The European Union: A British View

by Dr. David Abbott

1000 Forcing Change, Vol.2 -7, Iss. 3-10 - www.forcingchange.org

http://www.forcingchange.org/files/1874178/uploaded/Issue3aVolume1.pdf

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Note from Berit: Please be sure to read the highlighted sections. This vital information gives us a clear and comprehensive look at the global aims of international leaders. We may think Americans are immune to this creeping and controlling corruption, but all the regions (America, Africa and Asia) are following the footsteps of the EU. Apart from God's grace and much prayer, Americans will lose the rights and freedoms our nation has increasingly taken for granted. 

1) INTRODUCTION

In Britain many of us admire the U.S. and realize you are way ahead of us in areas like technology and space exploration. But in one area we are years ahead of you. We have given away most of our freedoms to our government, to the European Union and other supranational bodies. You are in the process of doing something very similar, but we are 5 to 10 years ahead of you.

I’m very glad to be here, and I want to leave you with an understanding of the fight of the people against the European Union, and also confirm your concerns about what is happening in the United States. When Michael Shaw originally looked at my website, and saw I am an environmentalist, he was on the verge of withdrawing my invitation. I AM an environmentalist...I always take the paper bag option. I mostly turn out the lights. I grow organic vegetables.

But I learned 12 years ago that the biggest threat to the environment came from government itself. Twyford Down was a beautiful hill near my house in Winchester. The hill was in private ownership, and in addition was protected by various scenic, scientific, and historical designations, and was also designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The Government wanted to make a road through the Down, rather than a tunnel. The tunnel would have cost $150 million more. (This incidentally is the amount we send to the EU in the space of three days.) They violated the private property rights of the Trust that owned the land by shoving through the road.

This resulted in the area’s desecration, and saw me racing in protest across the defiled landscape. I was unlawfully arrested, clapped into jail, and subsequently received a formal apology and a substantial settlement from the Hampshire police for my unlawful detention. Now, under new legislation, they probably would have classified me as a terrorist, and I would have lost my rights.

At about the same time, the effects of the Common Fisheries Policy, agreed to by Mr. Heath in 1972, were becoming apparent. Increasingly Spanish and other foreign trawlers, often using illegally small net sizes, were devastating the fish stocks around Britain. Britain had 80% of EU fish stocks because the stocks had been carefully managed for hundreds of years. France, Spain, and Italy had virtually destroyed the fish stocks of the Mediterranean and around their coasts. Now they were destroying ours with the connivance of the British Government.

Things are now so bad that fish stocks in several areas may never recover, so the EU has enlisted the cooperation of the governments of 20 African countries, and is now treating their offshore fish in the same way, in the process often killing the native fishermen who fish in small boats and often at night.

The biggest threat to the British environment, however, is the Government’s open border policy. It should be easy to defend an island from illegal or unwanted immigration, but in fact our border is as open as your border with Mexico. Millions of people are flocking into Britain, which is already the most crowded country in Europe.

This is largely because of our membership in the EU. There is free movement of people across the 25 countries of the EU, and they mostly want to come to Britain, because

And, in order to fit in with the European ideal, Britain has already signed the European Charter of Human Rights. This makes it impossible to deport many people who are found to have entered the country illegally. The resulting population growth is putting enormous strains on all aspects of the British environment as the need for housing, roads, hospitals, schools, and shopping centers increases. And with the powers that the Government is giving to the Regional Assemblies, which I will talk about later, there is little that local activists can do to stop the destruction of their environment as a result of Government policy.

2) EU: A BRIEF HISTORY

We are all talking about the EU now, but how did it begin?

In 1972 Britain joined the Common Market; in 1974 a referendum on whether we should stay in the Common Market was held. We were told that our nation’s essential sovereignty would not be lost. We now know that we were lied to repeatedly. There is a law in Britain called the 30-year law in which Government papers are made public after a period of 30 years. We are now able to see the papers that preceded the 1974 vote, and have found out that the Government knew full well that they were signing us up to a political union, but knew they could not reveal this because it would not be popular with the voters.

No one told us that today the EU would be making 80% of our laws. That’s not 8% or 18%. That’s 80%. The EU called 9-11 “a beneficial disaster” because it enabled them to trot out legislation that further curtails our freedoms. The EU even admits that we face a democratic deficit. So we joined the Common Market, then found ourselves in the European Economic Community, then found ourselves in the European Community, and now we are in the quagmire of the European Union.

