Lord Pearson on the worthless EU Scrutiny Reserve

There was a good debate yesterday in Britain's House of Lords on the Government's ludicrous European Union Bill, linked here,which is worth reading in full.

One particular point of attack from Lord Pearson was on the scrutiny reserve as follows:

 Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, to come back to Amendments 16A and 16B, I oppose them because they make it possible for the Government of the day to avoid a referendum if they think that some new EU power grab, whatever it happens to be, is sufficiently urgent or if they think that it is in the national interest.

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I fear that the supporters of these amendments have not yet grasped the point that the British people do not want any more powers passed to Brussels, period, as the saying goes-full stop. In fact, a growing majority of the British people want all their powers back; they want to be a democracy again with the power to elect and dismiss those who make all their laws.

I am afraid that the amendments do not work in detail, either. Who is to decide the urgency of the decision or whether it is in the national interest? The octopus in Brussels of course, not the British Government or Parliament. To be certain of this, we have only to look at the way in which Brussels has treated both our Government and Parliament over many years. I refer of course to its constant indifference to our scrutiny reserve. I remind your Lordships for the record, and for those outside your Lordships' House who may not know, what the scrutiny reserve is. It is a promise made to Parliament-to the House of Commons and your Lordships' House-by Governments of all persuasions over many years that they will not sign up to any new law or initiative in Brussels if the Select Committee of either House is still considering it. If the Select Committees have finished looking at it or have agreed it, or if it has been debated in Parliament, the Government of the day are free to sign up in the Council of Ministers in Brussels to whatever initiative is concerned. That is the promise or scrutiny reserve.

A Written Answer to me from the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, on 7 February this year reveals that in the past five years alone the scrutiny reserve has been overridden-in other words, the Government's promise has been broken-no fewer than 267 times in the House of Commons and 248 times in your Lordships' House. That means that in the past five years more than 500 proposals from Brussels, which the Select Committee of either House thought sufficiently important to examine and to advise the Government on, became law anyway. The juggernaut rolled on regardless. It is worth adding that the situation does not appear to be improving, despite regular complaints from the Select Committees to the Government. In 2010, 151 overrides were notched up between the two Houses-79 in the House of Commons and 72 in your Lordships' House.

Another section, which followed shortly after is also worthy of note as follows:

Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, the noble Lord is trying to ameliorate an intolerable situation. It is a fact that the scrutiny reserve is a promise given by the Government of the day to Parliament that has been broken more than 500 times in the past five years. Therefore, it will not be the British Government who make the decisions covered by Amendment 16B, but Brussels-as it always has been. No British Government can therefore be trusted to decide on these issues, as set out in the amendments, because Brussels will simply go ahead, even if the British Government of the day could be trusted. If necessary, as the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, reminded us, the Commission will simply bring forward the EU's new powers under treaty clauses that were not designed for that purpose. However, that has never stopped the Commission, as I also pointed out in our Committee proceedings on 5 April at col. 1640.

In conclusion, and without wishing to go anywhere near making a Second Reading speech, a number of noble Lords today-the noble Lords, Lord Risby and Lord Hannay, among others-as well as the Minister in Committee and at Second Reading, lamented the disconnect, as they put it, between the British people and their Government and the European Union. I should like to put to the Minister a point that I have not yet put to him; I should be grateful if he would answer it either on this occasion or at some future point in our proceedings.

The reason for the disconnect between the British people and the European Union-and, indeed, the Finnish people and the European Union, and a growing number of people in France, Germany and elsewhere-is that the big idea that gave birth to the project of European integration, honourable though it was at the time after the last war, has, in fact, gone horribly wrong. I need hardly remind the Minister of what that big idea was. It was that the nation states, with their unreliable democracies, had been responsible for the carnage of two world wars and the long history of bloodshed in Europe. Those nation states, therefore,

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had to be emasculated and diluted into a new form of supranational government run by technocrats. That is where the Commission gets its monopoly to propose in secret all our European legislation. That is where COREPER comes in. That is why the Council votes in secret on what is becoming the majority of our law, if that is not the case already. Surely that is what has gone wrong. Until we address it, realise and confess that the whole project has failed-not just the currency, which has clearly failed-and get out of it as soon as possible, we are all barking up the wrong tree.

