SOMETHING TO STRIKE FOR

There was a time about twelve years ago when I thought I would have to start looking for a new job, the reason being was down to the sale of our small family business which my father started in 1946 where I had worked for twenty nine years of my life. In fact this business had been my life, as most major things had happened to me throughout those twenty nine years I gave to that business.

When I left school I did a couple of years at the old Walsall Technical College where I got a City & Guilds in gents hairdressing, following which I worked in the gentlemen’s hairdressing department in a large and prestigious Birmingham store until 1970. After a summer of dossing around and hitchhiking across Europe, I took on a small barbers shop in the suburbs and for twelve months became my own boss. As this did not pay, after a very lean year when the rental contract came to an end – I got out and the old man roped me into the family business where I spent such a large part of my life finishing up running (and constantly worrying) about the business and making ends meet through the recessionary years of those times.

During that year out in the sticks, struggling to make ends meet many of my customers worked in industry or at, what was then Austin Rover, and many a day I would be cutting the hair of someone on strike, and gritting my teeth, as they would inform me they were on strike because they considered a pay rise, which amounted to more than I earned in a week, was not enough.

If I wanted a pension I had to organise and fund one myself, which I did and still have. This coming December I will hit the grand old age of 64 – one year away from retirement age. As my own funded pension is what is technically termed as crap, and no doubt my state pension not much different, I am not sure retirement will be a luxury I can afford despite the fact I have worked continuously since the age of 17. In fact that due to working for myself in our family business, to make ends meet and pay the bills I had no option but to cut my private pension contributions in order to survive.

So, when all the news is dominated with ‘poor me’ public sector workers going out on strike because they are going to have to contribute more and work longer to get the same pension, I can’t say I have a great deal of empathy. Yes, I know there are dinner ladies feeding the kids school meals for low wages, but there are a lot of public sector workers, in some well protected jobs, on very cushy numbers who are doing ok – they will be considerably wealthier than me when retirement comes. This is not a complaint – it is simply a fact of life that nothing is ever equal or fair.

Over the years those who have worked in industry and the private sector have been hit hard, if a company goes bust due to global competition, badly made Government or EU rules, then the workers are out and on the dole – no protection for them or the people who run the businesses who have mortgage up to the hilt and lost their homes and life savings trying to keep their companies afloat – no one cares for them and no Government, despite the rhetoric, ever gives a shit too.

Yet in the public sector there are constant wails that their jobs should be for life and their pension’s gold plated. Well now is the time for a dose of reality and a taste of the world those who generate money and pay the taxes, which in turn pay the wages of the public sector, inhabit. Like the rest of us they can’t take it for granted all their jobs are safe, we are living in very tough times indeed, mostly created because of the folly of the EU and our membership of it.

Those public sector workers with their cushy none jobs are going to have to go. We don’t need ‘Diversity officers’ ‘Positive activities officers’ and all the other silly things our taxes are spent on, in tough times such as these they will have to go. The state is no different to any other employer, if cutting jobs and wages is the way to save the company and the remaining essential jobs – then there is no other option. Tough but necessary.

Like businesses that get into trouble, the same reasons for problems which beset the state often apply. Sometimes it is due to global trends out of the control of anyone, also sometimes it is due to bad management decisions. One of the reasons Britain UK is in the dire straits it currently finds itself in is down to year upon years of bad decisions – starting with our membership of the Common Market (EU) back in 1973. Every Government since has kept this nation shackled to that historic calamitous blunder and because of it we now find ourselves deep in debt whilst at the same time we have given away the power to resolve many of our problems.

Recent figures show for 2009/2010 show that the UK's gross EU contributions have increased by 5.7%. The UKIP web-site states: “Gross receipts (payments from Brussels to the UK) shrank between 2009 and 2010. Part of the reason for this was Tony Blair's surrender of the UK's rebate from the EU.

Our net contribution to the EU has rocketed from £6.6billion in 2009 to £10.3billion in 2010.

Last year the Office for Budget Responsibility envisaged £10.3billion as the annual cost of EU membership for 2014. These new figures show that they have grossly underestimated the cost to the UK of EU membership.

The Pink Book 2011 is a summary of balance of payments accounts, which contain detailed statistics for the current account including; trade in goods and services, income, current and capital transfers, transactions in UK external assets and liabilities, and levels of identified assets and liabilities.

Numbers contained in The Pink Book are higher than those from HM Treasury because not all UK payments to and from Brussels transit via HM Treasury. For example, the Department for International Development channels part of its 'overseas aid' direct to institutions by-passing HM Treasury.”

If the country is in such an economic mess how can we afford EU membership, it is the greatest folly of any time.

