Decadent Britain

Minette Marrin in her Sunday Times column this morning, linked here, mounts a chilling indictment of modern Britain which has been clear to many for years. This is a brief quote: "...we have somehow created a society that is characterised by growing disorder, uncertainty and loss. For a long time now Britain — or rather many of its institutions and traditions — has been suffering from a loss of nerve and a loss of will which amounts to a national moral funk."

Edward Heath's Lethal Legacy

The Daily Telegrah today has an item revealing the depths of Heath's determination to subvert Britain and and hand the remains to the control of the European Community. The article may be read from here while the extensive documents released through the Margaret Thatcher Foundation and linked by that newspaper, make much more fascinating reading and may be reached by clicking here. The facts on Edward Heath and what became the EU will now clearly become fully revealed and clear to all. Another aspect of Edward Heath's legacy is yet to receive much coverage in the mainstream media, which is surprising in light of the recent successful and then failed attempts to blow up Londoners and their public transport network by individuals hating Britain but nevertheless entitled and claiming British citizenship and thus becoming 'British' suicide bombers of fellow Britons. I touched upon Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of Blood' speech made in 1968 in an earlier posting. That speech may be read in full from this link, and it is clear that the quotation from a constituent Powell chose to use in its opening stages, and other elements of the speech were clearly racist and quite correctly therefore widely condemned. Whether Edward Heath was correct to consequently sack Enoch Powell could still be open to balanced to debate - BUT the fact that Edward Heath, his senior colleagues, party and all subsequent administrations effectively buried their heads in the sands over the policy matters thus raised, now seems a matter requiring more open debate if the country is to find a means of tackling the nation's present dire security crisis for which Edward Heath in particular among recent political leaders clearly carries much of the blame. The parts of the 'Rivers of Blood' speech which now seem particularly prophetic and worthy of further thought I believe are the following: "The supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils. In seeking to do so, it encounters obstacles which are deeply rooted in human nature. One is that by the very order of things such evils are not demonstrable until they have occurred: at each stage in their onset there is room for doubt and for dispute whether they be real or imaginary. ..... Above all, people are disposed to mistake predicting troubles for causing troubles and even for desiring troubles: "If only," they love to think, "if only people wouldn't talk about it, it probably wouldn't happen." ..........At all events, the discussion of future grave but, with effort now, avoidable evils is the most unpopular and at the same time the most necessary occupation for the politician............. In 15 or 20 years, on present trends, there will be in this country three and a half million Commonwealth immigrants and their descendants. That is not my figure. That is the official figure given to parliament by the spokesman of the Registrar General's Office. There is no comparable official figure for the year 2000, but it must be in the region of five to seven million, approximately one-tenth of the whole population, and approaching that of Greater London. Of course, it will not be evenly distributed from Margate to Aberystwyth and from Penzance to Aberdeen. Whole areas, towns and parts of towns across England will be occupied by sections of the immigrant and immigrant-descended population. As time goes on, the proportion of this total who are immigrant descendants, those born in England, who arrived here by exactly the same route as the rest of us, will rapidly increase. Already by 1985 the native-born would constitute the majority. It is this fact which creates the extreme urgency of action now, of just that kind of action which is hardest for politicians to take, action where the difficulties lie in the present but the evils to be prevented or minimised lie several parliaments ahead........ The other dangerous delusion from which those who are wilfully or otherwise blind to realities suffer, is summed up in the word "integration". To be integrated into a population means to become for all practical purposes indistinguishable from its other members. Now, at all times, where there are marked physical differences, especially of colour, integration is difficult though, over a period, not impossible. There are among the Commonwealth immigrants who have come to live here in the last 15 years many thousands whose wish and purpose is to be integrated and whose every thought and endeavour is bent in that direction. But to imagine that such a thing enters the heads of a great and growing majority of immigrants and their descendants is a ludicrous misconception, and a dangerous one...... Only resolute and urgent action will avert it even now. Whether there will be the public will to demand and obtain that action, I do not know. All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal. Unquote The racist aspects of Powell's various speeches are to be deplored, but for the thrust of the arguments to have been thus subsequently totally ignored is something for which many politicians, unlike Edward Heath still alive to admit their culpability, should now be called upon to consider.

