It really is another world, isn't it?
- Thread starter Phil Pascoe
- Start date
Help Support UKworkshop.co.uk:
- Status
lurker
Le dullard de la commune
mind_the_goat":3hiw95l8 said:
Rob,
Sure, we are being screwed by our own government but with the eec it's twice over.
If we were " out" at least it would be just our crooks (or MPs as they call themselves )
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
A national government is spending its own money - the EU is spending other people's. Slightly different.mind_the_goat":3tusrtuq said:
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
Europe’s nations should be guided towards the superstate without their people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps, each disguised as having an economic purpose, but which will eventually and irreversibly lead to federation.
Jean Monnet
"The fusion (of economic functions) would compel nations to fuse their sovereignty into that of a single European State."
Jean Monnet
“Europe’s nations should be guided towards the superstate without their people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps, each disguised as having an economic purpose but which will irreversibly lead to federation.”
Jean Monnet
It's difficult to deny the founding fathers' intentions, although many quotes the Europhiles now don't agree with (or don't believe should be publicly known) are claimed to be lies.
We were lied to "by ommision" (as my mother used to accuse me of doing). I did O level history in 1970 and unusually it covered modern history - European 1914 - 1970, Russian 1917 - 1963. It was perfectly obvious that the union was intended to be political, not just trade. We possibly wouldn't have gone in at all if heath had actually told the Country beforehand that he'd given the fishing rights away. He deliberately left it til the last few hours.
Jean Monnet
"The fusion (of economic functions) would compel nations to fuse their sovereignty into that of a single European State."
Jean Monnet
“Europe’s nations should be guided towards the superstate without their people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps, each disguised as having an economic purpose but which will irreversibly lead to federation.”
Jean Monnet
It's difficult to deny the founding fathers' intentions, although many quotes the Europhiles now don't agree with (or don't believe should be publicly known) are claimed to be lies.
We were lied to "by ommision" (as my mother used to accuse me of doing). I did O level history in 1970 and unusually it covered modern history - European 1914 - 1970, Russian 1917 - 1963. It was perfectly obvious that the union was intended to be political, not just trade. We possibly wouldn't have gone in at all if heath had actually told the Country beforehand that he'd given the fishing rights away. He deliberately left it til the last few hours.
stuartpaul
Established Member
I've found myself becoming more and more frustrated with the increasingly large amounts of male cow manure being heaped on the subject by both sides. An apparent lack of facts makes it doubly difficult to make a concrete decision either way.
I know it costs to stay but is it a cost worth bearing? To consider that in a shrinking world we can make it on our own is, I feel, harking back to the days when large parts of the map were coloured pink. That simply isn't realistic trade agreements or not. In my opinion the British have this rather isolated way of thinking caused by a lack of land borders and the subsequent influence caused by that closeness of cultures crossing borders.
If we stay we have a chance to influence the shape of the future. If we leave we don't and I believe we'll find ourselves increasingly isolated.
If we do leave I suspect the chances of getting back in at some point will be incredibly small because we'll have burnt too many bridges.
As things currently stand I'm for staying, - mainly because I think the long term benefits for my children and grandchildren outweigh any short term 'inconvenience' for me. There is also the better to inside peeing out than outside peeing in argument! It isn't perfect but then what is?
Having said that the devil in me would be interested to see how leaving would affect how the EU operates. I'm not a betting man but I suspect the vote will be to leave because the common man on the Clapham omnibus see's more negative publicity (the EU stops this, that or the other) rather than positives.
I know it costs to stay but is it a cost worth bearing? To consider that in a shrinking world we can make it on our own is, I feel, harking back to the days when large parts of the map were coloured pink. That simply isn't realistic trade agreements or not. In my opinion the British have this rather isolated way of thinking caused by a lack of land borders and the subsequent influence caused by that closeness of cultures crossing borders.
If we stay we have a chance to influence the shape of the future. If we leave we don't and I believe we'll find ourselves increasingly isolated.
If we do leave I suspect the chances of getting back in at some point will be incredibly small because we'll have burnt too many bridges.
