Brexit, Common Law and Ancient British Laws on Referendums

For the average person the idea that, after the people had voted in the 23 June 2016 EU Referendum to be free from “Brussels Bureaucracy,” they or the UK Parliament would have no further say on details seems patently absurd. What use is freedom from Brussels if Parliament is silenced about how to proceed? Where is the justice in that?
The government of PM Theresa May saw it differently. The government could apply autocratic Royal Prerogative powers. Britons would exit immediately because the EU was just another treaty. No reference to Parliament was needed, they said. However, Democracy is central to Britons. The three European Communities and the European Union of the Lisbon Treaties have affected domestic law and improved many aspects of everyday life. Citizens’ rights are not for decapitation by a blind, angry axman. Debate sharpens Democracy and Justice.
Only 37% of electors voted to LEAVE the EU. The rest did not vote or wanted to REMAIN. The ballot paper mentioned nothing about the European Communities, such as Euratom. The House of Common Library Briefing Paper, included in a recent book, Brexit, Miller and Henry VIII, noted that the Referendum was advisory and not legally binding.

If that is the case, what advice was the public giving the Government? Was it “Reform Brussels!”? Were people fed up with the neo-Gaullist style of Brussels autocracy or trade? Decision-making – again on nearly every aspect of everyday life – occurs behind closed doors. Secret Democracy is an oxymoron. Citizens’ freedom to think and act comes first.
Secretive Governance was certainly not part of the original concept of European democracy defined by the Charter of the Community and the supranational Community, that of Coal and Steel. Both documents were signed by six founder States on 18 April 1951, after the Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950 and the Convention of Human Rights had laid out the broad plan. The New Europe was defined by guarantees of Freedom.
Schuman wrote in his book, Pour L’Europe that in this Democracy all the Councils and Committees would be open and under the supervision of public opinion. Why public opinion? Because only a public debate based on facts can contribute meaningfully to a real democracy. Secondly the public statements of the leaders in debate are important for the public to judge the disinterestedness of the leaders. Thirdly, the Statements in the Councils and Committees provide means for the public to hold them to account. Fourthly, politicians who distribute public tax money in private with no accountability, only encourage corruption. The Gaullist CAP spent up to 71% of Europe’s Budget on agriculture. Millions went on vanity projects.

European Democracy.
How should European democracy be constructed? How should an ancient State like the United Kingdom affirm what it considers true principles for extending democracy from its island home to participate fairly with the Continent? How should Continental States also affirm the same principles so that everyone is satisfied with open, honest management?
Today three UK institutions are involved: a national referendum, a Court and a Parliament. The recent national Referendum on EU membership was largely without precedence except for the 1975 referendum to join the three European Communities. Central government stopped referendums. They have been ended for more than a millennium in those parts of the country where they were custom. Anglo-Saxons did not have referendums.
The referendum has come into its own because of a number of factors. Political parties are divided on such matters as the EU. Some are also losing public trust among the electors. Hence referendums seem to be a fair way to make a decision. The EU one exposes deficiencies in both UK and the EU.
Referendums can be binding or advisory. The EU referendum, according to judgements Divisional Court judgement #106 and Supreme Court #119, was non-binding. It carries no legal obligation. An Act is needed. To prevent political dissension, the May Government imposed strong party discipline. Labour too. Did PM May turn the plea for open-minded democracy in Brussels into Westminster despotism? How can citizens arrive at a just solution? Is it possible?

Common Law
The situation was quite different in pre-Roman Britain. The country was divided into a number of tribal areas but they were interconnected by marriage and exchanges. That required an elaborate and effective system of law to be active to ensure justice nationally. Strabo, the early first century Greek geographer, wrote that its teachers taught the science of nature and also moral philosophy. ‘They are believed to be the most just of men, and therefore entrusted with cases affecting both individuals and the public.’ Celtic society was based on freemen who could prove they and their family had not been slaves for nine or ten generations. Those without such proven reputation, working as serfs or foreigners who were resident, did not have the same privileges of political and legal power.
Although they had kings or princes based on royal families, society refused to let kings be autocratic and above the law. They held as custom that:
The country is above the prince. Trech gwlad nag Arglwydd.
That is the prince could in no way bind the country and that the prince himself was under law. Justice ruled. How?
The ancient Triads dating back many centuries before Britain was invaded by Rome were highly developed, ethical and sustained by extensive education and reasoning in the principles of law. Julius Caesar affirms that the youth spent twenty years in the various colleges. This contrasts with the rote learning of the Romans and its military dictatorships.
Hundreds of Triads define the principles of justice. They confirm that courts existed with Jurors or Assessors who acted with the Judges. This is the system that the Britons passed on to Saxon King Alfred the Great, 849-99, (who had John Asser, the British bishop of St David’s in his learned court). It is still found in the system of Court and Jury that we have today.

