Constitutional Violation? By Rev David P Griffiths

 

In writing this piece, I point out right away that this is written in line with my constitutional obligation as a Minister of the Protestant Reformed Religion Established by Law (1698 Act Establishing the Coronation Oath) to ensure that there are no foreign political and legal systems affecting our life in Britain.

 

In my view there are many and I am grateful to Daniel Hannan MEP for his expert analysis of what he describes as Britain’s “doomed marriage” to Europe.

 

Daniel Hannan: A Doomed Marriage – Britain and Europe

2012 Notting Hills Editions, London

 

Hannan is clear in his condemnation of the European process: It’s not just the euro crisis; it’s the whole rotten scheme. It will no longer do to think of the EU as a fine idea that has been botched in the implementation. Its very basis, the merger of different nationalities within a single political system, is flawed …..

 

The consequences of the European ideal in almost removing from Britain the huge God-given benefits in honouring the Oath our Monarch gave to God, an oath that does not allow foreign interference into our political and legal systems, an oath that does not allow adherence to alien philosophies that have even influenced court cases in Britain proving in my view that we can no longer expect the principle of Habeas Corpus to be adhered to for Corpus Juris is rapidly taking over!

 

Hannan produces evidences of alarming consequences of Britain’s ignoring of its Constitution, consequences that are affecting us all. We as a Charity and church Ministry are responsible for our uses of resources. Government should be giving an example to the country on this but with taxpayer’s money in 2010, at a time of budget cutting the European Parliament allocated £112.5 million to a Brussels Museum of European History & Unification. The nonsense of this is that Europe has had a divisive history – not a unified one with 55 million Europeans dying in the wars of 1914 & 1945.

 

In addition member states to join put aside their heritage and culture for in addition to the putting aside of Britain’s Monarch’s Oath to God, Poland softened abortion laws, Croatia handed over war criminals and Turkey has eased restrictions on minorities.

 

We witness in Europe the principle that “big is beautiful” and that being big one would prosper more but these questions need to be answered

 

i)             Why is Hong Kong wealthier than China?

ii)          Why is Indonesia wealthier than Brunei?

iii)       Why is Switzerland wealthier than all of the EU? P 6/7

 

It is interesting to know that the wealthiest countries in the World per head of population are

(GDP per capita)

 

I)            Liechtenstein:               $141,100          (2008 est.) 

II)          Qutar:                           $102,700          (2011 est.)

III)         Luxembourg                 $84,700            (2011 est)

IV)         Bermuda                       $69,900            (2004 est)

V)          Singapore                      $59,900            (2011 est)

VI)         Jersey                             $57,000             (2005 est)

VII)       Falkland Islands             $55,400           (2002 est)

VIII)      Norway                          $53,300           (2011 est)

IX)         Brunei                            $49,400           (2011 est)

X)          Hong Kong                     $49,300           (2011 est)

XI)         UAE                               $48,500           (2011 est)

XII)        USA                                $48,100           (2011 est)

XIII)       Guernsey                        $44,600           (2005 est)

XIV)        Cayman Islands            $43,800           (2004 est)

XV)         Switzerland                   $43,400           (2011 est)

XVI)        Gibraltar                       $43,000           (2006 est)

XVII)        Netherlands                 $42,500           (2011 est)

XVIII)       Austria                        $41,700           (2011 est)

XIX)         Australia                      $40,800           (2011 est)

XX)          Kuwait                         $40,700           (2011 est)

 

The point here is that 18 of the 20 countries are small – USA being the most decentralised of them all           

 

Hannan has produced evidence that those who oppose Europe are seen as dangerous and possible warmongers:

 

Herman Van Rompuy, EU President on 2012 said:

 

We have together to fight the danger of a new Euroscepticism. The biggest enemy of Europe today is fear. Fear leads to egoism, egoism leads to nationalism, and nationalism leads to war.

 

Our reply: You can be at peace with your neighbour, one can love one’s neighbour, one can do business deals with one’s neighbour without having to join in a marriage of political and legal integration that denies God given national constitutions.

 

Daniel Hannan has discovered however that European wars have been ideological rather than nationalistic.

 

i)             Plenty of wars with ideological rather than nationalistic roots; i.e. the Reformation was ideological – not nationalistic and that continues today.

ii)          The thirty years war (1618-48) – longest continuous European war divided people by faith – not nationalism and that has not gone away!

iii)       Second World War & the Cold War primarily ideological along the range from Fascism and Communism.

iv)        When nationalism the cause of the conflict – then that happens when you integrate those of other states into a new state (i.e. the ethnic tensions in Europe today by cross integration have developed breeding grounds for nationalism.

