DANGER! European Commission refuses to publish Treaty Charter defending Citizen's Rights against technocracy!

 European Commission refuses to publish Treaty Charter on Citizen's Rights against technocracy!

Europe is in grave DANGER. 

Technocracy has OFFICIALLY replaced any veneer of Democracy and Transparency. What can the citizen do about it? 

Here are the new rules of the European Commission. They override any law or treaty, apparently.

• Principles of democracy for the EU? Don't ask!
• How can citizens stop irresponsible technocracy controlling their lives, imposing lockdowns, forcing inoculations and spending taxpayers' money without proper controls? Don't ask!
• How can citizens appeal against bureaucratic abuse? Don't ask!
• No more questions on these subjects. Journalists in the Commission Press Room are allowed to ask any question but apparently not on this subject, according to the Commission Spokesman. 
• Just don't ask!

Why?

Censorship on bureaucratic and technocratic maladministration is the rule! That is what the Spokesperson of the European Commission declared in answer to my question.

What was my question? I asked when was the Commission going to publish the founding documents of modern Europe, Charter of the European Community. This defines how citizens can appeal against all sorts of bureaucratic abuse and malfeasance. It was signed at the time of Europe's first Community treaty in Paris on 18 April 1951.

Here is a link to my question: https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-217128

Commission Vice President Suica confirmed on 19 April 2021 that this and other historic documents on transparency and democratic control would be published for the Conference on  the Future of Europe.  That conference was initiated by French President Macron in response to the Democratic Deficit and Brexit. The conference is now drawing to a close without any discussion on the Charter.

Now apparently the bureaucrats themselves have decided that they should override both the Vice President and the public. They are refusing to publish the Charter. 

The founder of the European Community, Robert Schuman, probably had Britain's Great Charter, the Magna Carta, in mind when he called it the Charter of the Community. It is a system of justice and fair government. It defines the linkage to the human rights process.

The European Commission said that it is not going to answer the question, even if I asked it again. In fact the Spokesman refused to allow me the usual follow-up question, twice.

This is quite an extraordinary position to take. For half an hour, Mr Mamer had just answered multiple similar questions by different journalists on the bureaucratic consequences of Covid 19 on free movement of citizens. We have answered this question a thousand times, he said.  

But one answer about why the Charter is not published as promised? One answer about why bureaucrats buried it in the archives? One question as to what is going on? VERBOTEN!

And if any citizen had the naive idea that an appeal to the European Ombudsman about maladministration would have any effect on the Commission, they are mistaken. The Commission said they would ignore it!

Europe is in real danger.

After my question in the Commission Press Room, Eric Mamer, the Commission Spokesperson telephoned me. He repeated that they are not going to publish the Treaty Charter of the Community at the heart of Europe's democracy. Mr Mamer confirmed again that he would refuse to answer any further questions on the subject. 

I pointed out that the European Ombudsman had written to the Commission pointing out that the Commission had not given any reasons for not publishing the Charter. The Commission had therefore failed in its elementary duty to answer my complaint about this failure. 

Mr Mamer was adamant. He said he did not care what the Ombudsman said. Their position would not change whatever the European Ombudsman reported on the abuse. There were many other cases that they had done so. 

The letter I had received from the Commission's Secretariat General did not give any reasons for not publishing it. The official merely stated it was considered a declaration and therefore it was not going to be published, (whatever Vice President Suica said). Not logical. Surely the Commission can publish a Declaration if the Vice President said it was necessary.

The Charter is in fact an integral part of the Paris Treaty that defines the institutions of modern Europe. It defines not only the duties and installation of the Commission (High Authority), the Parliament and the Council of Ministers but also the European Court of Justice!  If you eliminate the Charter you should logically eliminate these institutions! 

This call confirms that the Commission is governed by rules of technocracy, not open democracy.

Europe is in grave DANGER.

For the Commission, apparently, it is not a question of whether the Charter is a legal and ratified part of the Paris Treaty or is a mere declaration or some other sort of document, the Spokesperson said that it is simply not going to republish it. 

I had prepared a letter to European Commission Spokesperson, Eric Mamer, following my question at today's Press conference. I then sent it to him immediately.

Here is my later letter to the EC Spokesperson in full.

