We Serve Hell And Suffer Well

It is perhaps nowhere more evident than in London the many reminders of Britain’s long and historic past.

As I walked the time-honoured streets of Whitehall, Parliament Square and the Victoria Embankment this grey morning, I was reminded by the presence of numerous solemn and silent bronze statues of celebrated Britons, that ours was once a great nation based on values of self-determination and self-governance that served us well for centuries before – and that this should not be forgotten.

Yet, arguably and very much unfortunately this is no longer the case. At today’s Steering group held Pro-Referendum Rally outside Parliament in London, I believe the most important point made by any of the assembled speakers was that the European Union did not take the supranational powers that it has slowly obtained without permission – in fact quite the opposite. Successive British governments elected by us, the people, have unfortunately and underhandedly frittered away sovereignty to a corrupt and undemocratic external body.

So, in reality, it has been a small and unrepresentative set of British people who have slowly whittled away our right to self-government. Furthermore, the great problem is that those powers of self-rule were not our Parliament’s to give away. MPs are merely custodians of our rights and constitution; powers which they must protect and return to us intact after every successive general election. Yet, for decades our MPs certainly have not been protecting these powers and without consulting us, leaving Britain at times in an utter mess, both politically and constitutionally.

This is all made more worrying by the fact that far from the initially projected half a million marchers today, attendance was rather dismal (or so I thought anyway.) My guess was that only about a thousand or so people turned out – if that. While a thousand people in itself it not too bad, you may have thought the enormity of the issue would command a higher level of participation – though admittedly the lack of support may have been more down to bad organisation and lack of publicity rather than apathy.

Thankfully on the plus side the initially predicted rain held off, and though the rally, ominously overshadowed as it was by the Houses of Parliament that rose into the murky skies above, was less than well attended, I did enjoy the event and felt it was probably worthwhile making the effort to go.

The speeches were on the whole reasonably good, with Daniel Hannan and Roger Helmer as always putting in excellent performances. What’s more, there really was quite an eclectic variety of people who turned out – so much so that I somehow found myself reading literature from the Communist party and BNP – both not my cup of tea, but still interesting nonetheless.

Speaking of the BNP, I did however have my reservations about the event. I suspect I wasn’t the only one who was extremely uncomfortable sharing the same ground with members of the British National Party who were certainly making every effort to make their presence noticeably felt. In fact I made the mistake of standing near a group of these individuals; one of which insisted on bellowing ‘freedom’ and ‘liars’ from the top of his voice at almost every opportunity (I assumed they were BNP anyway) – and the chap in front who was whooping like an American almost as frequently was not much better.

Surprisingly (or perhaps not depending upon your view of to what extent the media controls the agenda) the Referendum Rally has thus far hardly been mentioned by the mainstream media. Quite clearly the Associated Press have released some material on the issue, and apparently BBC News 24 covered the event briefly during the afternoon. However, the distinct lack of reporting does seem somewhat dubious – though we shall probably know for sure tomorrow as to whether this has been deliberate or not.

Whether or not Gordon Brown gives the British people a referendum on the Lisbon treaty is I suppose not really much of a concern, mainly because it very much appears that he won’t – whatever the short-term cost to his reputation, as he knows full well that the British would return a ‘No’ vote if given the opportunity which would be far more damaging to the relationship with his EU ‘colleagues’.

It was with this in mind that in the tree muffled squares of Parliament there seemed to be a palatable sense of despair. Yet, at the same time, the rally may have temporarily given supporters a glimmer of hope. There is a slim possibility that with pressure applied at a constituency level to individual MPs, Parliament may actually fulfil the job it is meant to, by voting down the Reform Treaty after a period of scrutiny. Whether even this will work however, only time and the effectiveness of the Labour whipping system will tell.

Filed in EU Referendum, European Union, Freedom

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