Britain's Rotten Parliament

Cash for Answers

If the House of Lords loses its credibility then it loses its legitimacy.It is time that the half finished job of reform was completed

The power of the House of Lords is entirely dependent on its credibility. =================================================== I have directly pasted and copied the opening of the Leading Article in The Times this morning as it appears on its web site. Note the IF! Britain's general populace HAS lost all TRUST in both Houses of Parliament. END of - as they say - but what next? 70,000 jobs lost across the world yesterday is the same paper's headline. Such losses can only accelerate as service and manufacturing industry halt and MUST spread eventually even into the dark decaying corners of public employment! What better place to start than with any British legislator who has been in receipt of any income from third parties who might in any way be affected by British or EU legislation. A decaying body, if it is to be salvaged at all, must first have the maggots removed! The entire editorial is linked here, as the whole thing is concerned with CORRUPTION, why it is headed Questions for Answers, defeats me.

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There have been some important amendments tabled, briefly discussed and withdrawn in the UK's House of Lords this week.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).

Europe's path forward now lies with Britain's House of Lords

I have been reading the EU Reform Treaty Impact Assessment published by the House of Lords which may be browsed from this link. The report makes clear that Britain's senior legislative chamber is not about to lightly cast aside its centuries old responsibilities for the sound governance of our nation. (Unlike the House of Commons, one is inevitably unable to resist adding right here!). Yesterday on the Radio 4 Today programme, Lord Strathclyde, Leader of the Conservative Party in the Lords, made clear that the House of Lords would take its responsibilities very seriously and the reverse impact of the so-called Salisbury considerations on manifesto commitments would be a factor on the referendum question. Constitutional experts and researchers are already preparing arguments on the critical question of whether or not their Lordships might perhaps be even bound by precedent to enforce the manifesto promise of a referendum by the three main political parties elected to the House of Commons at the last election. I will post what I may of these arguments on this blog when they become available. Critical to the vote of individual peers on a referendum amendment will surely be their own view, if no common agreed position is achievable, on whether or not the Lisbon Treaty is effectively the same beast as the Constitutional Treaty earlier rejected by the voters in both France and Holland. Obstruction by the EU itself makes arriving at that decision much harder as an official consolidated version of the Lisbon Treaty is being withheld until after ratification. Read the excellent opinion in English of Finnish Lawyer Ralf Grahn on this situation from here. English Consolidated versions of the Lisbon Treaty do exist, I heard Europe Minister Jim Murphy refer to such in the Commons during the Treaty debates although I cannot find the Hansard reference. They are, however, not official and I believe their Lordships as a first step, before the second reading begins on 1st April, should demand an official EU approved consolidated version of the Lisbon Treaty which can publicly be laid alongside the former Constitution Treaty so that the clear distortion they are not very, very, very, very, substantially the same document can be nailed once and for all. In the interim we at least have the side by side comparison of the two treaties by Open Europe, linked here. Are there other considerations which could guide these noble Lords and Ladies in arriving at a decision on the thorny issue of a British referendum. I believe there are several which I list in order of their importance as I consider them: 1. The possible illegality of the "non-negotiated" mandate of the June 2008 Council replacing if not effectively binding the legally required IGC. {I put this item at the head of my list as in my view it should be an equal concern across the entire EU and thus clearly understandable to other nation's electorates whom themselves feel a sense of betrayal over this Treaty but lack all of Britain's particular concerns}. (Briefly why I believe this is a major problem - the EU leaders met under the EU Treaties which require amending treaties be drawn up by an IGC. The mandate overruled this which is possible as has been proved by 27 separate Heads of Government forcing it through, BUT IT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE when meeting within the structures of the EU and most decidedly not within the spirit of the EU as it has PREVIOUSLY been sold to the EU electorates. The end result we are told is a mandate agreed within 48 hours and negotiated at a chance meeting of 27 leaders!) 2. The lies by Foreign Office Ministers to the European Scrutiny Committee both ahead of and following the imposition of the mandate. 3. The transfer of Prime Ministerial and Foreign Secretarial responsibilities during the period in question depriving the Lower House of holding those responsible to Parliamentary account and proper scrutiny. I blogged on this danger throughout June 2007, especially before the meeting where Merkel's mandate was issued by decree, read "Strictly limited scope for an IGC" 1st June, "Queen must dissolve Parliament immediately" 2nd June, and by the end of that month "Blair's secret EU side deal" 30th June, from which I quote the penultimate paragraph as worth full consideration by the House of Lords before deciding whether the British people deserve a say on this crucial treaty: But one of the 27 is no longer national leader (nor shamefully even a member of the parliamentary chamber he has so disgracefully sold out). Although I argued long and hard on this blog for Brown to represent Britain at the 21 - 23rd June European Council, so that the negotiator could answer to Parliament - the fact that he did not, could as the Portuguese seem about to realise - provide Britain with the way out. 4. The present public perception of both the members of the House of Commons and the European Parliament and their near contempt for the institutions of the EU. 5. The present world economic turmoil. My view is presently drifting towards a solution where more than one referendum question be posed, not on withdrawal as opted for by the Lib/Dems, but perhaps an option for Britain to reject Lisbon but authorise pursuit of a democratic model possibly along the lines of the multi-lingual Swiss Confederation model but with Common Law legislation only available to the EU's replacement in the sphere of the Single Market, all other competences being returned to the Sovereign States, only on such a basis can Britain really justify continuing involvement given the now blinding contradictions with our own forms of governance and society perhaps leading to open dissent.