Sadly, those we elect to Parliament do nothing to support us, like the strikers they will al, be protesting about the wrong things, if we hadn’t wasted so many years in the EU we would be in a much stronger position now during lean times. Our MPs even had a chance to correct this situation a few weeks ago by granting us a referendum EU membership, so determined were all three political parties that we should not correct the error of the past by allowing the people a say, they enforced a three line whip on their MPs to vote against the Bill.

This included my own Member of Parliament for Walsall South, Valerie Vaz MP. I sent her an e-mail explaining why we needed a say and all that is wrong with membership of the EU, which anyone with eyes in their head and a functioning brain can plainly see, the e-mail reply stated:

“Dear Mr Bennett,

Thank you for your email regarding the debate and vote on a EU referendum. I was sorry to miss you on Monday and hope you are well. I did not vote for a referendum as in my view the case for a referendum at this time has not been made. Britain should currently be focused on providing jobs and growth. I would consider supporting a referendum if and when a Government seeks to make a major change to Britain's relationship with the European Union.

Regards, Valerie Vaz.”

So, despite the fact we have given massive tranches of power and national sovereignty to the EU over our long and sorry membership, despite the fact the EU is on the verge of destroying the biggest remaining UK wealth creator, the City of London, despite the fact no British subject is safe from arrest by foreign courts on the most circumstantial evidence, despite the fact British industry, businesses and wealth creators are been systematically destroyed by EU bureaucracy and legislation, and despite the fact £billions upon £billions of our wealth floods out of the UK to be lost in the mire of EU accounting year on year, we can’t have a referendum.

Soon those whinging strikers who may have to work a year or two longer, to get the same pension will have something to really worry about – not only do they face a future of possibly no job and no pension because our wealth has been squandered on the EU – they may find they have no country either. How about striking for Britain instead – that would be something to strike for.

INSULTING THE ELECTORATE

Anne Palmer, letter to David Cameron ignored.

Below you will see a letter written by long serving and highly repected anti-EU campaigner, Anne Palmer, to the Prime Minister, David Cameron. Within that letter she asks a number of important, relevant and extremely probing questions, the reply, which follows Anne's letter, is stunning in its banality and an outright insult from the office of the Prime Minister.

This is how democracy and the very valid concerns of the British people are now treated with utter contempt. Cameron's correpondance office could not even be bothered to make any kind of attempt to answer one single question. This is the alledged Eurosceptic so many Conservative voters placed their trust and faith in at the last general election - the man himself is an insult to democracy and the high office he now desicrates.

To: The Rt Hon David Cameron
The Prime Minister,
10 Downing Street,
London,
SW1A 2AA

Dear Prime Minister.

I read with interest that you want to “Bring powers back from the EU”. However, as many people in this Country do not believe that will ever happen unless we come out of the EU altogether, may I respectfully suggest that you abandon immediately the EU’s Localism Bill you are putting through Parliament at this time.

This Localism Bill is on the Council of Europe’s website and is recorded in the UN, although from the dates it seems to have “gone upwards” from the EU to the UN and not from the United Nations.

It is a Bill designed to divide the Nation and Country of ENGLAND permanently into Regions of the European Union - to be eventually governed directly, through the EU, by the Committee of the Regions. It is perhaps, the most destructive Bill that has ever come from the European Union and something that even Hitler never managed to do through all the bombing of this Country in the last war. In fact his bombing brought the people of ENGLAND together.

By accepting the EU’s Localism Bill you are allowing the European Union to have “sovereignty” (and ever increasing authority) over our Country by telling our elected Government what it must do, and how it must govern our own once proud nation of ENGLAND.

This Bill divides the people: for they may be in competition with each other for funds from the EU etc. You are allowing a foreign organisation to dictate what our once sovereign Government does to our own Country. Scotland is already classed as an EU Region, as is Wales and London.

I understand you are to reduce the House of Commons by 50 people, yet in reality it is doubtful we would even need fifty people left in Parliament once the Regions took hold, plus the people cannot afford to contribute towards this extra layer of Governance. There are 825 people in the House of Lords, yet those that should really be in the Lords, the Hereditary Peers, are no longer in attendance! All get daily expenses and some 'Cranborne money' - money we simply cannot afford for much longer. Will any of the Peers be required once the EU Regions are set up? The people simply cannot pay for yet another layer of unelected EU Governance - the EU contributions alone, and forced upon us, are far too much and that money should have gone on this Country’s Defence.

Rather than try to take back powers already given, and taken, by the EU you could also reject the EU’s proposed HS2, all part of the EU’s Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) Policy, and along with TEN-T is the permanent transfer of Sovereignty over our air space for the EU’s Single European Sky. I say permanently for whether in or out of the EU, I doubt it would ever be given back whether we remain in the EU or not. Giving up sovereignty permanently over our Ports and 12 mile limit so that EU ships can “come and go” as they please is an abominable thought. All that is in the sea and underneath the sea bed and what has not been discovered yet is not “ours” nor will it be if all is transferred to the EU. Maps of course would be changed to show this and all this under your watch Sir. HS2 is only one part of the EU’s TEN-T. Never more will Britannia, “Rule the Waves”.