This has been very costly for Britain. We send the EU $55 million a day. In addition, the cost of living has increased tremendously for every person in Britain. This is because the EU, which was sold to us as a free trade area is in fact a customs union with heavy tariffs on all imported goods – particularly agricultural goods. Thus we no longer enjoy cheaply produced food from the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. Instead, preference is given to much more expensive French products, and, of course, the French farmer is supported by the immensely costly Common Agriculture Policy, and still cannot produce the goods as cheaply as you can in the States.

Part of the immense cost of the EU is due to its corruption, fraud, and nepotism. It has its own system of auditing its accounts. This is known as the EU Court of Auditors. The Court has not okayed the accounts for the last ten years. The EU system of bookkeeping is so antiquated that no proper checks can be made. There are thousands of offshore bank accounts, for instance, which have been set up for who knows what purpose.

3) HOW BRITAIN DIFFERS FROM EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

Britain has been a self-governing nation for 900 years and has been developing democracy and freedom for most of that time. In contrast European countries have relatively little exper ience of democracy. They have been under the control of autocratic kings and dictators until very recently. Now, they are ruled by the EU’s unelected bureaucracy.

Britain and America believe that individuals receive their freedoms and rights directly from God, that their rights are ‘unalienable’. In contrast Europeans see the state as the source of their freedoms and lifestyle. They have become used to THE STATE doling out freedoms and benefits.

This is reflected in the EU Charter of Human Rights, which is modeled on the UN Charter of Human Rights. The EU Charter was part of the EU Constitution in recent contention. The last sentence of the EU Charter says that all the rights of the individual can be withdrawn if necessary in the interest of the state.

Britain’s Common Law is a bottom-up process. The law wells up from individuals bringing individual cases. The Common Law protects our freedoms. In contrast the Napoleonic Code and its successor, the Aquis Communtaire, is a top-down imposition of laws and regulations. It does not protect freedom.

Britain is used to LOW regulation and HIGH compliance. In contrast, Europeans have a long history of making thousands of laws. They are used to HIGH regulation and LOW compliance. [Example: Italians speak of certain EU laws as “English laws” because they know only the Brits are going to keep them].

British and American legal systems are very different from European systems. We are innocent until proven guilty. We have Habeas Corpus, Trial by jury, Protection again double jeopardy. In contrast the European legal system has none of these protections.

Imagine that in America, in some future extension of NAFTA, American law was changed to Mexican law. This is what we are facing in Britain. Under EU law the accused are assumed to be guilty, and have to prove their innocence. There is no protection against double jeopardy. There is no trial by jury. The same state employee investigates and charges you and tries you.

4) EUROPEAN UNION OF THE REGIONS

The full name of the European Union is the European Union of the Regions. Brussels wants to divide up all the larger countries into bitesized areas that they can control directly, bypassing the national parliaments. In Britain, it was easy to hive off Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, since they were the right size for independent ‘regions’. Then they took London, which was used to having an Assembly of its own.

However, the rest of England has proved difficult. The Government has created these regional bodies by fiat. They are private organisations that have not been formed by statute. They have never been discussed in Parliament. The bodies that run them are appointed, not elected. They are supervising the destruction of England. They are trying to split England up.

It’s as if you decided to get rid of your western states, and created a region called Cascadia that was run by the capital of the NAFTA super-state. The state government and city governments would have reduced powers, and would be subservient to the regional government. The regional government would not be created by an Act of Congress but would be imposed by bureaucrats working for the President of NAFTA.

In order to give the appearance of legitimacy, the British Government would like the regional assemblies to be elected. They figured that the area of England that had the most defined regional identity was the northeast, and they held a referendum to see if the public would prefer to have an elected regional assembly or an appointed assembly, as now. The people saw through this Government ruse that would destroy their country and impose another layer of bureaucracy and voted 72% to 28% against having an elected regional assembly.

This is the most lopsided referendum vote in British history, and was achieved despite the Government spending a huge amount to swing the vote their way. Had the vote been on whether we should have a regional assembly at all, I suspect it would have been even more lopsided.

The regional assemblies administer funds provided by Brussels, which of course comes from the long-suffering British taxpayer after running through the leaky pipes of the EU bureaucracy. The assemblies spend the money on planning, among other things. They will run the national parks. These are not national parks as you have in the United States. They are areas of private land that will now be administered directly by the Government without local input. The property rights of people living within the parks will be significantly restricted.