Hello Eric,

In the Commission press room today, Eric, you said the Commission has answered my complaint about the non-publication of Europe’s foundational democratic documents. You did not allow my follow-up question. That did not let me clarify where you are mistaken on the Commission’s stated position for full publication. The letter (that I had not received at the time from the Secretariat General) said nothing to justify the non-publication of the Paris Treaty Charter. It merely gave an (erroneous) description of the Charter. I did not ask about the legal nature of the Charter.  That should be obvious. Schuman said that these documents provided a defence for citizens’ human rights against bureaucracy, technocracy, tyranny and totalitarianism.

 

The official at the Commission's Secretariat General refused to address the question of publication. The Ombudsman pointed this out to the Commission.  ‘It is not clear what relevance the nature of the document has with the decision not to publish…’ The Ombudsman added ‘The Commission has not replied to the complainant’s request that the documents should be published online and in the OJ.’

 

The failure to publish has nothing to do with how one official defines the document. The Commission said officially it would publish the foundational documents on European democracy.  

So did the Council. 

So did the European Parliament.

 

Reason enough that they should be published.  Is one official allowed to stop publication authorised by Vice President Suica and the Council Presidency? Can an official deny publication of a public document that is a constitutional foundation stone of Europe? Is a technocrat in charge to decide what is good and fit for the public to know above the Commission itself? This Charter is a document signed and sealed in Paris on 18 April1951 by the Six Foreign Ministers with plenipotentiary powers, ratified and legally deposited in the French Foreign Ministry.

 

The Vice President of the Commission affirmed that, for the Conference on the Future of Europe and the on-going debate on the Democratic Deficit, the Commission would publish this essential part of the Treaty of Paris. The Commission and the other institutions (EP and Council) represented in the press room on 19 April 2021 also confirmed they would publish the full text of the Schuman Declaration including what Schuman called the exordium, the initial summary that situated it in a geopolitical and historical context.

 

The Commission has not published either document. Fact. Why?

 

Is the Commission refusing to publish these documents?

I would appreciate your  reply on this question.

Regards,

David

Mr Mamer then replied to my letter as follows.

"We have spoken just now on the phone. You received a detailed letter from the Commission, dated 14 December 2021, that states the Commission’s position on the publication of the document you refer to and hence answers your questions.

As I already wrote to you on 21 December 2021, I have nothing to add to what this letter states, either in writing or in the press room. Kind regards, Eric."

 The European Commission has, inevitably, to answer to the people and to justice.

 

EU Document Transparency: the real Problem is Seventy years old!

Do politicians like transparency? Do cats like rain?

They prefer to stay inside, behind closed doors. 

Then they hide the papers.

The most important papers are in fact treaties that have been hidden for seventy years. 

Seventy years!

What should citizens do about it? 

Complain about missing papers? A treaty engaging governments to open government is some extraordinary piece of paper, like no other.

 "Access to Documents: what next?" That was the theme of the 15 November conference was organised on  by the European Ombudsman, Mrs Emily O'Reilly. 

The conference was told:

"The EU institutions are obliged to keep records of documents relevant to their work and any EU citizen can request to view them. This right is enshrined in EU law but Regulation 1049/2001 is now 20 years old. New technologies, as well as changing expectations about the transparency of public administrations, mean it is time to discuss the future of the EU’s access to documents rules.

Transparency and access to documents inquiries account for around one quarter of the Ombudsman’s inquiries each year. There is a fixed timetable in the procedure for requesting documents, but are there too many delays in the system? While institutions have the right to refuse access to documents for certain specific reasons, are these exemptions applied too readily?"

Seventy Years of decline

The European institutions have been around for 70 years since the Treaty of Paris was signed on 18 April 1951. That treaty had a very powerful way both to collect information about the first European Single Market. It also knew how to protect the privacy of enterprises, the trade unions and the consumers. 

Schuman was no dreamer about bureaucracies. He wrote that a badly run bureaucracy, a technocracy was the greatest danger to democracy. How do you fight an out-of-control technocracy? Transparency. He therefore built in protection of information and information sources and also provided the means to make the most important information available to the citizens.

When the United Nations wanted to organise its global information network, it called on Schuman to write a plan for them.

So why is the Democratic Deficit and maladministration such a problem today?