You Sir, could stop this EU legislation right away and then you could try to repossess powers that should never have been given away, back from the EU. These actions would prove to the people that you mean what you say, particularly for not destroying our Nation and ENGLAND through the EU’s Localism Bill would be a start.

You could of course repeal the European Communities Act 1972 right away and thus prevent any more EU legislation going through our Parliament; then set about repudiating the EU Treaties that are strangling us.

More and more of the electorate now, at last, recognise that all three major Political Parties want to remain in the European Union. The electorate feel betrayed, which of course they have been; there is absolutely no doubt about that as poll after poll prove.

I hope that the present events taking place, with the suggestion of the many changes required, and some Countries talking about advocating, “fiscal union and economic governance for the Eurozone,” I pray, never comes about, because that may eventually lead to war, perhaps even the third World War and, as in 1939 we are little prepared to defend ourselves, a repeat of the last war is staring us in the face, except we have no Churchill or a friend in the USA that would come to our aid.

The people you represent, your Monarch, and the future of our Country lies in your hands. I beg you to put the British Crown and all it stands for and your Country before all else.

Yours faithfully,

Anne Palmer.

The insulting reply:

Dear Ms Palmer.

I am writing on behalf of the Prime Minister to thank you for your letter of 17 November. It is good of you to get in touch. Mr Cameron very much appreciates your taking the time and trouble to inform him of your views. With best wishes.

Yours sincerely

Christina, Correspondence Officer.

GARLIC CREATES A BIT OF A STINK

West Midlands MEP Mike Nattrass says meddling EU bureaucrats are again giving British taxpayers indigestion – this time thanks to a £20 million garlic tax bill.

The UKIP MEP says the EU is once more creating a stink following revelations that the EU Commission is threatening the UK Government with legal action if it fails to pay millions of pounds in alleged unpaid duty on imports of fresh garlic.

If the Government fails to pay the bill within two months the Commission has said it may refer the case to the Court of Justice.

The Commission stated: “Between 2005 and 2006, the UK customs authorities allowed imports of fresh garlic from the People’s Republic of China under wrong authorising documents.

“They have erroneously stated that the goods imported were frozen garlic for which significantly lower import duties apply.

“The Commission considers that the UK authorities did not act with all due care when issuing the authorising documents and failed to collect the correct amount of duties.

“They are therefore held financially responsible for the loss of own resources (approximately £20 million) to the EU budget.

“The Commission is determined to protect the common EU interest. Fair treatment of all Member States must be ensured. If a Member State fails to make available all the money it owes the EU budget, the other Member States need to pay more as a result.”

Commenting on the Commission’s stance, Mr Nattrass said: “These constant dictatorial displays by the EU are really giving British taxpayers chronic indigestion.

“Just this month we have seen numerous examples of EU interference which will hit British businesses..... I suggest we just breathe on them and ask them to go away.

“For example, earlier this month the European Court of Justice ruled that all jars of honey might have to be relabeled to say they contain pollen despite the fact pollen is a natural product and is not added to honey in any man-made production process.

“The EU has the cheek to mention the need to ensure the fair treatment of Member States when it says it will continue to allow some countries like Spain to continue producing eggs from battery hens despite an EU ban on their sale which is due to come into effect from January 1 next year.

“In Britain, as always, our businesses have complied with the EU regulations at huge cost. As a result our egg producers risk being undercut and pushed out of business by other competitors in Europe who have not complied with the standards. Where is the fair treatment in that?”

ALL LIT UP

At a UKIP meeting the other evening during a debate about alternative energy and wind farms, which was inspired by the Duke of Edinburgh's wind farm comment that to think they could provide enough energy for our needs as a "fairy tale". One person there made a comment that I could not resist posting on this blog.

In reply to their effectiveness - or not, the UKIP members comment was: "If you connect all the windmills in the country together, you still won't generate enough energy to illuminate a glow worm's arsehole!"

This is a comment that has a certain ring about it.

LONG LIVE INEVITABILITY

Nothing cheers me up more than when I hear people, especially euro fanatics, declaring that the pound sterling is doomed and Britain will have no option but to join the euro. Such news really makes my day and hearing the news that Lord (Hezza) Hesseltine has declared the euro will survive and Britain will have to join has perked me up no end on this dull Monday.

At this point you may be looking at the top of this blog which has a picture of me holding a camera and the blog title declaring: “Derek Bennett the Euro Sceptic”. You may also be wondering why such statements predicting the doom of the British currency to be usurped by the EU’s euro would make me happy – there is a reason.

