The old Reich clause

"Euro-judges will decide how and when to enforce the Charter of Fundamental Rights, now made legally-binding. Article 52 allows the "limitation" of all liberties in the "general interest" of the Union. This is the old Reich clause. Such justifications for state coercion have been illegal in Europe for 60 years. Now they return, by the back door." Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in today's Telegraph. The entire article is worth reading and may be reached from this link. This piece accurately lays out the real nature of the deep peril in which the nations and its past freedoms now stand. What a glaring contrast to another item in the same edition of that newspaper by an individual called Andrew Porter, brandishing the title 'political editor' and setting out a poltical agenda for the weeks ahead that cannot even find space for mention of the Lisbon Treaty, read the complete tripe from here if you wish to waste your time. What a contrast with the sombre tone of the EU specialist Mr Evans-Pritchard, who rightly concludes his article as follows:

By the time this EMU denouement plays out, Ireland will have voted. Lisbon will probably be law. The euro-elites will have prevailed. But history will not be kind to the venture.

It is one thing to nudge the European Project forward by stealth - the "Monnet Method" of fait accompli. It is another to impose a treaty that has already been rejected by people in a direct vote, as the French and Dutch did by emphatic margins in 2005.

We are witnessing Europe's Prague Spring - as my colleague Daniel Hannan puts it - the moment the EU loses its legitimacy. Yes, the system endures. The tribes acquiesce. But the idealism is draining away.

Can anyone really claim that the Lisbon Treaty is rooted in the democratic assent of the French, Dutch, British, Danes, Swedes, Finns, Poles, and Czechs?

We have the spectacle of Gordon Brown refusing to sign the treaty in public because of the potent danger it poses to his Government.

A British prime minister slinks away to a private room to commit Britain to an arrangement that alienates the powers of Parliament - in perpetuity and perhaps illegally - knowing that his people would vote 'no' by crushing margins if given a chance.

How on earth did we arrive at such a sorry state of affairs?