Blocked at Birth

Let's be clear about the origin of this problem. Let's also understand why the office of Ombudsman was invented four decades after the birth of the European Community.

The European Community was designed as an open democratic system: 

• the Assembly was to hold open debates, 
• the Consultative Committees and, 
• Yes, the Council of Ministers too! 

Everything was supposed to be open to the public and the press. The principles were clearly written in the original treaties signed and sealed on 18 April 1951. 

Declaration of Interdependence

The key document was the Charter of the Community. It described how all citizens and civil organisations have the right to demand open government so that they can see, investigate and criticise each and every institution. This contrasted them with the so-called People's Democracies of the Soviet bloc. There the politburo met behind closed doors, issued its laws, stopped citizens from criticising the Party and forbade any other ideology but atheistic Communism. 

The Charter Treaty is the key document focusing on the right that will stop the EU becoming the European equivalent of the Soviet-style People's Democracy run by a politburo.

What distinguishes an autocracy from a democracy? The citizens' right to choose. With this power they can replace the so-called representatives who preferred to act as self-serving autocrats. 

The first act of the politicians was to hide or bury the Charter of the Community! This treaty was originally called the Joint Declaration of the European Community. Robert Schuman called it the Charter of the Community. It has also been called the Declaration of Inter-Dependence, reflecting the founding freedoms of the United States of America. 

The Commission has promised many times to publish this and the founding documents. It failed to deliver. Their original reluctance to publish it has led to the slippery slope of the Democratic Deficit. That has got worse and worse as one error was compounded by subsequent political compromises, not to say corruption.  

Consequences

Without the Charter and the applications of its principles, the European Commission became what Mrs Thatcher called in 1990 "an undemocratic politburo." This was just after the liberation of the Central and Eastern Europe from the Soviet Bloc. 'We are trying to get Eastern Europe to accept democratic standards and here we are recreating our own politburo,' she said. 

She was not alone, either in the UK or on the Continent.  

Generations of European democrats would not abandon the fundamental principles of impartiality and transparency. 

They made sure that it was written down -- even in the politicians' own Lisbon Treaty. Its articles say that meetings on the Council should be as open as those in the European Parliament. 

That still has not happened.

The doors of the Council of Ministers are slammed shut to the public and the press. 

The Law says politicians have to agree to open sessions whenever they

• consider
• deliberate, or
• take a common position of legislation proposed by the European Commission. 

That means practically all the time except possibly for discussions on security.

How will they be opened again? All the politicians in the Council have to agree that they should obey the treaty they signed up for.

Politicians are as difficult to herd as a clutter of cats.  But it takes only one brave, honest politician to declare and insist that the ministers have to obey the Treaty and act to open the doors.  

But even before the Lisbon Treaty, the Democratic Deficit and the closed door autocracy of the Council had stoked public frustrations, not to mention fury. What would the politicians do about it? How could they divert public opinion?

By the year 2000, the European Community system had been blatantly deformed into a politicians' cartel. People openly complained that the Commission was developing characteristics of Soviet politburo secrecy. The newly liberated countries of central and eastern Europe wanted none of that. 

So the politicians instead of applying the original treaties, decided to borrow the idea of Ombudsman from the Scandinavian countries. This would give the complainants the illusion of access. It was a veneer to cover the real problem.  It limited citizen's intrusion into their political games.  It diverted their energy into a process of fighting the bureaucracy to release documents rather than giving citizens their proper powers.

Illusion, no substance. False promises of action to publish responsibly. And far from the original basis of open democracy, full public and press access to meetings.

The excuses

What of demands for the publication of the real documents of people power from 1951? The Commission has over the years come up with a long list of excuses. 

They denied knowledge of the Charter of the Community!

Figure that out. The Commission declares that it is 'Guardian of the Treaties'. How then does the Commission not know where the treaties are?

Here is the signature page of the Charter Treaty, the Joint Declaration, signed and sealed as part of the founding Treaty of Paris.

It is signed the same day as the European Coal and Steel Treaty with its other annexes and protocols. It is signed by the same plenipotentiary ministers of Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg, with two ministers from Belgium and the Netherlands. 

Its powers are described in the early legal literature and books on the Community, including those of Robert Schuman, Paul Reuter (who drafted much of the treaties) and others like Walter Hallstein, later president of the European Economic community. 