There was a time when hearing predictions of the pounds demise would worry me and make me frown, rather than smile, that was until I was involved in a conversation in my regular Walsall watering hole, the Lyndon House Hotel. As a regular there quite a few people know my stance on the EU and that I stand in elections and campaign for UKIP, one of those people some years ago came up to me and stated: “You know it is inevitable we will join the euro, don’t you”.

“Why’s that?” I asked. This was in the early days of the EU’s euro and all the news and opinion at the time was the pound would not be able to stand up against the mighty dollar and a strong euro, talk of ‘inevitability was rife. The person who asked the question could not give any real positive reason other than quote the BBC and what all the press and media were predicting at the time – in other words he had been brainwashed into thinking the end of the pound was inevitable.

However, when I asked him the next question the reaction was revealing. I asked: “Does the fact that you think it is inevitable we will join the euro mean you will vote ‘Yes’ to join it when we are given the referendum on it?” A look of horror came across his face: “Of course not, I’m going to vote no”. So there you had it, as long as we had a referendum the choice belonged to the people and they were all repeating the mantra that joining the euro was inevitable, but the vast majority were saying they were going to vote ‘No’.

This is the reason why I always smile and am cheered greatly when such brainless eurofanatics as Lord Hesseltine begin harping on that joining the euro is inevitable – the more they say it the less inevitable it seems to become. It pleases me greatly too when people such as him, those who rely solely on deceit, treachery and outright lies, state the euro will survive as this means the euro is well and truly doomed – it can’t have much longer before it is consigned to the history books as yet another failed attempt, in a long line of long gone currency unions, to have failed too. This will be a major blow to the EU – so much so it will begin to lose what credibility it had but never deserved. Long live inevitability.

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE

It seems the quote by Europides; “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad” and made so famous by Enoch Powell, is now appropriate to the European Union.

As most people with an ounce of common sense know, the European Union project is based on madness, it is mad to think that one nation can be created out of so many diverse nations with differing languages and cultures, it is mad to think that 17 nations with differing economies can all come together under one currency and one set of interest rates, and it is mad to think that the EU has a future – its demise is inevitable.

As the madness of the EU project turns into blind panic now it is all going wrong, as all Eurosceptics have constantly warned, the EU has really decided to show it really is mad by a group of officials spending three years debating, then declaring that drinking water does not prevent dehydration and making it illegal for bottled water suppliers to state that it does, which is obvious to anyone with even a miniscule of common sense.

This last week we have seen the EU begin to undermine democracy in the nation states, the Greek and Italian prime ministers were ousted literally by the EU, to be replaced by the EU’s placemen. For a prime example of the EU’s mindset Mario Monti, the new Italian prime minister, who was an EU Commissioner and is the EU’s man, is not elected by the people and he also thinks it quite acceptable that not one single member of his cabinet is elected either. This then is how the EU operates, democracy is an inconvenience.

If democracy in Europe is inconvenient, then democracy in the UK is a major threat, and it has been revealed that the German’s have decided that should Cameron actually honour his promise of holding a referendum to the British electorate on giving the EU more powers, which would be a first as Cameron has broken every promise made so far, then the Germans would set out to scupper such a venture.

It is Friday, the end of another unfortunate week as members of the EU and another week of EU membership too long. On the bright side, the total collapse of the EU’s euro and the EU is another week closer.

ALL WE DIDN'T WANT FOR CHRISTMAS

Pity the poor electorate in the Walsall Metropolitan Council ward of Birchills Leamore, while everyone else is out and about making last minute preparations for Christmas, they will be traipsing to the polls to vote in a by-election that two unknown persons have demanded, as is their right.

The last thing anyone really wanted three days before Christmas day, on the 22 December, was a by-election. It seems all the political groups in Walsall have all been suspiciously looking at each other and asking: ‘Was it you?' Naturally they are all denying it, the Labour group have accused the Tories, who in turn have blamed Labour, whilst the Lib Dems, who couldn’t even bother to find a candidate in the last by-election recently in Bloxwich, are saying: ‘It aint me guv’. So, who was daft enough to go and call a by-election now? Whoever they are have got some answering to do.

The by-election was called due to the sad death of Joan Barton who had been a well liked and long serving Councillor. As she was due for re-election next May there was no real need to call a by-election. Whoever is elected for Labour, as they will be as this is one of Labour’s safest wards in Walsall, will have re-stand again in May. By the time they start serving on the Council after the Christmas break, they won’t have had much chance to do anything before they are up for election again.

Although I am a strong advocate for democracy, which was the reason I got involved in politics in the first place, I still sadly think this election is a waste of time and money, the two remaining Ward Councillors could have coped for four months, but now the Council Taxpayers have to pay for a by-election.

We in UKIP have already started the process of selecting who we want as our candidate, but it is something we could have done without. All we didn’t want for Christmas was a by-election.