A Jury of peers is the key to freedom under law. Alfred also incorporated the Ten Commandments, other quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures as well as the Apostolic Letter of James, the brother of Jesus in the Greek New Testament, Acts 15. The pursuit of Wisdom was integrated into the code of 120 articles, to make it acceptable to those Welsh/ British areas who had agreed to Alfred’s overlordship.

Alfred had diplomatic relations with leaders around Europe and also with Elias III, the Patriarch of Jerusalem.
Centuries earlier, the Ancient British had three institutions that allowed them to target just and lasting solutions to legal problems: a tribal or national referendum, a parliament or Assembly of respected representatives (probably tribal elders), and a Court of Justice that would analyze the legality of decisions with principles and precedent. They were the keys to prevent tyranny.
The Laws of Dyvnwal Moelmud around 400 BCE are a compilation of earlier precepts. Among them we find:
Triad 175. Three kinds of votes are valid as law: the collective vote of the Sovereign Country …enacts, abrogates or improves Law; the second is the vote of the country in the three hundred men; the third is the vote of the Court given by jurors (assessors) or elders of the nation under protection and the privilege of the Court.

Triad 98 Three tyrannical perversions of Law: fully deciding upon a case before minutely enquiring into the truth; deciding contrary to the nature and the inevitable consequences of events and times; and forcing a man to his injury where there is neither Law nor Justice requiring the decision by which he is compelled.

A Briton could call on either a tribal meeting or even a national referendum if he was refused the basic elements for dealing with his case in justice.
There are three things that must be listened to by the Court and the Judge:

• A complaint,
• A petition, and
• A reply.

The person who is denied this right has the privilege of appealing to the vote of the country, as called together by the chief of the tribe.

Once the Saxons had overrun the eastern lowlands of Loegria (England) many of these legal principles were lost. Bede describes how the Saxons first started to write out independent laws or penalties (called dooms) only in the fifth century. The Anglo-Saxons had an elective monarchy favouring decrees based on the monarch’s personal power, rather than law. However the native Celtic population (both in Anglo-Saxon and Danelaw regions) would have tried to maintain some of these ancient principles by argument and debate (which the Saxons were accustomed to) rather than by law courts with juries that they did not have. This may have been the origin of what we now call English Common Law or custom.

Magna Carta
Common Law thus predates Anglo-Saxon, Norman and also Roman law. British constitutional Common Law, Rhaith Gwlad, makes no distinction between king and freeman. Common Law became part of the traditional unwritten law of England, based on custom, then its key feature.
However even at the time of Magna Carta in 1215, the British laws were still active. Indeed Magna Carta includes articles that ‘Welsh laws’ should be restored where they had been abused by the autocratic King John.

“Article 56. If we have deprived or dispossessed any Welshmen of land, liberties, or anything else in England and Wales, without lawful judgement of their equals, these are at once to be returned to them. … Article 58 In cases where a Welshman was deprived or dispossessed of anything, without the lawful judgement of his equals, by our father King Henry or our brother King Richard, and it remains in our hands or is held by others under our warranty, we shall have respite for the period commonly allowed to Crusaders, unless a lawsuit had been begun, or an enquiry had been made at our order, before we took the Cross as a Crusader. But on our return from the Crusade, or if we abandon it, we will at once do full justice accord to the laws of Wales and the said regions. Article 58 We will return the son of Llywellyn {the Great, King of Wales}, all Welsh hostages, and the charters delivered to us as security for the peace.”