The Commission said they could not find it in their archives! Of course not. The last article of the ECSC treaty says the originals are kept at the French Foreign Ministry in Paris. A decade ago I wrote and obtained a copy. Why couldn't the 'Guardian of the Treaties'? 

What sort of incompetence is that?

The time for excuses is over. The governments, all organised civil society and individuals including the Ombudsman should insist that citizens have their rights recognized by the politicians.

The Charter of the Community must be published in the Official Journal! 

     

EU Commission shuns UK as an Island of Lepers. Why?

For the whole of this century European Commission chiefs have been trying to stop Europeans asking the most vital, existential question!

Brexit, says EU Commission President Juncker, is Europe’s biggest issue! But he won’t come to Britain.

The Commission tactic: No debates on EU’s fundamental faults with Britain!

In the last two decades amidst the greatest political crises of Europe, Commission Presidents have made perhaps three or four visits to Britain. Most were semi-secret and not open to the public.

Hence Commission presidents Juncker and predecessor Barroso have held no top-level debates with the British public this century!

How many trips to UK? The Commission refuses to give any figures at all. Even less will it compare it with Mr Juncker’s incessant visits to France, Germany, Italy, Greece and everywhere else around the globe.

Great Destroyer

President Juncker has toured and spoken in Germany’s provincial parliaments. From the Saarland regional parliament, he denounced one British prime minister, who questioned Mr Juncker’s legitimacy, as a ‘great destroyer of modern times‘. That’s tough company if it includes Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Osama bin Laden and al Baghdadi of the jihadi Islamic State.

Mr Junker has lectured Belgium’s Flemish and Walloon parliaments with his doom-laden message of Europe’s inevitable decline. He has spoken to the tiny German-speaking community of Belgium.

The British Mother of Parliaments he treats with disdain. Not a word uttered there or any other association, club or assembly. For the Scots he is silent. For the Welsh he is wanting. For the Northern Irish he is aloof.

Across Britain, pro-Europeans march in their myriads. From Hyde Park Corner (legendary bastion of free speech) to the Houses of Parliament, they raise their voices. They wave their European flags. Monsieur Juncker is missing and mute. Bizarre conduct for someone who announced that he was changing the Commission’s impartial status in the treaties to become the first “political Commission”.

‘The Commission is not responsible for Brexit,’ Mr Juncker said on 24 October. He was speaking at the Brussels-based think tank, the European Policy Centre in what he billed as his last speech.

He said that, if UK media tells its public for 46 years that the UK is in EU only for the market — and the rest is bullshit — the referendum result should be no surprise.

Is this true?

“Brexit is a shame and is the most difficult problem we have ever had to face. I do not think that Brexit is in the interest of the Britain, nor in the interest of the European Union. All of us – we will pay the price,” Mr Juncker said.

Why then do Commission presidents refuse to step on UK soil? Wouldn’t coming and offering more money help morale? Money and markets seem available by the bucketload for other Member States via the €440 Billion Juncker Plan.

Real Problem

Something more serious is the core problem, not economics. The Presidents of the European Commission have been avoiding any real dialogue with the United Kingdom. They treat the UK as an Island of Lepers!

They refuse to cross the Channel. Why? Is UK contaminated? No, but it has a contagion. It is called:

D E M O C R A C Y.

Do European Commission presidents fear Hyde Park Corner? Or is it the House of Commons and British Common Law? British Common Law has upheld the nation’s democratic heritage together together for 3000 years — long before Romans ever thought of coming.

This diagnosis should come as no surprise to Brussels. The British have been complaining about the Democratic Deficit since 1977.

The complaints came from pro-Europe activists, not the sceptics.

Prof David Marquand used the term Democratic Deficit in his 1979 book on the European Parliament. The Political clique, the new Politburo, refused to heed.

Thus began the long, long road that led to Brexit. See YouTube Brexit: Cause & Solution

Democracy is essentially about HONEST GOVERNANCE. That applies to all institutions and how they conduct themselves.

Honesty has been singularly lacking for decades. Without honesty and openness democracy’s fuel tank is filled with sand. The motor blocks. That is what has happened today.