 

It is clear to me therefore that basis of European integration argument is based on a fundamental lie, the EU being seen as a massive vehicle for re-distributing wealth. Hannan concludes:

 

Taxpayers of all states contribute (though their contributions are hidden among the national tax-takes) and the revenue is then used to purchase the allegiance of articulate and powerful groups: consultants, contractors, big landowners, NGO’s, corporations, charities, municipalities.

 

Unsurprisingly the people running the EU have little time for the concept of representative government. The unelected President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, argues that nation states are dangerous precisely because they are excessively democratic:

 

“Governments are not always right. If governments were always right we would not have the situation that we have today. Decisions taken by the most democratic institutions in the world are very often wrong.

 

Now look at this for putting ourselves under a non-democratic control: The power is in the European Commission for this is the only body that can propose legislation – THIS IS THE GREAT CONCENTRATION OF POWER – a commission of 27 unelected members – the elected governments and councils are UNDER THIS!

 

Hannan continues: When, for example, referendums go the wrong way, Eurocrats think nothing of swatting the results aside. When Denmark voted against the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, Ireland against the Nice Treaty in 2001 and Ireland (again) against the Lisbon Treaty in 2008, people were told to go away and try again. When France and the Netherlands voted against the European Commission in 2005, the verdict was simply disregarded.

 

Tony Blair’s democracy: The British people are sensible enough to know that, even if they have a certain prejudice about Europe, they don’t expect their government necessarily to share it or act upon it.

 

To Tony Blair – governments are not to act on how the people feel – so European Election turnouts have gone down each time for what is the point?

 

1979: 62%

1984: 59%

1989: 58.4%

1994: 56.7%

1999: 49.5%

2004: 45.6%

2009: 43.1%

 

The solution to European supporters is for the people to receive more information & more propaganda or is it the people recognising the hopeless position of a democratic voice?

 

The USA elections which are recognised as democratic have rising turnouts:

 

2000: 51.3%

2004: 56.7%

2008: 61.4%

 

We now come to the disastrous economic policies of the European Union, disasters that politicians at the beginning of the twenty first century could not foresee, politician completely out of line with British Christian Constitution and remember we are primarily acting here as protectors of our Constitutional Acts.

 

Look at the Lib Dem Position in 2002:

 

The euro, despite gloomy predictions from anti-Europeans, has proved to be a success. We cannot afford to be isolated from our biggest and closest trading partner any longer. Charles Kennedy.

 

Look at a Conservative Position in the same year.

 

Opponents of the euro have been disheartened as their predictions of chaos and disaster have failed to materialise. The reality of the euro has exposed the absurdity of many anti-European scares while increasing the public thirst for information. Public opinion is always changing as people can see the success of the new currency on the mainland. Kenneth Clarke.

 

Daniel Hannan continues: The trouble is that the people running the EU refuse to learn anything from the failure of their project. Since the crisis began, they have pursued only one policy: bailout and borrow. When it doesn’t work, they accelerate it. For years, EU leaders have been condition to spend public money. The first instinct of a Eurocrat, in a crisis, is to reach for his wallet – or rather to reach for your wallet, since EU officials are exempt from paying national taxation. Expanding their budgets, of course, is what bureaucracies do best…….

 

Even so, there is something perverse about sticking to a policy which is manifestly failing in its stated objectives. Every new bailout is hailed as the end of the crisis. Everyone fails, leaving the markets as sceptical as before, but increasing the mountain of outstanding debt……

 

Had Greece kept the drachma, it could not have run up the monstrous debts it had accumulated by 2010: the markets would have stepped in and imposed a corrective at least three years earlier.

 

We now look at the ERM (Exchange Rate Mechanism) example in 1992 – for as soon as we pulled out the economy was saved from destruction despite of John Major calling it “the soft option.”

 

Defining the system as a tyranny Daniel Hannan continues: When preparing the document that became the European Constitution, and then the Lisbon Treaty, the EU authorities made a great show of “consulting the people.” In 2003, 200 organisations, representing ‘civil society’, were invited to submit their suggestions on what the draft should contain. Interested in how these 200 bodies had been selected, I put down a written question asking which of them received grants from the EU. After some toing and froing, the answer eventually came back: all of them.