Thus the English or Saxon ‘Common Law’ has ancient British roots. A Saxon compendium of Common Law was introduced by King Alfred. He translated a later revision of the Dyvnwal laws written by Queen Marcia, Regent after the death of British king Guithilin, son of Garguic Barbtruc, son of Belinus, son of Dyvnwal. Her young son Sisillius (Welsh: Saessyllt), came to the throne in ca 358 BCE on Queen Marcia’s death.
Together with a book on the ‘Law of the monarchy,’ Queen Marcia’s work was translated into Anglo-Saxon / English language by King Alfred (849-899 A.D.) They became part of the Mercian laws.
When William the Conqueror arrived in 1066, he combined the some of this Anglo-Saxon law with centralizing Norman law. This contributed to English Common Law, much of which was by custom and precedent rather than by written code. By the 14th Century legal decisions and commentaries on the common law began providing precedents for the courts and lawyers to follow. It did not include the so-called law of equity (chancery) which came from the royal power to order or prohibit specific acts. The common law became the basic law of most US states due to the Commentaries on the Laws of England, completed by Sir William Blackstone in 1769.
The recent Supreme Court case related to the formulation of Henry VIII Clauses. Parliament’s website defines them thus:

“The Government sometimes adds this provision to a Bill to enable the Government to repeal or amend it after it has become an Act of Parliament. The provision enables primary legislation to be amended or repealed by subordinate legislation with or without further parliamentary scrutiny. Such provisions are known as Henry VIII clauses, so named from the Statute of Proclamations 1539 which gave King Henry VIII power to legislate by proclamation.”

No such clause appears in the European Communities Act of 1972.
In ancient British law, a super-king or Pendragon, could assume military powers by federal agreement of tribes. Otherwise, an individual and any group could demand justice, bringing the matter before a referendum of the tribe or nation. Justice was a universal virtue and federalizing force.
The recent dispute of Miller et al vs HMG highlights a long difference between Saxon autocracy and individual justice based on an educated populace. The Henry VIII Royal Prerogative case reasserts the right of an individual to challenge injustice. This was something that Parliament – where the Government has a disciplined majority of party loyalists – was not able to do. It exposes the inadequate power of Parliament, managed by party machines, to defend itself, as well as some other vital issues that have been buried for centuries.
The interventions and written cases here indicate the irreversible nature of the devolution process and power of universal justice. It is also inevitable that the eternal principles of British law will be re-established in their glory.
Within the European supranational system any individual, association or institution may take a similar issue to the European Courts. And in the near future many will. That indicates that Justice will take force from it too.

David Heilbron Price
Brussels, 30 January 2017
Bibliography:
The Cambro-Briton, vols 1 & 2 1820-1,
Transactions of the Cymmrodorion, vols 1 & 2 1822
Rachel Bromwich: Triodd Ynys Prydain, Triads of the Island of Britain 2006
Peter Bereford Ellis: The Celtic Empire 1990, A History of the Celts 2003
David Heilbron Price: Brexit and Britain’s Vision for Europe, 2016.
William Probert: The Ancient Laws of Cambria Triads of Dyvnwal Moelmud 1893
Peter Roberts: Dissertation on Laws of Dyfnwal Moelmud in The Chronicle of the Kings of Britain from the Welsh… 1841

BREXIT 10: EU's political murder of an English Lord and European Democracy

The sleepy midsummer town of Brussels was shocked at the political assassination of the gentlemanly Lord of the Money, Lord Jonathan Hill. He was European Commissioner responsible for Financial Markets. Silence reigned over this sordid affair. No one seemed permitted in the Commission’s news room to ask the most pertinent question: Was it a suicide or was it a subtle political assassination? A supposed resignation letter of Hill to Commission President Juncker was never produced. Surprising as Mr Juncker replied to it. Did it hold guilty secrets that no one wanted the public to see?