As things currently stand I'm for staying, - mainly because I think the long term benefits for my children and grandchildren outweigh any short term 'inconvenience' for me. There is also the better to inside peeing out than outside peeing in argument! It isn't perfect but then what is?
Having said that the devil in me would be interested to see how leaving would affect how the EU operates. I'm not a betting man but I suspect the vote will be to leave because the common man on the Clapham omnibus see's more negative publicity (the EU stops this, that or the other) rather than positives.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
"If we do leave I suspect the chances of getting back in at some point will be incredibly small because we'll have burnt too many bridges."
It won't matter. It'll collapse without one of its major sponsors anyway.
It won't matter. It'll collapse without one of its major sponsors anyway.
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
I think we will stay, we'll see!stuartpaul":q1xl0i6g said:
But yes - the brexit argument is entirely negative - a mixture of paranoia, rumour, xenophobia etc. with nothing positive on the table other than a vague promise that things could be "better".
t8hants
Established Member
If we leave we must actively work towards the breakup of the EU and collapse the Euro, regardless of the consequences.
For too long the nations whose shores are lapped by the Mediterranean have lived as parasites off the northern nations.
If we don't leave we must collapse it from the inside!
For too long the nations whose shores are lapped by the Mediterranean have lived as parasites off the northern nations.
If we don't leave we must collapse it from the inside!
Eric The Viking
Established Member
- Joined
- 19 Jan 2010
- Messages
- 6,599
- Reaction score
- 76
[OK this is waaay too long, but dip into it] You'll find everything I've said backed up by the facts, if you go to the actual sources, such as the EU's own documents, and dig around a little for yourself.
A few interesting facts:
The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), the one that all but destroyed our fishing industry (and later our fishing grounds themselves), came into existence less than 24 hours before we signed the Treaty of Rome.
The reason? We had the normal 200-mile territorial limits under international law, and those waters were, by far, the most productive around the continent.. Certain EU countries were determined these should be a 'shared' resource. The Treaty required that we accepted all Common Market law that was in existence before our signature.
Thus the Common Fisheries Policy was rushed through, finally being agreed literally the day before we signed. If we'd signed two days earlier, we could have refused the CFP and all the damage it did to our fishing ports and the fisheries themselves. "Quotas" would never have existed, neither would Spanish beam trawlers have been allowed here (crewed by Moroccans, incidentally, not even EU citizens).
For lovers of historical detail, the matter was debated in the Commons on 17th. February 1972, as part of the discussion on the European Communities Bill (paving bill for us joining the Common Market). Exchanges between Wilson (then in opposition but still Labour leader) and Heath make some of the duplicities apparent. We had a "derogation" until 1982, at which point we ceded control entirely to the EEC, leaving our own Fisheries Protection organisation responsible for interfering with and prosecuting British fishermen. Thanks, Ted.
It's also true, incidentally, that a recent EU Fisheries Commissioner came from Austria. Buggins's turn, evidently.
EU Accounting practices: Simply ask any honest UK accountant about this! An Excel spreadsheet showing funds disbursement has long been accepted as an adequate method of keeping accounts. The Commission and its directorates does not practice double-entry book keeping, even to this day, The EU Court of Auditors is roughly the equivalent of our Public Accounts Committee, and completely toothless. It has indeed refused to sign off the accounts for the past twenty-two years. Critics say its standard is impossibly high - you decide! Two experts, Bernard Connolly (British) and Marta Andreasen (Spanish, later British MEP) were both suspended and dismissed for raising concerns publicly about fraud.
Subsiding tobacco growing: This is true. The subsidy was given to small farmers around the Med, principally in France, Spain and Italy under the Common Agricultural Policy. The tobacco grown was such poor quality it was mostly deemed unsuitable for commercial use and industrially incinerated, although the subsidies, for farming it and not for producing a commercial crop, were paid.
Regulations concerning the length and shape of fruit: Bent bananas anyone?