WE "EUROSCEPTICS"

You may have read my posting, or rant more like, regarding David Cameron's daft assertion that somehow or other his pro-EU actions and leaning qualify him to be called a "Eurosceptic", well here is a response from Nigel Farage - a real Eurosceptic.

NIGEL ASKS, WHAT RIGHT TO DICTATE?

Here he is, the lad himself giving it to the EU President and the Commission President together. Nigel making himself popular in the Parliament - all good stuff.

AN INSULT TO ALL EU-SCEPTICS

Vladimir Lenin, a leading anti-Communist.

Here’s a novel list of historical figures. Vladimir Lenin was a leading anti-Communist. Ronald Regan was an active American left wing socialist. Mae West was a devout puritan. Members of Led Zeplin support the Noise Abatement Society. Now here’s a new one to bring the list fully up to date; David Cameron is a Euro sceptic!

There are things you see on the telly that make you want to throw things at it as you sit watching in utter disbelief, your language takes on an Anglo Saxon bias as you turn the air blue with screems of frustration – last night watching the clips of David Cameron all dolled up in his finery when he had the gall to declare he was a ‘sceptic’ when speaking at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet in London. He is a funny sort of sceptic, instead of saying, as all real sceptics say, we should leave the EU, he declared we have to remain as members.

This is like a prisoner saying he desperately wants to escape, being given the key to his cell, then saying he can’t leave as his incarceration is good for him. Well Britain should get out, and get out fast as EU membership is doing immense harm to this nation.

As the EU begins to flex its muscles EU membership become increasingly dangerous for the freedom, democracy and sovereignty of its member nations. In recent days we have seen the EU override the democracies of Greece and Italy, out have gone their democratically elected prime ministers, in have come the EU’s placemen.

The new Greek prime minister, Lucas Papademos, is the man responsible for fixing the Greek accounts to make it possible they could scrap the drachma, the world’s oldest currency, to make it possible for Greece to adopt the EU’s euro. There must have been some very creative accounting to make that one work! Now the EU, knowing what a loyal little lap dog he is, have ensured he is in place to help sort the mess out he, and the EU, helped to create. Of course the only possible way, as far as the EU is concerned, is more EU rather than less. How very convenient this is when creating a single nation called the United States of Europe.

The same too has happened in Italy, out has gone the sex mad Italian prime minister, Silvio (bunga, bunga) Berlesconi, and in comes the EU grey hit man, Mario Monti. He really is one of theirs and comes from the shadows of the EU’s truly dark crevices as a past EU Commissioner.

All this convenient placing of the EU’s men has made Lord Tebbit, (good old Norman) wonder if Cameron’s nemesis will be Nick (I worship the EU) Clegg . In his Telegraph blog he ponders the thought that Clegg could be the EU’s placeman here in the UK. Of course, if Cameron had the common sense to get Britain out of the EU as any real ‘sceptic’ would do, then he would also be eradicating that possibility.

To finish up last night’s telly tantrum and throwing things at it, BBC 2 Newsnight had the ex-sinister minister of spin, and pro-EU acolyte, Peter, now Lord, Mandelson pontificating about the EU and even suggesting we may still, at some time, scrap our pound sterling for the EU’s vile euro – ooh, I do want to swear. I think I will and say: “David Cameron”, now you can’t get much worse than that can you than to say the name of the man whose use of the term sceptic is an insult to all EU-sceptics.

REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY

Old shipmates, Fred & Arthur relaxing after parade.

It was a glorious day in Walsall on Sunday 13th November, a better November day for Remembrance Sunday could not have been asked for. The Sun shone and once again people thronged to the Cenotaph to remember all those who have faced conflicts around the world in defence of this nation - not all of them elderly from long ago wars, there are many, too many, younger people who have been sent into danger on our behalf. Sadly, many of them have either not survived or returned home or returned badly mutilated.

There are many things I gripe about that Walsall Council and our Councillors get up to, but the one thing I always admire and praise is the organisation of the Remembrance Sunday parade and service. I have attended other services in other towns, and the only one I found better was the London service at the Cenotaph in Whitehall.

For several years a few of us from the UK Independence Party in Walsall join the parade, along with other local politicians, councillors, servicemen and women and the many others who take part, for me it always a privilege. My father in law, Fred, who served on HMS Euryalus in the Pacific during World War Two always joins us too. This year I was worried about him, unfortunately, due to his age he cannot walk as well as he used to and when I asked him if he really felt up to it he gave me a determined look and said: "Yes" - and he did it too.

Proudly wearing his, and his fathers medals from the Great War, he walked from the town hall to the Cenotaph, stood for the whole of the service, then walked all the way back. This may not be too far for those younger, healthier members of the parade, but considering he has been through a hip replacement and other operations in recent times it was not so easy for him. But he was determined to do it as a mark of respect, he was one of the lucky ones who was sent into conflict and came home to tell all about it, unlike others who we all remembered with great pride.