The words 314 MP Traitors Would NOT Approve

Last night 314 MPs elected to Parliament to defend the sovereignty of their voters and all British people refused to sign into law the following statement:

The sovereignty of the United Kingdom Parliament is hereby reaffirmed.

EU Bill Amendments rejected by 314 votes to 39

The debate in Parliament yesterday became somewhat woolly with the best contribution coming from John Redwood MP who managed to convey the importance of the issue in a proper historical context and highlight the past fluidity of Sovereignty while regrettably leaving the impression that it was somehow divisible.

I absolutely believe that Sovereignty is indivisible, belongs to the people, is loaned to Parliament between general elections and impossible to abnegate, this latter being the most important as it, quite disastrously, is nevertheless the founding principle of the EU.  Mr Redwood likened the movement of Sovereignty during the Glorious Revolution from the Crowned Monarch to the Crown in Parliament adding to my mind the concept of fluidity.

If it is fluid but indivisible, then for the time being I will liken it to a slinky toy descending a staircase. The component parts are nevertheless at odds, consisting in my mind of the Monarchy, Parliament, the EU Council, the UK Courts and the European Courts complicated by the clash of authority between those authorities and accentuated by conflicts between the source of plenipotentiary powers (used to neuter Parliament within the EU), the Privy Council and the Executive, particularly if acting as authorised under the Civil Contingencies Act.

One certainty is that the British people had 314 elected traitors in the House of Commons last evening.

Another warning to MPs on the EU Bill - Danes cleared to sue their PM over Lisbon!

EU Observer has the report that the Prime Minister of Denmark can be sued by 28 citizens for breaking their Constitution over passing the Lisbon Treaty without a referendum, read here.

As the EU splits apart and the wealth of the people of Europe is everyday increasingly trashed, all elected officials should look to the likely future consequences of their own actions, which in some cases, such as in the UK, amounts to clear treason.

The latter point will be particularly important this evening in the House of Commons after the shortened debate (thanks to the presumably deliberate stupidity of the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, tabling a meaningless question on bankers bonuses) when MPs will vote on Britain's already abnegated sovereignty in the EU Bill.

The EU Bill - John Redwood and Guido Fawkes.

John Redwood MP has summarised the importance of today's Parliamentary proceedings, read it from here.

I was pointed to the above diary entry by a reader of the Guido Fawkes blog who comments on the coming outrage with the apt title to his posting "No! No! No!" read it from here.

Fear stalks the corridors of power.

Yesterday, in Washington, the flags on the White House, the Capitol and other statehouses across the USA flew at half mast in honour of the targeted and shot Congresswoman Representative Giffords and the other innocent victims of the Arizona gunman who struck last weekend. Pictures in this blog post here.

This was not the manner in which other such maniacal mass killings have been recognised in the USA in recent years.

Elected officials, used to mealy-mouthed and lying talk on the duress and sacrifices of public service, who have instead been complicit in the destruction of the West's monetary systems, while greedily ensuring they personally would be exempt from the consequences, sometimes even by filling their own coffers at their electorate's expense, seemed finally confronted with the possibility that one day, they too, might be held accountable for their actions.

Today in Britain's Parliament, the Coalition Government plans to finally destroy the last Parliamentary protections for Britain's citizens and instead place them in the hands of an appointed supreme court, itself only accountable to a similar foreign body, similarly composed of appointed Judges, mostly foreigners, where Britain's vote, voice and Common Law heritage counts for nothing.

Von Heseltine's henchmen will do well to now remember that actions, such as the destruction of a Parliament and a democracy, do indeed carry consequences; pensions for public servants require the ongoing consent of the people who must pay in the decades ahead, the horrendous EU Bill to be debated in Parliament today must be substantially watered down or ideally totally rejected, that is the duty of the MPs to their constituency electorates. Any breach of that duty today will still be on the record when their pensions become due!