The regulations aren't as dramatic as some would have you believe, well, not quite. They do exist however, and those for bananas were textually very similar to those for cucumbers, with large paragraphs being almost identical. They probably ran to 10,000 words (but I'm guessing, based on the printouts). I still have the hard copies somewhere (downloaded from Europa, the EU's documentation server). As far as I know, Bananas are not grown commercially anywhere in Europe, BUT, they are grown in French colonies and the French wanted to support importation from those colonies ("annexes") rather than from the old British Commonwealth countries of the Caribbean.
Needless to say, the French colonies grow larger, straighter species than those of the Caribbean, so this regulation effectively prevented imports from the old Commonwealth. It had a crippling effect on the farming communities there, as a major market (the UK) was suddenly denied to them. I think, but don't know, that the Cucumber rules were simply copied without the same political intrigue behind them. I once spoke at a public meeting, sharing a platform with a well-known EU-phile politician who tried to lie (deliberately) that these are a myth. He was rather put out when I pulled the real documents from my briefcase and showed them to the audience.
Political Lies: Years before signing the Treaty of Rome, Edward Heath was fully briefed* about loss of sovereignty, and its consequent illegality and lied to Parliament about it during the debate on the Treaty of Rome, and to the British public during the later referendum. Lord Kilmuir, then a Law Lord (IIRC) and later Lord Chancellor (roughly the Lords equivalent of the Speaker), wrote to Heath in 1960!, giving a formal, legal opinion on the matter thus:
"Parliament can bind neither itself not its successors, we could only comply with our obligations under the Treaty if Parliament abandoned its right of passing independent judgement on the legislative proposals put before it....
"... we should therefore to accept a position where Parliament had no more power to repeal its own enactments than it has in practice to abrogate the statute of Westminster. In short. Parliament would have to transfer to the Council, or other appropriate organ of the Community, its substantive powers of legislating over the whole of a very important field...
"... To confer a sovereign state’s treaty-making powers on an international organisation is the first step on the road which leads by way of confederation to the fully federal state. I do not suggest that what is involved would necessarily carry us very far in this direction, but it would be a most significant step and one for which there is no precedent in our case. Moreover, a further surrender of sovereignty of parliamentary supremacy would necessarily be involved: as you know although the treaty-making power is vested in the Crown. Parliamentary sanction is required for any treaty which involves a change in the law or the imposition of taxation to take two examples and we cannot ratify such a treaty unless Parliament consents. But if binding treaties are to be entered into on our behalf, Parliament must surrender this function and either resign itself to becoming a rubber stamp or give the Community, in effect, the power to amend our domestic laws."
[Viscount Kilmuir, 14th Dec. 1960]
This discussion of a "federal state" (emphasis mine) and loss of sovereignty happened when Heath was merely a wannabe!
Control of major industries: On our accession to the EEC, we also joined the European Coal and Steel Community (Treaty of Paris, April 1951). It was originally the "first pillar" of European integration (the other two being the Common Market and Euratom, the nuclear treaty, which continues alongside the EU). Under it, the Belgians and Germans have been allowed to subsidise "brown" coal (high sulphur and low energy content), and steelmaking, particularly in Germany. We were forbidden significant subsidies of our own - it wasn't just the Ridley plan that did for the British coal industry!
Prediction: wait until after the referendum for the EU's legal challenge to the present government stakeholder plan for steel rescue.
Speaking of Euratom, it still interferes in sovereign states' investment decisions. If you've wondered why we couldn't have just built our own reactor at Hinkley Point I may have news for you...
. . .
What's the point of my mentioning all the above? Simply this - the Big Idea is now and always has been a politically-integrated federal European superstate. Read the works of Schumann and Monnet, the EU's dodgy-past founding fathers, if you don't believe me.
It took us, the Brits, centuries (and much bloodshed) to achieve the constitutional position of being sovereign in our own country, and it was taken from us by stealth and outright lies, by people who held to a different agenda. And the rules are made today by cheating, fudging and lying.
The Euro is the biggest and most egregious example: the very necessary entry conditions were basically falsified for Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece; today we are seeing the fallout in their collapsing economies.
