continued national sovereignty.
Read the whole article. I am indifferent to the fading vaingloriousness of states. However I am far from indifferent to a process that will lock in the ever increasing growth of state by making its power centres even more remote than they already are, thereby making them immune to even the weak checks and balances of locally sourced law and democracy.
Many have fought the advent of the European super-state in Britain, but it has just been one issue amongst many. Only now and oh so very belatedly have a few newspapers and media commentators picked up the horn and sounded it. Suddenly it is dawning on them that the battle has now reached the very last ditch almost unnoticed, whilst the mass of people sleepwalk towards the end of a thousand years of evolving political culture. Lose this one and there will be no more political means left for opposition. No doubt the perpetual growth of mass surveillance and the impending introduction of ID cards at this time is just a coincidence. Sure.
Welcome to a dying nation.
Far be from me to try to tell HMG how to run their nationalised industries, but if I was ever to be charged with such a thankless task, I would not go about it like this:
Fitness tests for police recruits are being made easier in an attempt to increase the number of women officers, the Home Office has announced.
Recruits’ speed and agility will no longer be put to the test as this is where most of the women have been failing.
Tests of strength and endurance will be made easier and the speed and distances recruits have to run will be halved.
This may actually be a blessing. As we watch the apparatus of a police state growing around us we can take some comfort that the police may get set on us for all the wrong reasons but at least we will be able to run away from them.
As a rebuttal to all those bloggers who think that the BBC has a left-wing bias, I refer you to this hysterical nonsense:
Gun crime is growing in the UK “like a cancer”, police chiefs were warned on Tuesday.
The Association of Chief Police Officers’ annual conference was told by the organisation’s firearms spokesman: “It’s coming your way, believe me.”
How can they possibly expect any halfway sensible person to believe rubbish like this? Don’t they realise that our government has enacted the most draconian and prohibitive anti-gun laws in the developed world? No, scrub that, the entire cosmos. So this cannot possibly be happening. It is nothing but a tissue of bald-faced lies. In fact, it’s probably a fabrication by some bunch of swivel-eyed, right-wing, warmongering lunatics intent on trying to give the completely false impression that our noble and progressive anti-self-defence laws are not working.
Do not click on the link. Do not read the article. I do not want our readers minds to be poisoned by this filthy propoganda. Go away. Move onto the next posting. Find another blog. Now!
Anyone who regularly peruses the left-wing press in this country (and I congratulate them on their intestinal fortitude) would be left with the impression that Britain is rapidly turning into Galt’s Gulch, a rugged, darwinian, freewheeling gold-rush society where tax collectors have been beaten into plough-shares and the shrivelled remnants of the government have been consigned to a mildew-ridden basement room beneath Whitehall with a second-hand computer and a solitary, naked lightbulb.
You can hardly flick through the pages of any centre-left journal without being assailed by some chest-beating, polemical op-ed excoriating New Labour for abandoning socialist principles in favour of ‘market forces’ and ‘Thatcherism’. They bewail the alleged unstoppable growth of ‘free market mania’ and demand that the government return to the old agenda of wealth redistribution and public ownership immediately if not sooner.
Those of us living on Planet Earth don’t quite see it that way. Like the insensitive dolts we doubtless are, we have noticed the extra chunks of GDP that have been grabbed by the government every year since 1997. Nor has it escaped our attention that the ‘Careers Section’ of the Guardian has grown as thick as a telephone directory, replete with advertisements for government sinecures.
Well, boorish we may be but it appears that us Earthlings are right:
Chancellor Gordon Brown’s tax increases are threatening the competitiveness of the UK economy by increasing the burden on entrepreneurs, according to Forbes Global.
Although France maintains its position at the top of the misery index, Forbes detects “an important change in the Misery Index for the UK. For the first time, and surprisingly, it is rising by more than France’s Misery Index is decreasing.” The magazine blames increased social security taxes for this development, but says it will still take many years for the UK to “catch up” with France.
I cannot think of a more appropriate term than ‘Misery Index’ and, believe me, I have tried.
But back to the nitty-gritty. Why this disconnect between perception and reality? Well, it is because Blair and New Labour have pulled off a pretty audacious trick (and it’s a good trick, I’ll grant you) by constructing a convincing and polished patina of ‘Thatherite’ rhetoric full of phrases like ‘modernisation’ and ‘reform’ and ‘consumer choice’ which they have used to mask a stealthy but relentless old socialist agenda.
The inescapable truth (for Earthlings that is) is that, over the last six years, the wealth-creating private sector has been subjected to a ferocious blood-letting in order to feed the voracious appetites of the public sector triffids who, in turn, (and by complete coincidence, of course) vote en bloc for New Labour. Combine this with the gradual ‘Europeanisation’ of our regulatory and legal regime and the result is that a once thriving economy has been plunged into misery of near-Gallic proportions.
There isn’t a single state in the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), the only area where comparisons can usefully be made, that is taking less tax from its citizens in 2001 than it was in 1965.
I take no comfort from that fact that we are not alone. If everybody is on the same path of slow-suicide this only serves to convince the looters in Whitehall that they are doing the right thing after all.
Forbes asks: “Are we really living in an era of smaller government?”
No. Nor is that era close at hand. But we’re working on it, Mr.Forbes, we’re working on it.
An update following my article on the Bruges Group meeting on Thursday (right before our previous hosting server went nuclear).
The Daily Telegraph is reporting that opinion polls show that the UK public both opposes the single currency and a proposed new EU Constitution.
Okay, okay, I hear folk say, opinion polls are not everything, and the ability of the British political class to stiff the public they are supposed to represent is a matter of record. Even so, Prime Minister Tony Blair is famed for his attention to the focus group. And if public opinion can be galvanised, he may stay his hand at wiping out what remains of Britain as an independent, self-governing nation.
Well, I always was the optimistic type of guy.
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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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