The service this year was taken by the Reverend Mark Kinder, who did an excellent job. This added more poignancy for me personally as Mark conducted the funeral service of my late mother who died last December. We have many to remember, my late parents, like so many, went through the Second World war and served, my father in the army and my mother doing her war work on the Birmingham trams.

THE EU COLONISATION OF EUROPE

There has been one hell of a lot going in over the last weekend regarding the situations in both Greece and Italy, sadly, there has been little time for this blogger to write anything about it to post here. What we are seeing with the toppling of the Greek and Italian prime ministers is akin to the EU storm trooping those nations.

Simon Heffer explains it all in the Daily Mail, you should really find the time to read what he has to say. What is going on now is the final proof that EU-sceptics everywhere have been proven our warnings about the EU, rather than rants from xenophobic little Englanders, have been right and well considered all along.

LETTING HARRY KNOW

Derek Bennett, writing to Harry to put him right about the EU.

Being a long time campaigner against the imposition of EU membership I have not only learned about all the EU's devious litte ways, but from time to time I also get called upon to explain just why the EU is so bad, sadly a large number of people get taken in that it can be reformed and that we can take powers from it as and when we like, which is far from the truth but our devious political leaders don't want the plebs knowing such things.

One of the letters I have sent out to a chap namjed Harry, who sadly has fallen into this trap, explains a lot which I thought I would put on here for others to read too.

Dear Harry,

Please excuse my lack of response to your last e-mail to me, I fear I was distracted by other matters and I apologise if this seemed rude.

I have looked through your follow-up e-mail and to answer your questions I will be repeating myself. quite a bit.

To deal with your first paragraph regarding taking back powers from the EU, the only response I can use to reply to this is to refer to the old joke: ‘How do you know a politician is lying? It is when he is talking!’ Any politician or Government which say they will repatriate powers from the EU are telling some pretty large whoppers, all powers the EU have been given are under the terms of the acquis communautaire, this means any powers given to the EU it will never relinquish. Sadly those who have little knowledge of how the EU works do not realise that fact and are mislead into thinking it is possible – it is not.

The EU works on the ratchet principle, it winds the ratchet and takes over powers in one or two areas, then a little time later the ratchet gets wound again and a bit more power moves from the nation states to the EU – and so it goes on in one direction with the EU gaining more and more power.

Look at the current crisis with the euro and the Greek bail-out. Everyone with an ounce of common sense told the EU’s leaders many years ago the euro would be a disaster, you simply cannot tie the economies of all those different nations together – the EU leaders did not listen as their project had to go ahead and a little matter such as common sense was not going to be allowed to get in the way. What is happening now was predicted – it was inevitable and what’s more – those who are driving the EU forward knew it too.

This euro crisis, which they were warned about, is exactly what they want as it is the perfect opportunity to take yet more power and have more control. Look at what is being said, we are being told that rather than Greece leave the eurozone and take back control of its currency and interest rates, which is what it should do, the EU is now talking about grabbing even more power by creating a full fiscal union where the EU will be in full charge of taxation and the budgets of all member nations – this crisis is just what the EU ordered and gleefully got. Sadly, the Greeks, who for the briefest of moments were given a tantalising glimpse of a democratic say on this with the offer of a referendum, soon had that prospect mangled by the EU which was horrified that democracy could get in the way of their project. Once again freedom and democracy have become the EU’s victims.

Regarding your comparison to the MPs in our Houses of Parliament to majority rule in the EU, has baffled me, I can’t see how either can be compared. Our Parliament is made up of elected representatives from the same nation, i.e. the United Kingdom, the EU Parliament is made up of representatives from different nations of which the British people can only vote for a small minority. Whereas our UK Parliament is made up 100% of British representatives who make, or should make, British law. Sadly, all they seem to do is nod through EU law – masses of it.

If the British people living in their constituencies don’t like what a British Government has done it can vote them out of office, if the British people don’t like what the unelected EU Commission or the Council of Ministers have done they have no means of removing them – this to me is the democratic deficit of EU membership.

The threat of the Tobin tax over the City of London is of major concern to this nation, the trading centre of the City of London is a major wealth creator for the UK, it is vital our nation’s well being is not undermined. If the EU destroys it with this proposed tax there will be no benefit from trade in the EU to compensate. The sort of trading that is done in the City will move to parts of the world where there is no EU and no Tobin tax, we will all badly lose out.

Back in the sixties the USA introduced a ‘withholding tax’ (a similar thing) which wiped out their Eurobond market within a week. Realising the huge error they had made they scrapped the withholding tax but once the Eurobond market had gone (to London), it never went back – which is what will happen to us if the EU decides to go ahead with this tax – hence another reason why EU membership is far from good for the UK – it can destroy us and our Government is obliged to help in the process, as you state: “help in the process”.