The suicide theory is propounded by the people who have seen the Statement issued in his name. Was it a suicide note? Or was it a fabrication by persons or persons unknown? The statement said he will quit the Commission on 15 July for noble reasons but they do not make any democratic sense.
Why? There was no reason for Lord Hill to leave Brussels. The United Kingdom had not had any time to digest what its action would be after the referendum of 23 June 2016. The British may decide after reflection to have a further election, Parliament might refuse to pass an Act, or decide that it is better not to send the Article 50 exit letter as there is a queue of other States wanting to leave. Would the UK leave the EU and stay in Euratom with its Council, Parliament and Commission?
It is foolhardy and scarcely constitutional to destroy the integrity of the United Kingdom of England, Wales, Scotland and North Ireland on the basis of this one referendum.  Other referendums affirm it. Four previous Referendums of the Scottish people affirm the integrity of United Kingdom. So do two referendums in Northern Ireland and three in Wales. They established devolved, regional governments.
Nor should UK be forced into a rapid and regrettable exit decision by unprincipled action in Brussels. European peoples do not want it and would suffer from it.

Reform is needed in Brussels NOT IN LONDON.
The Brussels Politburo is well aware how unpopular it is. Its barometer of trust and legitimacy indicates a coming hurricane. For a democrat to leave as a rampant anti-democratic Politburo disintegrates or implodes of its own accord is premature. And then the figure of Lord Hill would have not blood, but egg on his face.
First his statement:

“Like many people here and in the UK, I am obviously very disappointed about the result of the referendum. I wanted it to end differently and had hoped that Britain would want to play a role in arguing for an outward-looking, flexible, competitive, free trade Europe. But the British people took a different decision, and that is the way that democracy works.

As we move to a new phase, I don’t believe it is right that I should carry on as the British Commissioner as though nothing had happened. In line with what I discussed with the President of the Commission some weeks ago, I have therefore told him that I shall stand down. At the same time, there needs to be an orderly handover, so I have said that I will work with him to make sure that happens in the weeks ahead.
I am very grateful to Jean-Claude Juncker for giving me the chance to work on financial services and for the opportunity to help support jobs and growth in Europe.
I came to Brussels as someone who had campaigned against Britain joining the euro and who was sceptical about Europe. I will leave it certain that, despite its frustrations, our membership was good for our place in the world and good for our economy.”

The dagger in his back is the phrase the “British Commissioner“. Under European law, of which the Commission says it is the Guardian, there is no such thing as a “British Commissioner”! All Commissioners, of whatever nationality, are EUROPEAN Commissioners. One was a Commissioner of British nationality, another, French, yet another Luxembourgish. He is not a British Commissioner. A European Commissioner does not have to resign over British events, especially those that have not yet occurred, like a Brexit!
Who persuaded him to tread the dangerous path near the precipitous cliff — where he was found politically lifeless? Clearly someone had been playing psychological games with Lord Hill’s brilliant mind and unbalanced his brain. Previous Commissions under Delors, Prodi or even M. Santer would have not allowed a Commissioner to deny their primary identity as European! Robert Schuman the architect of the European Community emphasized that the Commission must be independent of all governments, all companies, all workers’ groups and all other associations and entities whether lucrative or not.
The more the Commission is impartial, non-party political, the more it is independent of all lobby groups, the more it will have the trust of the people. This is called the supranational principle in the treaties, because values like honesty and fairness are universal and above the nation.
All Commissioners take an oath before the European Court judges saying:

“I solemnly undertake …

• to be completely independent in carrying out my responsibilities, in the general interest of the Union;

• in the performance of my tasks, neither to seek nor to take instructions from any Government or from any other institution, body, office or entity..”

Who was the serpent or snakes who deceived him in thinking he was a British Commissioner? They were obviously playing on his Anglo-Saxon conscience and a false sense of self-guilt!

