The Final Act Draws Closer

The media has been making a big song and dance of the fact that Gordon Brown will miss the official signing of the EU Constitution which is currently being passing off under guise of the Lisbon Reform Treaty.

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.

Why We Remember

It is eighty nine years since ‘the war to end all wars’ concluded with the disastrous peace settlement at Versailles. Only twenty years later, Europe was once again plunged back into a bloody conflict that eventually engulfed the world.

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.

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More Power To The Unelected

In the wake of the recent ‘banking crisis’, the Government is pushing ahead plans to increase powers given to the IMF in the hope that it will become the ‘financial watchdog of the world’.

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.

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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.

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