And today that game continues. The vast majority of the protagonists advocating "Remain" have a direct personal interest in the outcome. For example, the Kinnock family (two generations!), Nick Clegg, Paddy Ashdown and many others worked for the EU at various times and have generous pensions as a consequence. Bigger businesses can afford more effective lobbyists, to gain legislation that works in their favour.
Even the BBC gets a small bung annually (several tens of millions, mind). Bear that in mind when you listen to the Today programme.
Personally, I think the most important things for this country are not any short-term financial gains or losses, but whether we have honest, accountable government here, to make our own laws in our own land, whether we can continue to vote for people on the basis of their individual political views and character, and whether we can make our public services effective, efficient and accountable.
The practical outworking of the EU has been government by stealth, lies and deception, and by the most powerful vested interests. I want that to change, permanently. British government is far from perfect, but at least we have a chance of reforming it. As Cameron's recent "negotiation" showed, we have zero chance of turning the EU around.
The only issue is when, not if, it will hit the rocks. We don't need to be on board when that happens, and personally I owe nothing to Merkel, Obama and the rest, and will pay them no heed.
E.
*Commons' Library Research Paper 10/79, excerpt in Appendix 2. Ironically, Viscount Kilmuir would today have been described as an Europhile.
A few interesting facts:
The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), the one that all but destroyed our fishing industry (and later our fishing grounds themselves), came into existence less than 24 hours before we signed the Treaty of Rome.
The reason? We had the normal 200-mile territorial limits under international law, and those waters were, by far, the most productive around the continent.. Certain EU countries were determined these should be a 'shared' resource. The Treaty required that we accepted all Common Market law that was in existence before our signature.
Thus the Common Fisheries Policy was rushed through, finally being agreed literally the day before we signed. If we'd signed two days earlier, we could have refused the CFP and all the damage it did to our fishing ports and the fisheries themselves. "Quotas" would never have existed, neither would Spanish beam trawlers have been allowed here (crewed by Moroccans, incidentally, not even EU citizens).
For lovers of historical detail, the matter was debated in the Commons on 17th. February 1972, as part of the discussion on the European Communities Bill (paving bill for us joining the Common Market). Exchanges between Wilson (then in opposition but still Labour leader) and Heath make some of the duplicities apparent. We had a "derogation" until 1982, at which point we ceded control entirely to the EEC, leaving our own Fisheries Protection organisation responsible for interfering with and prosecuting British fishermen. Thanks, Ted.
It's also true, incidentally, that a recent EU Fisheries Commissioner came from Austria. Buggins's turn, evidently.
EU Accounting practices: Simply ask any honest UK accountant about this! An Excel spreadsheet showing funds disbursement has long been accepted as an adequate method of keeping accounts. The Commission and its directorates does not practice double-entry book keeping, even to this day, The EU Court of Auditors is roughly the equivalent of our Public Accounts Committee, and completely toothless. It has indeed refused to sign off the accounts for the past twenty-two years. Critics say its standard is impossibly high - you decide! Two experts, Bernard Connolly (British) and Marta Andreasen (Spanish, later British MEP) were both suspended and dismissed for raising concerns publicly about fraud.
Subsiding tobacco growing: This is true. The subsidy was given to small farmers around the Med, principally in France, Spain and Italy under the Common Agricultural Policy. The tobacco grown was such poor quality it was mostly deemed unsuitable for commercial use and industrially incinerated, although the subsidies, for farming it and not for producing a commercial crop, were paid.
Regulations concerning the length and shape of fruit: Bent bananas anyone?
The regulations aren't as dramatic as some would have you believe, well, not quite. They do exist however, and those for bananas were textually very similar to those for cucumbers, with large paragraphs being almost identical. They probably ran to 10,000 words (but I'm guessing, based on the printouts). I still have the hard copies somewhere (downloaded from Europa, the EU's documentation server). As far as I know, Bananas are not grown commercially anywhere in Europe, BUT, they are grown in French colonies and the French wanted to support importation from those colonies ("annexes") rather than from the old British Commonwealth countries of the Caribbean.
