The talk acted as somewhat of a preview to his forthcoming book titled The Real Global Warming Disaster: Is the obsession with ‘climate change’ turning out to be the most costly scientific blunder in history? which is out soon, and laid out the case against anthropogenic Global Warming.

Having read Richard North and Christopher Booker’s The Great Deception, Scared to Death, and both the Booker column and Richard North’s EU Referendum, much of the content of the speech was pretty familiar. However, it is always appreciable, as Booker noted in his speech, to be able to meet other people of likeminded opinions in warm and friendly surroundings.

A video of the event should be available on the internet at some point in the near future. There were also amusing speeches from TFA Chairman, Roger Helmer MEP and the Democratic Unionist Party MP Sammy Wilson. All in all a very enjoyable night, and a welcome opportunity to finally meet Mr Booker before he, in his own words, is ‘tucked up safely in the church yard across the way’. Hopefully such an event will not be for many years hence!

Yet, despite an entire lack of real substance emanating from any of the party conference halls, the career-minded journalists and media groupies still blindly held court at the politician’s feet, seemingly hanging on every word that was uttered as if it were something of great importance.

Sadly, and as has become abundantly clear within these past few years, we in Britain no longer live in a democracy, but have in fact entered a post-democratic era where the façade of elections and freedom remains cunningly intact but their true attainability has long since been stripped away.

The Conservative conference in Birmingham this week confirmed yet again that we no longer have an effective opposition in this country, with David Cameron pledging to persist with the majority of Labour’s failing policies with only a few minor alterations.

And even if the Conservative party was actually attempting to be radically different to the current Labour administration (which the party leadership have no intention of doing, nor the liberal media any intention of allowing) and then also managed to win the next election (which is not actually as likely as is currently made out), then they would still only be in office, not in power.

For we in this country do not, for the most part, run our own affairs or elect those that actually govern us. Over decades our power of self rule has been frittered away by politicians from all parties who have cared more about themselves than the future of the British citizenry.

Our lives are now ever increasingly governed by corrupt, undemocratic European institutions and an unaccountable and stifling domestic bureaucracy – and, for the moment at least, there is very little we can do to extract ourselves from this mess.

As had been predicted, Mr Davis comfortably won the poll by some fifteen thousand votes against an assortment of twenty seven candidates that conspicuously lacked any representation from the Labour party.

During the early hours and days of his resignation, Mr Davis stirred up quite a media and public storm. Across the country Conservative Associations received phone calls from members of the public telling of their support for David Davis and the issues of freedom despite never having voted Conservative.

However, come the day of the vote and result, the ever fickle media’s interest had worn away and very little was made of the result – which I suppose in part is unsurprising given that Mr Davis received no challenge from a Labour party candidate over the issues of freedom surrounding detention without charge.

As I commented previously, I suspect that David Cameron would have rather preferred to back the Government’s plans on detention without charge if he’d had the opportunity. However, I think it was very much down to David Davis’ actions that the Conservative party has now publicly pledged to do away with the legislation if it forms the next Westminster administration.

While supporters of both the YES and NO camps would celebrate a victory for their respective side, the final reckoning is predestined – the Lisbon Treaty will become law in the twenty seven EU member states and there is nothing we or the Irish people can do to prevent it.

As we all well know, if the result tomorrow in Ireland is not the one that the European Union and its supporters want then they will simply ask the Irish people again, and again and again until they do receive the desired response. However, this is of course assuming that the EU would willingly tolerate the formality of another public referendum, which it may not.

A more likely scenario would seem to be that Irish and EU leaders will simply collude behind the backs of the Irish electorate at the next European Council and ratify the Lisbon Treaty (most of which has already been stealthily implemented) despite a NO vote.

This may well involve the Irish Government claiming that a few token concessions from the EU that will be offered up during ‘negotiation’ this time around (naturally only to be done away with in the next EU Treaty the Irish will sign) is enough to make another democratic consultation of the people unnecessary.

Either that, or all EU member states will agree to continue with the process of ratification without Ireland who would be allowed to join at a later stage if they so wish – which of course they will.

Therefore, the result of the Irish decision tomorrow is entirely irrelevant to the European Union. Its continuous drive towards ever closer union will rumble on undeterred and more and more of our powers, rights and freedoms will be willingly signed over to unelected Commissioners and Bureaucrats in Brussels by our own selfish, pampered and increasingly irrelevant representatives in Parliaments across the European continent.

Within a week our House of Lords will vote on whether there should be a Referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in Britain. It is highly likely that the Lords and thus Parliament will agree with the Government and decide that there is no need for the people to be consulted. In so doing they will consign to the past this country’s long and celebrated history of being an independent, democratic and free nation. How did it come to this?

There was no referendum, and still no real chance of ever getting one. The European Political Classes successfully conspired to bypass the wishes of their own electorates, and in the end the ‘No’ votes in France and the Netherlands meant almost nothing – just a prolonging of the inevitable.

Dr Richard North was quick to unleash his contempt and fury for the whole ceremony and especially the pre-document speech made by José Manuel Barroso:

Burbling in his own vomit-inducing way that, ‘From an old continent, a new Europe is born,’ telling us that with this treaty, ‘the EU is preparing itself to serve its citizens better and address world issues.’

Similarly, The Daily Mail were also particularly quick to publish an online article including a number of very good photographs, one of which shows Barroso in a pose I found particularly reminiscent of the depiction of Big Brother in Michael Radford’s cinematic version of George Orwell’s 1984.

Overall the Mail’s piece chose to focus on the implications for British immigration and asylum as dictated by the small print of the Lisbon Treaty which it says:

Gives new rights to EU leaders to overturn decisions made by Britain’s Immigration and Asylum Tribunal.

This is unfortunately nothing all that new because we had already given up those powers some time ago.

By way of contrast, The Guardian was unsurprisingly jubilant about the signing of the Lisbon Treaty. Only this morning, Michael White highlighted the fact that the Guardian was never in favour of a referendum:

Trevor [Kavanagh], who is treated more respectfully than the Pope on radio and TV these days, tells listeners the ‘pro-European Guardian’ shares the Sun’s enthusiasm for a referendum on the treaty. Since this is not the Guardian’s leader line I feel free to point out that remarkably few readers have signed the Sun’s petition demanding one – or the Telegraph’s either – despite a hefty Churchillian propaganda drive last autumn.

He then went on to write that the Sun and Telegraph’s campaigns would be unsuccessful and therefore:

Spares the country a pointless referendum which would solve nothing, as the Tiggerish Labour MP Denis MacShane pointed out on Today.

Michael White is a great supporter of the EU Constitution and the Treaty it’s now dressed up as – so obviously he would think a referendum on it pointless. It is at this point also worth mentioning that even Venezuela’s dictatorial President Hugo Chavez submitted his proposed Constitutional amendments to a referendum and appeared to accept its result in which he lost earlier this month.

Now that the EU Treaty has been signed, and if it is ratified by Parliament; for a while little will appear different. European integration is a slow and quiet thing. Its impact and affects will be gradual and not immediately obvious. Yet, as sovereign power seeps away from our national Parliament in Westminster, every day our lives will become a little greyer and more miserable.

Rather unfortunately for us though, our fanatically europhile Foreign Secretary David Miliband will travel to Lisbon in the Prime Minister’s stead and put pen to paper as the United Kingdom’s official ‘representative’.

Once again it really does come as little surprise that the media as a collective entity have successfully managed to reduce the incredibly important issue of how our nation is to be governed and by whom, to one of petty, meaningless personalities and theatrical acts of no significance.

Whether or not Gordon Brown signs the treaty document at the official time and place is almost completely irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that he will be signing the EU Constitution eventually, without ever consulting the British people as he and his Labour party promised, and in doing so condemning us to yet further unjust and undemocratic rule from the unelected bureaucrats and politicians in Brussels.

As I have pointed out before, this will be very bad for all of us. Well, except for the politicians of course.