When Lord Hill was dealing with Financial Markets — where London has a predominant role — no one accused him of being a London Commissioner or the Commissioner for the City. Why? Because all decisions and considerations inside the Commission are taken together in a college. The Commission must provide a European view of European common interest. All Commissioners have staff that follow financial services developments. If the portfolio is transferred to a Frenchman or a German, does that mean everyone should watch out as all financial services are redirected and relocated to Paris or Frankfurt?
So who was responsible really for this political assassination? What provoked Lord Hill to emit a Mea Culpa as if he was responsible for votes in the UK?
One clue comes from the reaction to Lord Hill’s alleged resignation issued by Commission President Juncker:

“At the beginning of this Commission’s mandate, I wanted the British Commissioner to be in charge of Financial Services, as a sign of my confidence in the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union. To my great regret, this situation is now changing. I have tried to convince Lord Hill to stay on as Commissioner. I consider him to be a true European and not just the British Commissioner. However, I understand his decision and I respect it.“

The back story is also of full of clues. Even the Lisbon Treaties make it abundantly clear that the bloated, and expensive Byzantine Commission, full of Europe’s unemployed politicians, should go. It must be composed of a small number of persons from the general public, a number far smaller than the number of Member States. That way there will never be “national” Commissioners. All of them will need to be totally impartial.

Article 17 para 5 says:

“As of 14 November 2014, the Commission shall consist of a number of members … corresponding to two-thirds of the number of Member States.” In presenting the Constitutional Treaty in 2003, the mother of the Lisbon monstrosity, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing said that the Commission should be reduced to a dozen members.

What happened? The European Council decided to give itself powers to extend the means to employ 28 Commissioners, one for each State. When did this happen? It happened behind closed doors among the Brussels Politburo, based in 2008 under the Nice Treaty, after the rejection of the Constitutional Treaty, again in 2009 under a draft Lisbon Treaty that Ireland had already rejected, and finally by an unsigned press release issued by the Council Spokesman. The treaties were twice dead, but that did not matter. Nor the fact that no public debate took place.
So maybe it was Zombies wot done him in!!

Perhaps the living dead were among the people steeped in the Brussels frauds. As we have already deduced, the Commission should be as fair minded and as honest as a Jury. When the Jury is selected, the parties may reject jury members if they think that one is dishonest or suspiciously biased. The British Prime Minister, Mr Cameron, rejected one of the potential Jury. I won’t give any names. Let’s call him Mr Tax Haven.
Prime Minster Cameron said Mr Tax Haven must be dismissed.

“He is the wrong man to be President of the European Commission.”

Whatever happened to this man? He should be on our list of suspects!
Who else was involved in pushing Lord Hill off the political cliff with this dagger in his back?
Among the most vocal voices for the British to leave Schnell! Schnell! has been the President of Europe’s democratic chamber, the European Parliament. There’s another suspect! The president of the Parliament was elected both with a secret vote and also the abstention of the biggest party in Parliament — which happens to be the party of Mr Tax Haven! Is some rotten, corrupting collusion involved? Is the rotten smell reaching as far as the United Kingdom and causing ructions in Brussels? We know the something rotten went to Denmark and not vice versa, because the noble Danes were the first to throw out corrupt treaties in referendums.


But are we being too suspicious about the Brussels Bunch? Could it have been an intruder from outside? What about the neighbours? The Norwegians look suspicious. They pay top money to have access to the Single Market. But they never want to joint the European Union. What about the Icelanders? They look very smug with all their well-managed fish stocks. They didn’t have them stolen like the British. They also trashed the English on the football field.
Even more suspicious are the Swiss. They have got a country in the heart of Europe. They were responsible for maintaining Christian values against the Nazi WW2 onslaught. They even protected Jews. Robert Schuman said that Switzerland’s democracy ought to be a model for the New Europe. And — let us say it– they are very fond of referendums. Did the Swiss act out of a motive of jealousy? Even more suspicious they have just withdrawn their application to join the EU!
It’s the referendums that are causing the major problem in Brussels. The British referendum is purely consultative. It cannot bind the UK government. In a democracy the Parliament is sovereign. And in the UK the Sovereign, HM Queen Elizabeth II, also has to sign her assent to an Act of Parliament before any action can be taken. The European Union Referendum Act of 2015 makes it clear that there is no obligation for Her Majesty’s Government (HMG) to follow the slavishly the result of the outcome of the referendum. It is a Consultation. It is a long way from sending a letter according to Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty requesting exit for the EU. Nor is exit certain after a referendum. Other factors may have priority for the country.
That contrasts to the Brussels Politburo where everything is done behind closed doors. Knives enter smoothly. The public outside cannot hear any screams. The European Council loves secrecy. