Make the pledge, Make Socialism History

Yesterday in Parliament Shadow Defence Secretary, Liam Fox and Shadow Procurement Minister, Gerald Howarth became the first to warn of the dangers of the Europeanisation of defence research. Questioning the Government on the difficulties in achieving access to vital defence technology from the United States, Gerald Howarth said:

“It is true that we agree across the Dispatch Box that a failure by the United States to permit the transfer of technology to enable us to service our own aircraft would amount to an unacceptable loss of British sovereignty. However, do not US suspicions about its technology leaching out to France and elsewhere inevitably increases when Javier Solana states that he wants at least 20% of all European military research spending? Ministers cannot have it both ways – protesting in Washington and then sneaking off to Brussels to sign up to technology sharing with our European partners is hardly likely to win friends in Congress.”

At a European Defence Agency (EDA) conference which discussed the issue of defence research sat on the 9^th of February, European Union “officials” and European industrialists laid the groundwork for the transfer of millions of pounds of British investment in defence research to the European defence arm, the EDA. The European Defence Agency is now set to receive its own research budget, (controlled by the Agency) to pursue the defence agenda of the ever growing European Union super state. The EU’s High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, stated that this common research fund was a “fundamental contributor to the political consensus that supports the role of defence”.

David Cameron is today launching his new look Conservative party pledges. They are needless to say not what you would expect the British Conservative party to stand for, and with the exception to D.C. and his mates I'm not sure they are what they stand for.

Mr Cameron returned from paternity leave to finalise the plans with fellow high ranking Tories; David Davis, Oliver Letwin, Teresa May and others. The leader has said in the past that he wishes to change the party for the better, and apparently the release of the eight pledges which the party will now officially stand for is going to start the shift in peoples minds.

The hounds are again out for Blairs flock, in a potential death nail to his cabinet, Tessa Jowell has come under attack for links to a bribe given to her lawyer husband for protecting Italian premier Burlusconi in his corruption trial.

The news comes to light as three other Ministers in the Blair Govt. have been ear marked for the abattoir in Tony's next re-shuffle. Hilary Armstrong (Chief Whip) has come under massive amounts of attack over the past few weeks after failing to keep a high number of Labour backbenchers in line, Patricia Hewitt has come under incresing strain as the N.H.S has begun to haemorage at all sides and Opus Dei fanatic Ruth Kelly is in the firing line over the teacher-sex offenders scandal.

Blair it would seem is in real danger of losing three not so talented but at the least loyal cronies, and the problem therfore becomes replacing them. Who has Blair got in his back pocket who he can rely on as an ally and half competant person for three Ministerial jobs and new Chief Whip.

Over at rightlinks EU Serf has begun a campaign against the Legislative and regulatory reform bill.

I have posted the preamble and aim of this bill along with the questions all of which were posted by EU Serf on oncemore.co.uk

The Preamble

A Bill To enable provision to be made for the purpose of reforming legislation and implementing recommendations of the Law Commission, the Scottish Law Commission and the Northern Ireland Law Commission; to make provision about the exercise of regulatory functions; to make provision about the interpretation of legislation relating to the European Communities and the European Economic Area; to make provision relating to section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972; and for connected purposes.

Read through it and it soon becomes obvious that it is a power grab on behave of the executive branch of government. It basically means that Ministers will have almost unlimited rights to make Laws.

With this in mind, we have launched a Campaign over at Right Links.

If you are a Blogger, we urge you to write about this issue. The more fuss we make, the more chance we can get some more attention from the press.

We prepared a list of questions that can be posted on Blogs or sent to MPs. They concern the way in which this Law's powers will be used.

The Questions

1. Why does the Bill change the current procedures for the enactment into our law of EU legislation?
2. What guarantees are there that the Bill could not be used to bring in the EU Constitution by the back door?
3. If the Bill is just a simplifying measure for deregulation, why does it contain no requirement for any orders to actually reduce the amounts of red tape and regulation?
4. Why does the Bill give the power to create new law, including new criminal offences, to the Law Commissions, which are unelected quangos appointed by Ministers?
5. If the Law Commissions are supposed to be staffed by impartial technical experts, why are Ministers taking the power to amend the recommendations of the Law Commissions before they are fast-tracked into legislation?
6. Why do protections in the Bill against new laws to permit forcible entry, search, seizure or compelling people to give evidence not apply to reforms recommended by the unelected Law Commissions appointed by Ministers?
7. If the Bill allows Ministers to “amend, repeal or replace legislation in any way that an Act might”, does this not give them an unlimited power to ignore a democratic Parliament and legislate by decree?
8. If the Bill is so sensible, why has Parliament used a different way of making laws for 700 years?
9. If the Bill is meant to retain Parliament’s ability to scrutinise regulations and regulators, why does it not contain a provision for automatic sunset clauses in orders issued under the Bill?
10. If the Bill gives Ministers powers to charge fees by decree, is that not a charter to bring in unlimited stealth taxes?
11. As the Bill permits an order to be made by a Minister under the Bill provided its effect is “proportionate” to his “policy objective”, since when in our history as a democratic country has a Government Minister’s “policy objective” directly received the force of law?
12. What guarantees are there that the Bill could not be used to bring in ID Cards by the back door?
13. Why does the Bill give the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly a veto over Ministers’ power to change the law which it denies to English MPs?

Keith Standring
Member Conservative Party;
The Freedom Association;
Bruges Group

David Irving the controversial historian was last night facing three years in prison for a statement he made in 1989 on a lecture tour of Austria denying the holocaust had taken place. Irving has since apparently changed his opinion and acknowledged this in court stating that "I made a mistake by saying there were no gas chambers... I am absolutely without doubt that the Holocaust took place."

The sentence of three years obviously shocked Irving as when it was read out he went red in the face, Irving stated that he has been back to twice since 1989 and had assumed the charges to have been dropped. The denial of the Holocaust of six million Jews and four million other minorities and persons deemed dangerous to the Third Reich is against Austrian Law and can carry a sentence of up to ten years.

The sentence was met with the questioning to whether it was right to jail Irving for comments made and to whether it would have just been more advantageous and useful to have met Irvings comments with disdain and contempt, rebuffing them with evidence.