Watching the Remembrance Day memorial service in London this morning was like briefly glimpsing through a narrow window into the past. Solemn figures lined Whitehall around the Cenotaph as they have done every year for nearly a century; among them suited politicians, foreign diplomats, war veterans, monarchy (a seemingly declining phenomenon in modernity) and a sea of sombre faces reflecting upon past glories long since faded and the death of millions whose blood was poured down shell-holes till their veins ran dry.

While ever greater emphasis has been placed upon the catastrophic death toll and the brutality of past wars, of most significance was not necessarily the manner in which so many lives were lost; by bullet or incendiary bomb from on high, or by whizzing, pounding shells or the stuttering half-hearted clacker of the machine-gun that ripped flesh from limb and rendered life inanimate – but quite why so many people died on the battlefield, and for what cause.

It was for the most just and noble of reasons that millions gave their lives in the service of their country; in the pursuit of freedom from tyranny. Willingly or unwillingly it matters not, for they are heroes one and all – and their sacrifice will stand as stark testament to future generations of the price men paid for liberty.

With every passing moment the Great War quietly fades out of living memory, leaving ours and future generations, conditioned as we have and will be by the poetry of war, to contemplate the fact that all but a small, select few have never experienced the conflict we seek to honour year by year – that we should be so fortunate.

Yet, while we may not all be soldiers fighting for a distant cause in foreign fields of foreign lands, we are all custodians of the hard-won rights and freedoms of those who came before us, who believed these to be prizes worth fighting and dying for, whatever the cost may be, and for which we owe an unrepayable debt of gratitude.

And, as the Last Post sounds and the twilight shadows lengthen over war memorials across the land, those of us left behind can reflect upon the fact that although twentieth century Europe left us with a legacy of death and destruction whose memory and affects will be long lasting, it was ultimately because the freedoms we cherish were as important then as they are today, and always shall be.

That is why we remember, and that is why we must never forget.

The Telegraph reports that under the proposed plans ‘the IMF would take a more hands-on role in monitoring global markets and lending’ to help prevent future global monetary problems. Quite what this would practically amount to is anybody’s guess at the moment, but, based on previous form, I’m not really sure that I like the sound of what it may be implying – especially since these will not be arbitrary powers casually handed over by our politicians.

So, once again the British Government is ready to give away our sovereign powers to another democratically unaccountable external organisation without even the thought of consulting the electorate. It’s certainly worth reflecting upon the extent of the powers currently wielded by the IMF and other globe-spanning organisations over which the voter has next to no influence. Monolithic organisations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund make decisions and craft far-reaching policy initiatives that are taken without popular consent, yet affect each and every one of us.

Tony Benn, who, while being wrong about so much, was most certainly on to something when remarking recently in a speech before local Labour party members that:

I think what we’re seeing in Europe is the beginning of a much, much bigger and more dangerous trend – the death of democracy generally. Leaving aside for a moment Brussels; the IMF is not elected by anybody, the World Trade Organisation is not elected by anybody, multinational corporations are more powerful than nation states and they’re not elected by anybody. The Central Bank in Frankfurt is not elected by anybody…

Prophetic? Perhaps. Only time will truly tell. However, in the meantime, as power is slowly drained away from individual nation states (often aided quite willingly by domestic politicians,) democratic legitimacy and participation also rapidly recedes.

Decisions are taken ever further away from the voters, and the individuals that make up these supranational organisations are on the whole appointed, not elected. They are unaccountable and often have extensive powers which cannot be easily removed or extracted from their vice-like grip, and in fact often grow greater as time passes. If institutions such as the IMF are not in any real way democratic now, it is unlikely they will ever become so at anything more than a very superficial level designed to give the illusion of choice and democratic accountability – without actually providing either.

Equally disturbing in my view are the misguided notions of a utopian future that provide motivation for many IMF, World Bank, UN and EU supporters. All claim their organisations to be pursuing what is often sinisterly referred to as the ‘common good’, and whose members, much like those of the EU Commission, are very good at believing they are doing what is best for the people – just so long as the people are never actually asked.

Such moves towards undemocratic authoritarianism must be resisted at every opportunity – though this is admittedly difficult with our Labour Government currently at the helm. However, until we elect a government capable of fully resisting these far reaching constitutional changes, we will have to bide our time – but by then it may already be too late.