Democracy Postponed

The Deficit is not just about lack of ‘one elector, one vote‘ of MEPs. That elementary requirement for parliament democracy has NEVER been implemented in 70 years! Don’t hold your breath. There should be one set of election rules for Europe, not 28.

Schuman and Europe’s Founding Fathers said that the Consultative Committees should have a role comparable to the Council of Ministers. They must elect their own representatives of organised civil society. They would act as a sort of Europe-wide Think Tank. Thus representatives would be able to give in-depth understanding of the needs and potential of Europe’s

• workers,
• industries,
• consumers and
• regions.

Never happened. Elitist politicians decide on who can be members of these ‘democratic‘ bodies! On a temporary basis, of course.

The Founding Fathers said that Ministers should hold open Council meetings. What was said would be reported on TV and in the press. Today’s politicians refuse.

They now drive Europe further into secret government.

They created a super-secret European Council! The EU and its misbegotten currency the euro is run by the EuroGroup, an “institution” that appears nowhere in the treaties!

Deficit Origins

The Community system, announced by Robert Schuman on 9 May 1950, provided the most democratic proposal ever.

It worked.

He was inspired by his study of the British and American constitutions, themselves based, as he wrote, on biblical principles of justice. Instead of incessant wars that had plagued Europe for more than 2000 years, Europe had for the first time lasting peace and prosperity.

Many Britons wanted to join. Others suspected the Continentals were untrustworthy.

Europe’s Customs Union and Single Market flourished. Hit by labour unrest, UK had declined into a parlous economic state. UK was known as the ‘Sick Man of Europe‘. Britons learned the lesson that a democratic Customs Union was the way to prosper.

But British governments had left it two decades late to join. Since 1945 de Gaulle fomented a revolution to overturn the French Constitution. He seized power in France in 1958. France remained under the autocratic control of the Gaullists. They were intent on wrecking and destroying the Community’s democratic base while making sure France by political pressure had the lion’s share of the Community budget.

The UK arrived when the Community system was palpably in a major crisis of trust. The thirty glorious years of the postwar economic miracle were faltering because autocracy always damages the economy as well.

The Democratic Deficit can more properly be traced from 1973, the year UK joined the European Communities. To outsiders the damage was obvious. The British Labour Party was so disgusted at the way the Europe’s Parliament was treated under de Gaulle, and was still being treated, that they BOYCOTTED it!

How did it happen? How did a whole parliament, proposed by Schuman’s government in 1948, become a shipwreck?

The French autocrat, Charles de Gaulle, president from 1958-69, forced an agreement on the then politically weaker Germany, led by Konrad Adenauer. All the instruments of democracy were suspended. De Gaulle forbade European elections to the Parliamentary Assembly. All democratic institutions were frozen or “chloroformed” according to his scheme.

De Gaulle’s minions decided European policies behind the closed doors of the Council of Ministers. Power politics reigned. The Council and even the Commission consigned parliamentary Amendments on legislation to the dustbin without being read. The Consultative Committees were never elected. Gaullist graft ensured French farmers benefitted from his corrupt and bloated Common Agricultural Policy that cost two-thirds of the Community budget.

So, post-de Gaulle, did European politicians reverse the democratic deficit and stop having secret meetings? Did they have proper elections? Did they have budget accountability?

Not at all. Worse was to come. They grafted Gaullist graft into their system. They turned it into a secretive party political oligarchy.

The Acid Litmus Test

Today Europe is faced with a Europe divided between the neo-Gaullists who have absorbed anti-British attitudes and those who understand that open, democratic, Community principles brought Europe’s peace, prosperity and the freed the nations behind the Iron Curtain. Others are just confused about European governance.

Unhappily the confused seem to be in the majority when Europe’s future was discussed in 2001. Elitist authors of a new treaty failed to convince the public. It rejected Constitutional Treaty and its later identical twin, the Lisbon Treaty. Instead of insisting on Human Rights politicians tried to subvert them. The public smelt the fish.

Elitist projects are built on constitutional errors, lack of honesty and humility. Robert Schuman warned such schemes would lead to unrealisable utopias.

Human Rights Violations

Contrast that with Europe’s birth. The early Community treaties had to be examined by the Council of Europe, guardian of the Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Elitist politicians knew they could not succeed under this scrutiny.