 

You see how the system works? The EU sets up and funds an interest group. The group duly demands that the EU seize more powers. The EU then announces that, in response to popular demand, it is extending its jurisdiction.

 

What we have therefore ruling Britain is not a group of NGO’s supporting the nation’s Constitution, we have instead EU sponsored pressure groups exposed by Hannan as the European Union of Journalists, the European Women’s Lobby & the European Cyclists Federation. Independent associations not receiving EU funds are not included in the equation.

 

WE then can conclude how to get funding for your Charity …….

 

Daniel Hannan continues: One example will serve to illustrate what I’m talking about. When he introduced the Bill to ratify the Lisbon Treaty in 2007, the then Foreign Secretary, David Milliband, made a great song and dance about the fact that it wasn’t just Labour Europhiles who backed the text. A whole range of NGO’s (non-governmental organizations like charities), he told the House of Commons, had also come out in favour:’ The NSPCC has pledged its support, as have One World action, Action Aid and Oxfam,’ he said, looking pleased with himself. ‘Environmental organizations support the treaty provisions on sustainable development and even the commission of bishops supports the treaty. This is a coalition, not of ideology, but integrity.’

 

Integrity? A few moments on the Internet revealed that every organisation he had cited was in receipt of EU subventions. Most of them, it turned out, had also received grants from the British government. Hardly surprising, then, that they should dutifully endorse a treaty supported by their paymasters.

 

What was surprising was the extent of their financial dependency. When Mr. Milliband sat down, I fired off a written question asking the European Commission how much money it had paid these organisations. It turned out that, in the previous year, Action Aid, the NSPCC, One World Action and Oxfam had among them been given 43,051,542.95

 

Just think about that sum for a moment. Can organisations in receipt of such colossal subsidies legitimately call themselves ‘non-governmental’? Can they claim to be independent? Can they even describe themselves as charities – at least in the sense that we commonly understand the word?

 

Why should any of us want to give money to a body that is already forcibly expropriating us through the tax system, and then using part of the revenue to lobby the government?

 

In response to the findings of Daniel Hannan I issued a complaint against these charities to the Charity Commission. I am awaiting a reply.

 

The other body which Mr. Milliband cited, the ‘commission of bishops’, was a little harder to identify, but patient Googling revealed that its full name was the ‘Commission of Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community.’ Far from being an episcopal body that just happened to back closer union, it was a Brussels based outfit whose purpose was ‘to promote refection, based on the (Roman Catholic) Church’s social teaching, on the challenges facing a united Europe.’ In other words, while seeking to give the impression of broad support for a new transfer of powers to Brussels, the British Foreign Secretary was reduced to citing a body whose sole purpose is to interact with EU institutions, and which would be out of business if the EU disappeared.

 

This quoting by Milliband by “bishops” would we assume to be a reference to Protestant Bishops as mentioned in the Coronation Oath – but no these are Roman Catholic Bishops with allegiance to the EU, thus making Milliband’s statement out of line with all Britain’s Constitutional Acts particularly the Act of Settlement 1700.

 

The Commission then looks to control NGO’s and it is my view that NGO’s not under their control will come under severe persecution to comply, that persecution including, alienation, isolation and blockages to money supply. There is a heavy price to pay for those running truly independent NGO’s.

 

NGO’s like Friends of the Earth therefore work hand in hand with government bringing the conditions for even more regulation in the name of climate change, and WWF do in relation to environmental change according to Hannan.

 

The EU therefore have introduced to itself many dependents on its system so who is going to vote against it?

 

This has all brought about devastating Effects on Small Businesses and Genuine NGO’s.

 

Hannan has identified in his study a context, a context in which those under EU control will benefit with laws being tailored to suit controlled companies and NGO’s, companies who have developed products to suit the agreed criteria thus putting out of business those who are not in on the “club.” Likewise with NGO’s under its control, services match the EU agenda – in Britain not the heart and passion of the British Constitutional Acts and so we find the non-controlled bodies under massive pressure resulting in family break-ups, bankruptcies and those running genuine NGO’s doing miracles on a shoestring.

 

The EU’s strength is not to be found among the diminished ranks of true believers; not among the benign cranks who attend meetings of the European Movement or distribute leaflets for the Union of European Federalists. Nor, in truth, does it preside primarily among the officials directly on the Brussels payroll, either in the EU institutions or in its dozens of semi-detached executive bodies ( the European Human Rights Agency, the European Space Agency, the European Police College and so on).

