EU Treaty (Amendment) Lord's discussions

There have been some important amendments tabled, briefly discussed and withdrawn in the UK's House of Lords this week. The unscrupulous behaviour of Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrat Party, has ensured that voting on any changes is entirely pointless, matching his perfidy to that of the Governing Labour Party. We can at least have the main conspirators involved in this exercise of treachery clearly identified with their role on the record in Hansard, for as long as such evidence is allowed to remain openly available to the general public once this disgraceful Lisbon Treaty becomes part of Britain's law. The first amendment I wish to highlight on this blog is Number 121 moved on 14th May, contributions linked here, as follows: “Supremacy of United Kingdom Parliament Nothing in this Act or the Treaty of Lisbon shall affect or be construed by any court in the United Kingdom as affecting the supremacy of the United Kingdom Parliament to make or unmake laws or regulations applicable in the United Kingdom.” Here we have a statement of what would have been considered the 'bleeding obvious' by generations of free born Englishmen and women. The fact is that our Sovereignty has now gone, and in the view of some - gone for all time as may be seen from this brief selection of their Lordship's comments: "Lord Lester of Herne Hill........The position is that our sovereign Parliament has agreed, exercising its sovereignty, that so long as we remain members of the European Community/Union where European Community law reigns, in the sense that it applies in a particular area, any inconsistency in legislation or judicial decision or administrative action must give way. It is also clear that no member state can reply on its own constitutional order as an excuse for doing anything inconsistent with the paramount law of the European Community, now the European Union. Perhaps I may say that all that is now in any law school regarded as absolutely straightforward for any law student. Lord Waddington: If Lord Denning is looking down on us he would be very displeased to hear that his utterances were political, because they were nothing of the sort. What the noble Lord is saying is based on his belief that the European Communities Act has already acquired a special status and is quite unlike any other Act of Parliament except, perhaps, the Bill of Rights. I do not accept that. If one takes the view that what one Parliament can do another can undo, and that an Act of Parliament is an Act of Parliament is an Act of Parliament, I am right and the noble Lord is wrong. But let me continue with what I have got to say." Having thus dispensed with the entire concept of the primacy of British Law, there was later this enlightening exchange on the breaking of the Government's promise of a referendum on any Treaty of a remotely Constitutional character such as the one the subject of this debate: "Lord Hannay of Chiswick: I objected to the decision to have a referendum in 2004. I have objected to every single decision to have a referendum. I am afraid that I am not prepared to sit and be told that I have reneged on anything.

Lord Waddington: The noble Lord is entirely missing the point. I am not saying that a person is not entitled to take the view that a referendum is a bad instrument for dealing with circumstances such as that; I am saying that we should all agree that Governments, when they promise referendums, should honour their promises. That is the issue before this Committee. I am rather ashamed by people’s denial that that plain obligation should be carried out."

For me the soundest and most forceful point of the debate on the totally unacceptable powers of the European Court of Justice, which as it now exists is outside of any democratic control or constraint, was this quote : "Lord Neill of Bladen: ...........

9.45 pm

I am sorry that the Bishops’ Benches are empty tonight because I wanted to remind them of a tremendous expression by one of their predecessors, Bishop Benjamin Hoadly, an early 18th-century divine, who held four bishoprics, starting at Bangor and going on to Hereford, Salisbury and finally Winchester. Preaching to the King in 1717, he said:

“Whoever hath an absolute authority to interpret any written or spoken laws, it is he who is truly the lawgiver, to all intents and purposes, and not the person who first spoke or wrote them”.

Summing up for the Government the following was what I considered to be their main point: "Baroness Ashton of Upholland: The Council of Ministers is made up of the member states. It is no good saying that the Council and not the member states makes the law, because the Council is made up of the member states." The Council of Ministers and now the new all powerful European Council with its own President and effectively Foreign Affairs Supremo are of course made up of 27 member states of which Britain is but one, and one moreover with no land connection to the strife prone European Continent and no common heritage of Law nor Governance. IT is alien to us and we will forever be outnumbered, outvoted and stripped of our income, wealth and assets. The perpetrators of this outrage against the citizens of Britain, know full well what they are about as from the immediately following debate it becomes clear that they seem to be concerned, that when the facts become widely known, some national retribution or holding to account might be demanded. They are thus ensuring some protective outside forces will then be on call: The amendment on the European Gendarmerie Force was moved by the two UKIP Peers and was as follows: “Deployment of European Gendarmerie Force: parliamentary approval Notwithstanding any provision of the European Communities Act 1972 (c. 68), nothing in this Act or the Treaty of Lisbon shall be taken as requiring the United Kingdom Government to permit the deployment of the European Gendarmerie Force in the United Kingdom without the consent of the United Kingdom Parliament.” Nothing could be more straightforward nor clearer than this amendment, one would have thought. I have blogged before (read here) on this armed force and warned about the deployment of foreign police forces without British consent in my novel written in the mid-nineteen-nineties, so concern could hardly be considered surprising, but once again the amendment was withdrawn without even any promise from a Government spokesperson to not in future deploy such militiamen without the consent of the Westminster Parliament. This disgraceful Government with its increasingly fascist tendencies must clearly be getting concerned at the the potential long term consequences of their present actions. The exchanges, for the time being, may be read from this link to Hansard. (The intervention by Lord Hannay of Chiswick, will I feel certain, make particularly interesting reading as authoritarianism continues its steady march across the EU after Lisbon).