How can we Litmus test the anti-democratic acidity of the present politicians?

They abandoned any Human Rights checks on treaties.

They refused to recognise the public’s right to a referendum. If the public got the ‘wrong’ answer, the Commission told the Council the States must vote again.

• Maastricht 1992 Denmark.
• Nice 2001 Ireland.
• Euro 2000 Denmark.
• 2003 Sweden.
• Constitutional Treaty 2005 France & The Netherlands
• Lisbon treaty 2008 Ireland.
• Greek Bailout 2015.
• Ukraine Association 2016 NL

The UK was refused any referendum on any treaty since 1975. UK has not confirmed by Referendum the Lisbon Treaty (and its Article 50). The Brexit Referendum of 2016 based on Article 50 is illegal UNLESS Britons first agree by Referendum to this treaty!

The people are not subject to the Lisbon Treaty because it was imposed by Parliament contrary to Government promises that a Referendum would be held on the Treaty itself before Article 50 could be used. The Lisbon Treaty (then called the Constitutional Treaty) was rejected by France and the Netherlands and others. Parliament is subject to the voice of the people in legitimate referendums.

Now track the Commission. See what they are up to. See if and how they engage in democratic reform and debate with the public. For example, Britain.

The presidents of the Commission zip around Europe. They fly around the world. They collect fancy medals and honours. They collect scores of honorary doctorates.

But not in Britain. Why?

President Jean-Claude Juncker is nearing the end of his five-year mandate. What’s the record? At times he has seemed to spend part of every week in Berlin, if not in Paris. Then he’s off to the Mediterranean and Italy, Spain and Portugal or the Black Sea reaches of Bulgaria and Romania.

To England? Naaaaah! A fast Eurostar train from central Brussels to central London is just too far.

How many times has he visited London or any other part of the UK?

He made one trip for an evening dinner in London. Did he speak to a mass meeting of concerned British democrats. Did he speak to Parliament? No. On 27 April 2017 he had a private meeting with PM Theresa May to describe the length and breadth of any agreement on Brexit. With his team of Martin Selmayr and Michel Barnier, he visited 10 Downing Street under tight security to tell Prime Minister May that Brexit was no walk in the park. He came loaded with the Canada agreement to show how big a document a trade agreement normally was and how negotiations are conducted.

Mr Juncker told a Polish journalist that he has actually visited London on another occasion. When? No one can remember. That makes two trips in 5 years.

Why did he not come more frequently given the gravity of the Brexit crisis — which at the time threatened the disintegration of the EU. When asked by a Polish journalist how many times he has travelled to Mrs May at Downing Street, his less-than-chivalrous reply was:

“Why fly somewhere, if you can discuss it here?” He added: “She used to sit at the place where you are now, at seven in the morning, at eleven o’clock at night.”

Then there is a division of views on politics across the Channel. Many Continental politicians, regardless of what laws and treaties say, feel they can do what they like. No one will take them to Court.

Some of UK’s nearby neighbours don’t blink an eye at presidential slush funds. A mistress of 30 years is housed at the State’s expense or another lover is made prime minister. Would taxpayers in UK agree?

Ministers and prime ministers across the Continent get away with financial and political corruption.

In UK ministers are forced to resign if they mislead the police on a motoring offence. They may end up in prison.

The Question

What is the question that European Commission Presidents don’t want to hear? There are many words which point to the same direction: accountability to tax-payers, honesty to electors, open government … or simply real democracy.

What is the major chasm of credibility for Europe? Fraud. Political fraud.

What Commission presidents Juncker and Barroso fear is that the whole fraudulent Lisbon Treaty structure will come crashing down on their heads. It should.

Why is the Lisbon Treaty fraud big-time? It is not just that this changes the constitution of 28 Member States without the approval of the citizens.

It is not just that it puts European government in the hands of politicians who prefer secrecy and political plots above transparency.

It is that the whole treaty was rejected by Europeans in massive referendums. Further referendums on the renamed treaty were refused by the political clique. Elitists think they know better than everyone else.

The articles are the same as those misshapen monstrosities that appeared in the rejected Constitutional treaty, committee-written under the supervision of former French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. This camel of a treaty was roundly rejected by the French and the Dutch in 2005. Six other nations, including UK, were expecting to have referendums. But the political clique refused to let them. The outcome was clear to all. No. No. NO!