The EU Commission. You are correct when you state the Commissioners, one for each member nation, are chosen by the member states. However, considering how much power and influence these appointed people have, again there is a massive democratic deficit. They have almost as much power in the EU as the President of the USA has in America; he is elected by the people the EU Commission is not. The only body of people with the power to stop the Commission are the MEPs, but they seldom do as all their voting is done on mass and by block voting – they can get through several hundred pieces of legislation and amendments by nothing more than a show of hands, they do this so fast it only takes about an hour or so. It is truly frightening to witness – as I have done.

There is no real comparison between the setting up of a single nation of the United States of America and the ongoing creation of a new nation called the United States of Europe, our histories are vastly different.

The North American land mass was colonised and taken over by the Europeans, we fought each other for chunks of it. Once established as a British colony they then began to rebel against rule from Britain which was remote and costing them in taxes, without any real democratic representation (sounds similar to how we are now with the EU). As we know they rebelled, there was a war and American independence came about. It then took a very savage and bloody civil war before the USA became truly united.

The USA also has one language which makes for easy movement of labour. It has one Government, one constitution, one set of laws that apply to all – it is one nation and the people there think of themselves as American.

Europe has a history going back much further in time, the nations have had centuries to become established, each nation has its own languages, laws, customs and, of course, currencies (until the EU screwed that one up!) Our histories are linked with a mixture of wars, alliances and trade. However, at the end of the day we are all well established differing nations but the EU is working to destroy those historical differences and mould Europe into one nation yet the people still think of themselves as citizens and subjects of their nations not Europeans – in fact I object to being called European, my nation is the United Kingdom – it is where I was born and hope to die.

Regarding putting pressure on the EU Commission to resign, that pressure can only come from the European Parliament, and it did happen a few years ago. The MEPs were not happy with the Commission as some of them had been up to all sorts of antics; one even employed her dentist as an assistant who was then paid a large sum of money. The Commissioner, seeing what was coming, resigned en-masse. Many of them returned, including Neil Kinnock who was given the job of stamping out corruption but then proceeded to turn a blind eye to it – hence the problems between him and the now UKIP MEP, Marta Andreasen, who as an EU accountant reported corruption to him. He told her to keep quiet as it made the EU look bad! The whole concept and the way the EU operates is wrong – it can never be amended it undermines all the democracies of Europe.

On your last point, why we are not being given a say, the reason is due to the fact the electorates of Europe often vote the wrong way as far as the EU is concerned, hence the repeat referendums in nations that have voted to block the EU’s plans – they were made to do it again and were more or less threatened with dire consequences if they didn’t vote the way the EU wanted. If we return to Greece just look at the howls of horror when George Papandreou announced he was to hold a referendum on the Greek bail-out – he was soon put in his place by the EU and the people of Greece have to tow the EU line.

Rather than constantly getting the same replies from both Mike and myself, I suggest you do a little digging around the internet to see what others are saying. There are a lot of blogs on the EU, comments in the press.

Other places to look at are:
Campaign for an Independent Britain: http://www.freebritain.org.uk/
The Unit: http://www.th-eu-nit.com/index.php/home
The Democracy Movement: http://www.democracymovement.org.uk/
The Freedom Association: http://www.tfa.net/
And of course, UKIP: www.ukip.org

I hope this helps,

Regards, Derek.

TIM EXPLAINS IT ALL

Renown economist, Tim Congdon explains the collapse of the euro is not a disaster.

We have all had those moments when someone has been given news they don’t want to hear and we have watched their face drop and the following reaction – I am sure that two of those moments must have happened when Angela Merkel and her sidekick, Nicholas Sarkozy, were given the news that the Greek Prime Minister, without consulting them, had promised the Greek people a referendum on their wonderful bail-out – I wish I could have been there.

Could you imagine their response, what audacity that the elected Prime Minister of a supposedly sovereign nation – albeit a bankrupt nation – offers his electorate a democratic say on their wonderful deal thrashed out behind closed doors in the EU – the nerve of the man considering his voters! Everyone know that when the electorate are consulted on EU matters they always vote the wrong way and everyone has to go through the inconvenience of doing it all over again until they give the result the EU want.

So would the total demise of the euro actually be such a bad thing? Would the world come to an end economies collapse, governments fail and wars break out? Of course not, but to listen to the anguished wailing from within the EU as they see their precious project flushing down the pan of history before their very eyes – you would come to that wrong impression.