A related scheme is the Deputy Prime Minister’s Pathfinder Scheme. In this scheme he will spend $500 million to destroy 400,000 older homes in the north of England and replace them with modern construction. These are solid, brick-built homes, many of which have been brought up to modern standard, and the rest of which could be brought up to standard at far less cost. Many suspect that the real reason for Mr. Prescott’s plan is not the slight energy saving that will result, but the destruction of cohesive British communities – a move that will assist in the further Balkanization of my country.

There is now a EU plan to create mega-regions spanning national boundaries. It will be as if British Columbia, Canada, joined Cascadia. National identity will be further eroded.

5) POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE EU

Two political parties have cooperated in taking Britain further into the EU by approving all the treaties that followed the Treaty of Rome, which established the Common Market. They are the Tories and Labour. They have been urged on from the sidelines by a third political party, the Liberal-Democrats, who are even keener about integration with the EU.

These parties have been supported by virtually all of the broadcast media, and particularly by the BBC, which we call the Brussels Broadcasting Corporation. However, despite this, well over 50% of Britain would choose to leave the EU.

Twelve years ago the UK Independence Party was formed. We are the only party whose policy is to leave the EU. It’s hard starting a new party. But in the elections for the EU Parliament last year, we received over 17% of the vote, coming second in several regions. This has had a marked effect on the overall political dynamic.

6) WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

When Mr. Major signed the Maastricht Treaty, he fully intended to take Britain into the Euro. The opinion of the media pundits, and indeed many of the men and women in the street was that this was ‘inevitable.’ Now with most of the countries in the eurozone with economies in trouble, what a good thing that Britain didn’t join.

The reason that we didn’t join the euro is really due to the late Sir James Goldsmith, a rich man who used his millions to challenge the Prime Minister to hold a referendum before taking Britain into the euro. Knowing that he would never win, Mr. Major never held the referendum, and Britain has remained outside the euro.

Last year the UK Independence Party (UKIP) did very well in the EU elections, as I mentioned. Because of this Mr. Blair became frightened. To defuse the votes of the euro skeptics in the general election that he was planning to hold, he promised to hold a referendum on the EU Constitution, the next EU milestone – or should I say millstone.

In order to help Mr. Blair win the referendum, Mr. Chirac promised – no doubt over a lobster and champagne dinner – to hold a referendum in France. He had no doubt that the French, having benefited so significantly from the EU, would vote yes, and thereby encourage their British neighbors.

How that backfired. It now seems highly unlikely that there will ever be a British referendum on a EU Constitution and hopefully there will never be a Constitution.

Dick Morris, who used to work for President Clinton, as you remember, now works part time for UKIP. He has pointed out that if it was not for UKIP, there would have been no promise of a British referendum, and no French referendum, and the Constitution would have steamrollered ahead with the approval of the French Parliament, instead of being rejected by the people.

The region I live in, southeast England, had a meeting of its assembly a few months ago. A brave assemblyman proposed that the assembly should be dissolved. He received 71% of the assembly’s vote. Unfortunately it requires 75% to bring about dissolution. I remind you of the extraordinary referendum result in the northeast. This was masterminded by Neil Herron, a street trader. These are examples of how a small group of under funded, but patriotic amateurs can make an enormous difference.

7) CONCLUSION

I have shared with you why we at the UK Independence Party oppose the European Union. We want to regain the right to decide how and by whom we are governed. We want to regain our legal system and our ability to choose who we conduct business with. Inherent in this battle there are messages and lessons for the U.S. and for all freedom-loving peoples of the world.

I am working on a website called the Britsworldwide, which will feature a history of liberty. [Note: this website is now online. Go to www.britsworldwide.org]. I can recommend the following websites:
www.globalbritain.org
www.ukip.org
www.brugesgroup.com

About Dr. David Abbott: Born and raised in Southampton, Dr. David Abbott, MRCP, qualified as a doctor, then rose through the ranks of the NHS to locum consultant.He went to America, where he raised a family and practiced medicine in Oregon for 25 years. David returned to Winchester in 2000 in order to join UKIP’s campaign for the freedom, independence and prosperity of all Brits. He stood for MP in the 2005 General Election, and saw the vote for UKIP double. He continues to consult, and is close to his children and granddaughter who live in Spain and New Jersey. He is a Christian, an environmentalist, and a marathon runner.

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