Defencelessness

Christopher Booker considers the armed forces and 'national' defence in his column today. The Sunday Telegraph itself headlined problems regarding the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, on which Ironies has ranted too frequently in the past to bear linking from here, but BLAIR'S TREACHERY TO THE NATION AT ST MALO was so grave that some of my earlier comment is now worth linking and repeating: ================================================= 1st May 2003 Tony Blair's Keynote Cardiff Speech on Europe 28th November 2002 The above was an extremely significant landmark speech, notable not least for the fact that it was made outside of Parliament in a provincial capital. It was difficult to access in full even immediately after it was presented by the Prime Minister. Now several months later I could only trace it after much searching on Google at the British Embassy site from Berlin. I have therefore put a link here so that for the moment I can continue to use it as a reference source. As Blair's view of Europe has changed following the disagreements over Iraq I anticipate the speech might become practically invisible as the months go by. This would be a great shame as it is very well thought through and is in fact remarkably prescient in light of subsequent events. The killer passage and most significant portion, other than the clear aim of the PM in throwing his hat into the ring for the job of first European President, is this portion I quote below :- The basic ideology should be described in this way. Europe is the voluntary coming together of sovereign nations. Their will is to combine together in the institutions of Europe in order to further their common interests. In so far as it is necessary to achieve these interests, they therefore pool their sovereignty in Europe. There is no arbitrary or fixed limit as to what they do collectively; but whether they do it depends on their decision as a group of nations. So whilst the origin of European power is the will of sovereign nations, European power nonetheless exists and has its own authority and capability to act. The negation of any democracy comes at the end, the sting in the tail as it were:- It should be democratic; greater integration, rooted in the freely given decisions of the nations that make up Europe; with greater openness and transparency of decision-making; greater participation and interaction of National Parliaments; greater connection between the European Parliament and the decisions of Europe; and with the independence of the Commission guaranteeing that the interests of smaller nations do not weigh any less than the large. None of the items listed of course, do anything to give the people the power to periodically remove from power those who rule them, which is the only thing that democracy is really about! Speech ============================================================== NB The link is no longer working. Try finding the text of that speech yourselves! =============================================================== May 2nd 2003 Differing World Views Today's Editorial in Le Monde discusses the different world view of Chirac and Blair. Blair seeing a world in which the Europeans compliment the American superpower and Chirac pushing for a multi-polar worlds with Europe "opposed" to America, other balancing powers mentioned by Chirac - China, India, South America but curiously not Russia - are they to be considered part of Europe the paper wonders or are they considered just too weak to be included. Curiouser and curiouser. Blairs view of this is presently not in doubt, he considers Chirac's ideas as dangerous, but let's not forget that in the past he has encouraged such thoughts - particularly at the St Malo meeting when the ERDF was launched! Le Monde Editorial Chirac vs Blair posted by Martin at 5/2/2003 03:40:00 PM 0 Comments ====================================================== Monday, September 22, 2003

Two out of Three The headline of the article linked to Le Figaro translates as follows:- Blair takes a step towards European Defence As posted below the Germans stated agreement was given towards non-Nato European Defence now backed up by this French report. Three men attended the meeting two out of the three have one version of the truth, time for Blair to own up. How long can a Prime-Minister continue in office while continuing to be caught in lies! l'hôte du 10 Downing Street a en outre fait une concession majeure sur la future Europe de la défense. 'The occupant of 10 Downing Street has made a major concession on the future of European Defence, ' the article states continuing that he had totally rejected the same formula when it was first proposed at the Nice Summit in December 2000. ==============================================

Constitution continues

As was only to be expected the EU Constitution is proceeding on course. The article by Daniel Hannan MEP in today's Sunday Telegraph. linked here, describes the process. The following is a short but chilling quote: ...The more honest of them go on to explain that this is how the EU has always operated: first it extends its jurisdiction into a new area and then, often years later, it authorises its power-grab in a retrospective treaty.

Muddled thought carried to absurdity?

