The Great Deception

Today in the Daily Telegraph, Bruno Waterfield confirms that the EU and the Irish Government have indeed been working on plans to implement the Lisbon Treaty even if the Irish people vote against the document in their referendum.

Since the Irish Government is not required to hold a referendum on an enlargement treaty, the remaining Lisbon protocols could easily be slipped past the Irish electorate when Croatia joins the European Union in 2009 or 2010.

This really is as much as to be expected. When faced with the thorny issue of ‘Europe’ even the usual pretence of democracy disappears out the window as national governments and ministers fall over one another to please their European masters and deny their own electorates a say on their future.

Equally unsurprisingly were yesterday’s events and the way in which this country’s political class and media had everyone looking the other way again when it could have mattered.

Last night in the House of Lords a coalition of Labour and Liberal Democrat Lords defeated a Conservative bid to force a Referendum by 280 to 218 votes, but most people were too busy focusing on the House of Commons vote on the Government’s amendments to its forty two day detention policy.

Click here to continue reading the article…

Whatever Happened To The Heroes?

Well, that is that then. Not even close. 248 voted for a Referendum and to keep their promise. 311 did not. Quite simple really, if very unfortunate.

Whatever happened to the heroes? And I am of course not referring to Leon Trotsky, Lenny, The Great Elmyra or Sancho Panza. What of all those supposed one hundred plus Labour MPs who it was originally claimed would rebel and vote for a referendum?

In reality they probably never existed. When it came to the crunch, the vote and the heavy hand of the party whip, they were found severely wanting. Even so, I suspect that in their heart of hearts a few Labour MPs know that voting down a Referendum was both wrong and completely dishonest. Perhaps they may well live to regret their decision – or not.

Still, at the end of the day who cares, right? The British public are not intelligent enough to understand such a complex Treaty and set of documents even if they tried – or so was insinuated by many Government Ministers throughout Parliamentary discussion in the Commons today. And really, why would the political class care? Their MPs gold plated pensions, perks and salaries will be there tomorrow and long after this EU Constitution has disappeared from the political horizon.

Judgement Day

This evening MPs in the House of Commons will convene to effectively pass judgement on Britain’s adoption of the Lisbon Treaty.

The majority of Liberal Democrat MPs will negate on their election promise by abstaining in this crucial vote on a referendum amendment. Thus even when a small few more honest Labour MPs rebel against their party whip and attempt to uphold their own manifesto commitment, the Government will easily have its majority.

There will therefore be no referendum. The amendment will be struck down and the life-changing Lisbon Treaty which cannot even be altered by our own Parliament will continue on its rubberstamping journey towards the Lords.

And so it shall likely come to pass that in ratifying this treaty; this EU Constitution; this document cloaked in lies and deception; our Parliament and Government will with willingness and arrogance have broken its promise to the people of Britain.

In no more than a moment, hundreds of years of history will be undone. After two horrific World Wars in which millions died defending freedom and democracy, their sacrifice will have ultimately been in vain. By next week the event and the vote will be forgotten. Lost in time, like tears in rain.

Listlessly We Drift

As the relevance of our Westminster Parliament subsides into mediocrity and the process of ever closer union continues with unrelenting certainty, our capacity to set right what once went so wrong recedes by the day.

The sad reality of politics in modern Britain is that parties, administrations, and the briefcase wielding faceless suits who aimlessly wander the corridors of power may seem with unwillingness and uncertainty to alternate or vary on occasion and from time to time - but the policies and outcomes which govern us remain ever constant.

We now reside in a world in which opposition is silenced, traditional freedoms are curtailed and the slow, quiet and subtle processes of our real government continue to go widely unreported. In fact so far removed are these events from the history of our once proud nation which was built on the values of freedom and self-determination; a country that once ruled the waves and on whose Empire the sun never set, that it is probably almost unrecognisably alien to those of only a few generations previous to my own.

Time and the collective stupidity and inadequacy of many politicians have taken its toll on the British people. Of what little national sovereignty our Parliament still retains – and there is very little of any real significance - is stifled by our governing political elite who have more in common with each other than they do the voting electorate. Westminster has become a hollowed out institution existing only as façade of accountability, as a playground for the metropolitan classes and its chambers are filled with empty dull husks who continue to linger in its stale air of unhealthy democratic decay long after they willingly and uncaringly voted away our rights.

In Europe, the EU Parliament remains as ever meaningless and verbose. It too has little power; real power and authority of course lies in the hands of the unelected bureaucrats and EU Commissioners over which the British people have no say, choice or control. It appears that slowly but surely we listlessly drift into an age of vagary and post-democracy, perhaps without most people even noticing. Has our indifference condemned us? Do we only have ourselves to blame?