Mr Barroso said the camel looked partly like a horse. Spaniards (who were pretty fresh to democracy) voted for it. That’s no endorsement.

But politicians and bureaucrats thought they could get away with it. Two years later the rejected articles were forcefully re-instated as the Lisbon Treaty. How? Articles were retained and inserted as amendments to an old treaty, the much-amended European Economic Community treaty of Rome, 1957.

Why were no further referendums allowed? Bureaucrats said so.

Giscard himself explained in an article published in a number of newspapers. The British must be denied a democratic voice. Human rights must be suppressed.

This deception operation, was foisted on the public by the Council. It is an affront to any citizen with a micron of morality. It was whipped through parliaments because their ministers told their parties to avoid referendums at all cost.

In a democracy who tells parliaments to obey?

Not even the ministers. In the Brussels Bog it was the bullyboy bureaucrats at the Council who insisted that the Lisbon Treaty would not die by democratic decision. It must be re-instituted regardless of the cost to honesty and integrity.

Did Mr Barroso come and explain his strange decision to the great British public? He came to UK perhaps once to Chatham House for a one hour meeting at the end of his ten-year mandate (24 October 2014). Then, amid public outrage, he was off to join Goldman Sachs.

The Lisbon Treaty is illegitimate. So is its equally fraudulent Article 50. This is why the UK Referendum of 2016 is causing a political impasse.

The official name of the Lisbon Treaty is Treaty on European Union (TEU) plus the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). The EU Treaty, for short. But leaving the EU is not the same as leaving the European Communities. Hence, logically, a referendum that affirms the desire to ‘Leave the European Union‘ does not mean leaving the Customs Union and Single Market of the European Communities.

Rather the Brexit vote affirms that British electors want an end to the Lisbon Treaty fraud.

Before any progress in Europe can be made, legitimacy needs to be restored. Europeans require that THEIR VOICE is sovereign — not bureaucrats. Legitimate Referendums must be respected. Politicians should no longer hide themselves behind closed doors. The public must have an open dialogue about their plans and investigate their plots.

No more political Leper Colonies!

Brexit Crisis will last Decades

Not serious! The European Commission have announced extra measures and emergency subsidies in the case of a No Deal Brexit scheduled for 31 October 2019.

But neither the EU, the Irish or the British government are taking seriously the date of 31 October as the definitive date of Leave. What do they know that they are not telling the public?

The evidence

Neither the EU or the Irish have a plan to put up border posts along he Irish / Northern Ireland border. This would be required if they took the ‘Irish Backstop‘ danger seriously. It is a complex border requiring much preparatory work. It is also politically sensitive with memories of the the IRA conflict. But this can’t be the whole story for doing absolutely nothing. What’s happening?

Some British may think that all will be over at 11 pm on 31 October. But in Brussels, the bureaucrats have read the treaty carefully. That is why we could be in for decades of Brexit crisis.

How many years will the Brexit crisis last? That is not clear. But don’t expect an exit on 1 November. The way Article 50 is written it could last several decades.

The key word ‘Constitutional’

The key word in Article 50, the Exit clause of the Lisbon Treaty on European Union is ‘constitutional‘.

“Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.” Article 50 paragraph 1.

But what is the constitutional position for Brexit in the United Kingdom? It does not have a written constitution. Even if it did, there might be a dispute about the government’s interpretation of a clause compared with an opposition party, a commercial organisation, a trade union or an individual who challenged this. That would take the matter to the Courts.

Constitutional disputes about Europe have taken a long time to resolve in Member States. Courts raised questions on the legitimacy of the Lisbon Treaty and whether Europe is democratic.

The German Constitutional Court judged that “It is first and foremost the national peoples of the Member States who, through their national parliaments, have to provide democratic legitimacy“

For the UK with no separate Constitutional Court and no written Constitution, the chances for a dispute are much wider. For the present UK, with unprecedented disputes in Parliament and in the country about Prime Minister’s conduct and allegations of lying to the public and Parliament, the question is even more open.

It is complicated further by the fragility of the government. At present Mr Johnson does not have a majority in Parliament. Normally he should resign on the basis of a vote of no confidence. But that is not the situation in UK now that the country under the Fixed Term Parliament Act.