EU Bill - Amendments for tomorrow's full Commons debate

The link on the latest amendments proposed for Hague's dreadful legislation  is here.

The pdf version of the thoroughly disgraceful Bill designed to neuter Parliament is here in pdf format.

Article by Bernard Jenkin from Daily Mail last saturday on the nature of the threat to our sovereignty and democracy is linked here.

Hypocrite Hague attempts to defend his useless EU Bill!

An astounding article by William Hague, Britain's smug and self-serving Foreign Secretary, appears on the web site of the UK Telegraph Group this morning, extraordinarily timed at 10:15 am GMT on a Sunday morning. It may be read in all its mealy-mouthed platitudes and outright evasions from this link.

Note these two paragraphs from the bilge and garbage set out by Hague in his article:

So we must change the law to ensure that by law the British people's wishes can never be ignored in such a way again. This will mark a fundamental shift of power from Government to Parliament and to the voters of this country, a shift long overdue. 

The EU Bill we are bringing forward will put into the British people's hands a referendum lock on any further changes to the EU's Treaties that hand over powers from Britain to the EU, a lock to which only they will hold the key.

Hague's Bill does the actual reverse of what these words say! For a start his Bill does not forbid the transfer of  "powers" it transfers the decision of what may be transferred in future to a Government Minister, and we all should by now know (Hague's actions down the years alone being enough proof of the following assertion) that any such appointee from the present world of British politics is the last creature on earth to be capable of honourable thought or of sufficient independent judgement. Secondly it transfers from Parliament to the UK Supreme Court, an unconstitutional and illegal body, the right to arbitrate in the event of disputes, with any right of appeal being decided by a similar court run by foreigners across the English Channel.

Cameron, the EU Bill and Oldham

Ian Dunt has some interesting comments on the upcoming fireworks expected for next week which will certainly affect Britain's relations with the EU., and hopefully even the very survival of its disastrously pro-EU governing coalition. The article on politics.co.uk is linked here and the following is a brief quote on the Europe Bill:

Tuesday sees the bill undergo committee stage. Usually this means that members of the public bill committee can propose amendments, but in this case all members of the House will be able to do so - and vote on them. A substantial number of Tory MPs are understood to be trying to significantly amend the legislation, with proposals so radical the leadership will struggle to accept them. That will be a tough decision. If the government refuses to budge, rebel Tory backbenchers could vote against the bill.  

On the Oldham by-election the writer believes the following:

In reality, Cameron does want the Lib Dems to win. It's a three-way marginal and the Tories are a mere 2,000 vote behind the other two, but only the Lib Dems would realistically take the seat from Labour. A humiliating loss here would pile even more pressure on Nick Clegg. The standing of the Lib Dems has sunk so low that it is threatening the coalition. The more Lib Dem MPs feel that they are doomed, the more tempted they will be to get out of the coalition.
But that is short of wanting to permanently conjoin the Conservatives with the Lib Dems. These suspicions stem for the increasingly widespread conspiracy theory, among Tory backbenchers at least, that Cameron wants to join the parties in an effort to finally end the Thatcherite wing of the Conservatives and drag it to the centre.

I will try to post the various amendments being proposed to the EU Bill as soon as I can trace them.

Meantime Lord Tebbit in the Daily Mail is quite sensibly suggesting that Conservatives should vote for UKIP next Thursday at the Oldham by-election!

Cameron's Coalition facing Collapse?

The Sovereignty Bill, designed to castrate the British people of their last scrap of sovereignty, and hand it to the illegal UK Supreme Court, founded as ordered by the EU, and acting solely at the command of non-elected EU appointees is to be debated for six hours next Tuesday, one day after Parliament resumes.

According to the BBC, linked here, "Eurosceptics have already tabled 46 amendments and 5 new clauses" but even with Labour voting against the Bill (hypocrites as they always become once returning to opposition) the anti-democratic forces of the Cameroon's and Clegg's LibDems with their huge and corrupted payroll vote might just see the last straw for England's constitution passing into law.

All the more reason to marshall every vote against the three main parties in next Thursday's vote in Oldham!