Needless to say, the French colonies grow larger, straighter species than those of the Caribbean, so this regulation effectively prevented imports from the old Commonwealth. It had a crippling effect on the farming communities there, as a major market (the UK) was suddenly denied to them. I think, but don't know, that the Cucumber rules were simply copied without the same political intrigue behind them. I once spoke at a public meeting, sharing a platform with a well-known EU-phile politician who tried to lie (deliberately) that these are a myth. He was rather put out when I pulled the real documents from my briefcase and showed them to the audience.
Political Lies: Years before signing the Treaty of Rome, Edward Heath was fully briefed* about loss of sovereignty, and its consequent illegality and lied to Parliament about it during the debate on the Treaty of Rome, and to the British public during the later referendum. Lord Kilmuir, then a Law Lord (IIRC) and later Lord Chancellor (roughly the Lords equivalent of the Speaker), wrote to Heath in 1960!, giving a formal, legal opinion on the matter thus:
"Parliament can bind neither itself not its successors, we could only comply with our obligations under the Treaty if Parliament abandoned its right of passing independent judgement on the legislative proposals put before it....
"... we should therefore to accept a position where Parliament had no more power to repeal its own enactments than it has in practice to abrogate the statute of Westminster. In short. Parliament would have to transfer to the Council, or other appropriate organ of the Community, its substantive powers of legislating over the whole of a very important field...
"... To confer a sovereign state’s treaty-making powers on an international organisation is the first step on the road which leads by way of confederation to the fully federal state. I do not suggest that what is involved would necessarily carry us very far in this direction, but it would be a most significant step and one for which there is no precedent in our case. Moreover, a further surrender of sovereignty of parliamentary supremacy would necessarily be involved: as you know although the treaty-making power is vested in the Crown. Parliamentary sanction is required for any treaty which involves a change in the law or the imposition of taxation to take two examples and we cannot ratify such a treaty unless Parliament consents. But if binding treaties are to be entered into on our behalf, Parliament must surrender this function and either resign itself to becoming a rubber stamp or give the Community, in effect, the power to amend our domestic laws."
[Viscount Kilmuir, 14th Dec. 1960]
This discussion of a "federal state" (emphasis mine) and loss of sovereignty happened when Heath was merely a wannabe!
Control of major industries: On our accession to the EEC, we also joined the European Coal and Steel Community (Treaty of Paris, April 1951). It was originally the "first pillar" of European integration (the other two being the Common Market and Euratom, the nuclear treaty, which continues alongside the EU). Under it, the Belgians and Germans have been allowed to subsidise "brown" coal (high sulphur and low energy content), and steelmaking, particularly in Germany. We were forbidden significant subsidies of our own - it wasn't just the Ridley plan that did for the British coal industry!
Prediction: wait until after the referendum for the EU's legal challenge to the present government stakeholder plan for steel rescue.
Speaking of Euratom, it still interferes in sovereign states' investment decisions. If you've wondered why we couldn't have just built our own reactor at Hinkley Point I may have news for you...
. . .
What's the point of my mentioning all the above? Simply this - the Big Idea is now and always has been a politically-integrated federal European superstate. Read the works of Schumann and Monnet, the EU's dodgy-past founding fathers, if you don't believe me.
It took us, the Brits, centuries (and much bloodshed) to achieve the constitutional position of being sovereign in our own country, and it was taken from us by stealth and outright lies, by people who held to a different agenda. And the rules are made today by cheating, fudging and lying.
The Euro is the biggest and most egregious example: the very necessary entry conditions were basically falsified for Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece; today we are seeing the fallout in their collapsing economies.
And today that game continues. The vast majority of the protagonists advocating "Remain" have a direct personal interest in the outcome. For example, the Kinnock family (two generations!), Nick Clegg, Paddy Ashdown and many others worked for the EU at various times and have generous pensions as a consequence. Bigger businesses can afford more effective lobbyists, to gain legislation that works in their favour.