Boris Johnson wrote the following in today's edition of the Daily Telegraph: The disaster is that we no longer make any real demands of loyalty upon those who are immigrants or the children of immigrants. There are many culprits, and foremost among them is Enoch Powell. As Bill Deedes has pointed out over the years, the problem was not so much his catastrophic 1968 tirade against immigration, but the way he made it impossible for any serious politician to discuss the consequences of immigration, and how a multiracial society ought to work. In the wake of Powell's racist foray, no one had the guts to talk about Britishness, or whether it was a good thing to insist - as the Americans do so successfully - on the basic loyalty of immigrants to the country of immigration. If I recall those speeches and controversies correctly, Powell was predicting the 'rivers of blood' if unrestricted immigration were to be allowed to continue. It was his opponents who labled those warnings as racist. In view of recent events, it seems odd to now claim that by issuing that warning and suffering political isolation and ignominy as a result it was Enoch Powell himself who is now somehow responsible for his dire predictions appearing to come true. Either Boris has not researched his topic or has completely lost the plot. If the latter it will not be for the first time among recent Tory MPs for Henley. Think again, Boris, on your own words placed in bold above and quoted again here: ".......he made it impossible for any serious politician to discuss the consequences of immigration, and how a multiracial society ought to work." In other words - mass cowardice and complete lack of backbone! In what way could Powell have made such discussion impossible I wonder? So who were really the most at fault? Those who knew something was amiss but were scared to speak out, presumably for fear of similar villification.... (as Boris seems to be claiming as his excuse) ......... or those who did, and of course continue to do, the villifying? All politicians carry some degree of blame; that is why they are worried and some like Boris Johnson have started to spout nonsense.

Were the bombers really British?

The FT has some background detail on the cricket loving bomber allegedly responsible for the tube bombing at Aldgate, it may be read by clicking here. Other UK based papers have reported some of the suspected bombers as being British; a trap the FT seems to have avoided! It would appear the majority of the suspected perpetrators now subject to posthumous police investigations were eligible to British citizenship. and therefore the quasi British/EU passports we all must now acquire....... to describe individuals prepared to blow themselves and others on London tubes and buses to kingdom come AND in the name of a religion historically alien to our islands seems to me the antithesis of all I was taught to believe that Britain and Britishness was supposed to represent. On the PM programme on Radio Four this evening it was suggested that the families of the bombers might need special assistance or new counselling groups or programmes. In the Middle East the homes of the families of suicide bombers were bulldozed by the Israelis. Neither course seems a sensible solution. Whoever carried out these acts, whether they had the right to British citizenship and therefore eventually ID Cards or not, they could not in any way be properly described as British as I always understood the term. Correcting the muddled legislation and thinking that has allowed such an idea to gain credence might be the best way to approach this grave crisis. At least the Americans had the comfort of learning after 9/11 that they had been attacked by foreigners!

Luxembourg EU Referendum is Today

The tiny electorate of Luxembourg, reportedly around some 230,000 people, today has an historic opportunity to further set back the growing anti-democratic tyranny developing across Europe. A BBC report may be read from this link. Latest polls indicate the Yes side prevailing 55 to 45 but with a solid block of undecided voters around 16 per cent there is still room for slight optimism. If Luxembourg were to vote NO , with its many EU dependent economic benefits and undue influence compared to the coutnry's size, the writing really would be on the wall for the existing EU structures. The result will be posted on this blog.

Luxembourgers Vote for the EU Constitution

As feared the citizens of the tiny Duchy voted in favour of the EU Constitution in today's referendum - the report from Reuters may be read from this link. The closeness of the result, itself surprising in view of the perks that slosh from Brussels to Luxembourg, will probably ensure this is the last referendum on the EU Constitution. The present EU will therefore now only be advancing in clear contravention of the clear wishes of the majority of the continent's ordinary citizens. If some choose to argue otherwise, they should be pressured to let other large countries now hold their own votes! Luxembourg, which today had a precious chance to advance the cause of democracy and punch way, way above its weight, has failed a crucial test.

Gleneagles G8 - First Reaction

The early reports are encouraging. One may be read from this link. Further comment after further detail!

Live8 vs reality

Simon Jenkins in the Sunday Times puts it well. The column is linked from here.

Where is Christopher Booker?

The electronic edition of the Sunday Telegraph has no column from Christopher Booker and the paper's search engine brings up no results in this week's edition when entering his name. Is this just a holiday break or has the mainstream UK print media lost its one regular dedicated anti-EU commentary? If anyone can throw light on this perhaps they could use the comment facility on this posting to provide details. Some strong protests to the new editor of the paper might be advisable if his absence is anything other than temporary!

UK Presidency of the EU

After all the rhetoric and wind an extraordinarily unambitious programme for the next six months for an organisation and continent in the midst of a huge economic and identity crisis. The pathetic programme may be read from this link to the Europa linked website.