 

No, the real power of the EU is to be found in the wider corpus of interested parties: the businesses which are invested in the regulatory process, the consultants and contractors dependent on Brussels spending; the landowners receiving cheques from the CAP, the local councils with their EU departments; the seconded civil servants with remuneration terms beyond anything they could hope for in their home countries; the armies of lobbyists and professional associations; as we have seen, the charities and NGO’s which, once they reach a certain size, almost always begin a financial relationship with the EU.

 

There are of course, persuasive lobbies within their home countries. They tend to be made up of articulate professionals. No government lightly crosses them. Nor are politicians immune to financial blandishments. It is common for former ministers to end up in EU jobs of one kind or another. Even heads of government often aim for such positions: several former prime ministers have wound up in the European Commission (Jose Manuel Barroso, for example), in the European Parliament (Jean-Luc Dehaene, Silvio Berluconi) or in the wider Eurocracy (John Bruton, the former Irish Taoseach, became the EU’s Ambassador to Washington). Members of the European Parliament (despite of lack of interest in the apparent democratic process) receive a far more attractive financial package than legislators in any of the EU’s national assemblies – even Italy.

 

The politicians, though, are vastly outnumbered by the corporate interests that have grown up around the EU……

 

Asking the question as to why Britain joined, Hannan declares that it would seem Britain joined Europe for largely economic reasons; yet for 37 out of 38 years of membership Britain has put in more than it has taken out. The exception is 1975, the year of the referendum on withdrawal and so it can be argued that European economics were deliberately manipulated to influence a vote that year.

 

Strange form of economics for British governments to think they could benefit financially from the EU (then EEC) by placing its farmers and fishermen under the Common Agricultural Policy and a Common Fisheries Policy that only was applied to the North Sea (for 30 years) and not the Mediterranean or Baltic making the Policy absolutely anti-British hence our losses in comparison to other European countries. Then in addition to this economic blow – free trade with the Commonwealth was replaced by the European External Tarriff with an artificial re-direction to the European continent – our great ports of Glasgow, Bristol and particularly Liverpool being on the wrong side of the country to Europe!

 

From 1973 onwards, GB trade has been in deficit. In the 1975 referendum pro-European politicians argued that our trade with the Commonwealth was finished and it was now Europe. How right they were, their correct analysis bring massive losses to Britain, a nation previously wealthy with its commonwealth links. For the coming years IMF data has shown growing economies in the Commonwealth and declining ones in Europe. IMF data shows stagnation in the Eurozone and an expectation of 7.2 growth in the countries of the Commonwealth, Hannan declaring:

 

It is difficult, pondering these figures, not to conclude that, for four decades, Britain’s economic policy has been based on a false presumption. Britain, perhaps more than any other member state, has alternative options. There is a world beyond the EU – a world whose opportunities cannot be fully exploited while Britain remains in a customs union as opposed to a free trade area.

 

The EU’s Common External Tariff, by which Britain is bound, is on average, be 5 or 9 per cent. For several of the member countries, this represents a historic low. But for Britain, it is a higher rate than prevailed a century ago.

 

There has therefore to be an alternative to EU Membership.

 

i)             One can be part of the single market without being full members of the EU with its political and legal integrations. The Channel Islands, Liechtenstein, Iceland and Turkey are in this category so it can be done. All these countries have unrestricted free trade and independent politically and legally. Switzerland who rejected EU membership in 1992 made various business and trading deals with the EU and we can do the same, and if we get the same deal as Switzerland this means we can get free trade deals with other countries outside the EU – a scenario that would greatly benefit our country. In this context Switzerland exported 4 times as much per head to the EU in 2010 than Britain without all the legal and political integration. Indeed Switzerland’s example has a parallel in Britain and I quote Hannan:

 

…. Britain’s trade with the EU, which was in surplus before we joined, has been in deficit during 37 of the 38 subsequent years. In 2010, the last year for which full figures are available, Britain ran a deficit of £52.4 billion with the EU, but a surplus of £15.7 billion with the rest of the world.

 

Our trade deficit is not in itself, of course, a reason to leave the EU. But it gives the lie to any notion that the other members would seek to restrict the cross-Channel commerce from which they are the chief beneficiaries. In any commercial transaction, the customer tends to have a stronger position than the salesman………