Second problem. UK has a government that cannot resign. It needs a two-thirds majority vote against it to call a General Election. But the Opposition does not trust Mr Johnson and has refused this until it is sure that he will follow an Act that they are passing to rule out a No Deal Brexit.

The only other means to have an election is a vote of NO Confidence. But that requires the Government party to vote that they have not confidence in themselves!

Furthermore Mr Johnson has sacked a score of some of the most loyal Conservative MPs simply because they voted against his wishes on the government timetable. A severe penalty from a government itself composed of many MPs who voted against the previous Conservative government. Mr Johnson himself has voted against the previous government of Theresa May on the Withdrawal Treaty but hypocrisy does not seem to bother him. However, sacking 21 supporters when the government had only a majority of one vote, seems reckless beyond measure. It shatters the majority and embitters the party supporters around the country.

How will the Johnson Government get anything else through Parliament?

But that is not all.

Thirdly, the Courts. At present there are three Court cases dealing with the legality of Brexit. They attack the advice the government gave to Queen to prorogue Parliament, allegedly to cut back on democratic debate on a No Deal Brexit. These cases are likely to go to Appeal and even the Supreme Court.

Nor is that the end. If cases are open by the Scottish and Welsh governments against the central government on misuse of advice to the Queen to prorogue parliament, then there is likely to be further challenges on more substantial issues of the Constitution.

Fourthly Economic Cases. Any of these arriving at the Supreme Court would take far longer to deal with and require extensive research and therefore delays.

Billions of pounds and billions of euros are involved in the decision and repercussions of Brexit both in UK and on the Continent. The Government has already paid out millions in compensation for its ill-judged handling of the Dover-Calais fiasco. So challenges in UK Courts may continue.

Fifthly, the core issues are unsolved, and much more. There are two further levels of legal challenge.

For Brussels, the question must arise, about the legal competence of a beleaguered government, accused of misrepresentation and cheating in delivering a firm and reliable decision for Brexit. If Brussels recognized any action of the Johnson government it would likely bring in huge economic costs to those on the Continent. It is up to anyone inside the EU to challenge whether a fully constitutional governmental decision has been taken. If not, why did the Brussels machine recognize it?

That challenge could go to the European Court in Luxembourg and deny or delay London recognition of its decision to leave.

In UK many people doubt whether the legal basis for the 2016 referendum will stand up to the light of day. The British voter never agreed to the Lisbon Treaty and that is the basis of Article 50! The totally separate Euratom treaty, designed to stop Atomic War that the Government says UK must now leave, never came into the pre-referendum debate or any publication or statement of the government.

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Irish Backstop still needs a solution. So does the Customs Union and Euratom. Whatever happens to the Johnson government and its replacement, UK still needs to resolve the Irish Backstop and its relations with the Continent.

Robert Schuman designed Europe’s peace system based on a democratic Assembly and a Customs Union in a Community. Leaving these institutions is equivalent to rejecting the peace. A new war is something no one in Europe wants. Does the UK not want to have full democratic relations with the Continent? Leaving a Parliament means marching on the road to tyranny.

The core problem that needs to be resolved is Democracy in UK and in Europe.

Will the dispute last decades? It already has!

A quarter century already

Crises in Europe tend to last decades or more. The Brexit crisis started well before the 2016 Referendum. It was then just called the Democratic Deficit crisis. In the UK, Brexit crisis can be dated back to at least 1994 — a quarter of a century ago.

James Goldsmith, an Anglo-French businessman, founded the Referendum Party with this aim. It made a deal with other parties, especially the Conservatives, for elected parliamentarians to pledge themselves to demand a referendum. The only referendum on Europe had occurred two decades earlier in 1975.

Many in Britain thought the Brussels system was autocratic and needed urgent democratic reform or UK exit. It was high time another took place. Nothing happened for decades despite promises of both Conservatives and Labour parties and the formation of the United Kingdom Independence Part. UKIP was actually formed in 1991 and took over the mantle of a Referendum when the Referendum Party dissolved thinking its work was done.

Brexit has been a crisis, ringing alarm bells and firing democratic Very-light flares, for decades. Don’t be surprised if the present Brexit crisis lasts as long again.