What is happening now reminds me of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). All the same warnings and predictions were made; we were going to be left behind if we did not join, Britain would marginalised, our business would collapse and trade move abroad. So we joined and what happened, we were lumbered with an interest rate that was wrong for us, our pound sterling was set at the wrong rate and as a result businesses collapsed, trade moved away, people lost their jobs and homes and unemployment rocketed. All that changed drastically when the inevitable happened and we crashed out – instead of gloom and doom we prospered and our economy shot up and recovered – ERM had been the disaster – not our leaving it.

Now we are witnessing all the same things being said about the euro, all the same warnings of gloom, doom and total disaster – yet in our heart of hearts we all know the sooner the whole lot fails and we can all get back to normality with different nations once again in control of their own economies and their own currencies, then the good times will return – it is the euro that is the disaster not the leaving of it or its total failure which is not far off.

Professor Tim Congdon, the renown economist, has written this below which says it all, only he explains the situation in a far better way than I could. Read on and learn:

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, is reputed to be a sensible, level-headed lady. So, when she claimed in the Eurozone bail-out negotiations that their failure could threaten continued peace between Europe’s nations, the media latched on to her words. Could it really be true that, 66 years after a world war that had been calamitous for her country and its people, the leader of Germany could be warning of a similar horror? Would that be the price for Europe’s citizens if their single currency area were to disintegrate?

A fair comment is that Merkel’s remarks caused bemusement to many not directly involved in the negotiations and able to maintain a degree of objectivity. The United Nations today has 193 members, while the European Union has 27 and the Eurozone 17. 176 countries do not have the euro as their currency and 166 which do not even belong to the EU. According to Mrs Merkel, the adoption and retention of the euro are a basic condition of peace between nations. We might then expect discord and tension – indeed discord and tension verging on military hostility – among the unfortunate 166 countries that have not participated in “the European construction” engineered by France and Germany since 1957.

But that is not what we find. According to Wikipedia, the world at present has five on-going “wars”, three of which are actually large-scale outbreaks of civil disturbance in the Arab world. Only one of the five, Kenya’s military engagement in Somalia, resembles a war-like conflict between sovereign states. But arguably even that does not count, since the Kenyan incursion is in fact a policing operation. The world at large – the world of 166 countries outside the EU – is at peace; it is at peace even though the 166 countries do not belong to the EU or enjoy the benefits of the single European currency. Sorry, Mrs. Merkel, no relationship whatever holds between the euro currency and the avoidance of war.

Indeed, no relationship holds between EU membership and the avoidance of war. Countries can have no direct association with the EU or the euro, and yet still be at peace with every other country in the world. True, the riots in Athens in the last few months have some similarities to the disturbances in the Arab world. However, they can be blamed not on Greece’s abstention from the euro. Instead they arise from its foolish decision in 2003 to introduce the currency of foreign countries with utterly different traditions of budgetary management from its own.

As the bail-out negotiations were reaching their finale, George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said he was concerned that Britain might become “a second-tier state”. His worry was that the 17 Eurozone members might meet by themselves, without the ten EU members which have kept national currencies, and reach conclusions which would adversely affect the “outside” ten. According to Osborne, the Eurozone inner core might in this way “bounce” Britain and the others into courses of action against their national interests.

But what does that mean for the rest of the world, those 166 lonely, neglected and presumably desperate countries which do not belong to the EU at all? The poor things not only do not have the euro as their currency, but also – so sadly for them – are not subject to the tens of thousands of directives, regulations and rules that emanate from the European Commission and the Council of Ministers. If forlorn and unhappy Britain is relegated to “the second-tier”, in what league should the United States, China and Japan be placed? And are our Commonwealth friends, like Canada and Australia, in some remote outer darkness?

May we now leave Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Osborne in their crazy EU hothouse, and return to common sense? The fact is that no country anywhere in the world – and that no means no country in Europe – has to participate in the structures of the EU or the Eurozone. There is nothing compulsory about membership. Some obvious facts cannot be overlooked. For many years the growth of output and trade has been appreciably faster in the world as a whole than in the EU (see the table below), while the vast majority of non-EU states have enjoyed an international peace that is premised on overwhelming American military might, not on the existence of the EU.

George Osborne and his Cabinet colleagues should remember how de Gaulle dealt with upstarts from European institutions in 1966. Say “no” (or “non”, as the case may be), walk out of the room and leave an empty chair. That is the right way to respond to attempts by our neighbours to “bounce” us.

Talking of de Gaulle, shortly before the D-Day landings he and Churchill had one of their many sharp exchanges. The question was whether Britain’s most profound geopolitical commitment was to Europe or to the rest of the world, including of course the Commonwealth and the USA. Churchill was forthright, “If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea.”
Yes, the “open sea” – the world other than Europe – with its 166 countries and its 83% of global output must always matter most to Britain; it must certainly matter more to us than Europe, even in its present allegedly “united” form, which – without us – has 26 countries and only 17% of world output.

Tim Congdon.