Even the BBC gets a small bung annually (several tens of millions, mind). Bear that in mind when you listen to the Today programme.
Personally, I think the most important things for this country are not any short-term financial gains or losses, but whether we have honest, accountable government here, to make our own laws in our own land, whether we can continue to vote for people on the basis of their individual political views and character, and whether we can make our public services effective, efficient and accountable.
The practical outworking of the EU has been government by stealth, lies and deception, and by the most powerful vested interests. I want that to change, permanently. British government is far from perfect, but at least we have a chance of reforming it. As Cameron's recent "negotiation" showed, we have zero chance of turning the EU around.
The only issue is when, not if, it will hit the rocks. We don't need to be on board when that happens, and personally I owe nothing to Merkel, Obama and the rest, and will pay them no heed.
E.
*Commons' Library Research Paper 10/79, excerpt in Appendix 2. Ironically, Viscount Kilmuir would today have been described as an Europhile.
Cheshirechappie
Established Member
Thank you, Eric.
The freedom, democracy and Common Law tradition we so often take for granted was built up very slowly over several centuries. It's far too precious to surrender by just voting it away. It could take generations, or centuries, to rebuild it.
The freedom, democracy and Common Law tradition we so often take for granted was built up very slowly over several centuries. It's far too precious to surrender by just voting it away. It could take generations, or centuries, to rebuild it.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
The BBC gets a bung - yes, and so does the CBI. 
Jacob - not wishing to be a part of an inefficient, corrupt political union has nothing to do with xenophobia.
Jacob - not wishing to be a part of an inefficient, corrupt political union has nothing to do with xenophobia.
Cheshirechappie
Established Member
Rhossydd":1y8pkqlg said:
Indeed it does - it took an FOI request from The Spectator magazine before it would admit to it, though - and then reluctantly.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2014/02/th ... d-to-hide/
Rhossydd
Established Member
Although that page fails to mention what the payment was for, exactly where it came from or whether it a continuing payment.Cheshirechappie":q8mb37ja said:
The various BBC R&D departments have done a huge amount with respect to setting international standards and it's quite likely that a significant proportion of that money was payment for work done.
In the context of the overall BBC budget £3m is virtually nothing, in fact the BBC pays subscription fees over £9m to be a member of the EBU. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ ... e.pdf.html
That such a piddling amount would bias journalistic reporting is an insult to the people that make the programmes.
I've read reports recently that say the current issue with BBC 'impartiality' is that it trying too hard to be even handed.
Cheshirechappie
Established Member
Rhossydd":o03tuzbh said:
It's not the amount, it's the secrecy about it. If it was just a straight commercial payment for work done, why not just state that openly? If the EU wanted commercial work done, why not go to a commercial organisation instead of a publicly-funded national broadcaster? Why did it take an FOI to unearth the payment, and why is the BBC apparently embarrassed by it?
Something ain't quite right. As for BBC impartiality - well, that's another subject entirely, but you don't have to know very much about some subjects to be starkly aware of a bias.
Cheshirechappie":1ad5ntpa said:
You can't knock the BBC. Their F1 and MotoGP coverage used to be excellent
- until they lost it/gave it away.One day they'll be forced to give away Wimbledon, then the home counties will riot.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
You can't knock the BBC? Well, you can, actually ... it's easy. By the bye...
By the bye...Rhossydd
Established Member
Is there 'secrecy' about it ? or is it just so small an amount for work done that it wouldn't show up in the information they publicly release about their budgets ?Cheshirechappie":1dp1r9e1 said:
There's a fair chance that it's been openly declared at the end of a programme's credits, but no one notices that.
Firstly, because they may be the only people with teh specific expertise to do it. Secondly a lot of the 'BBC' is now commercial divisions that are atsked to make a profit back into the BBC, eg BBC Studios and Post Production who not only supply facilities for BBC programmes, but also supply studio facilities for commercial operations like ITV, C4, Sky etc.
who says they are ?
- Status
Similar threads
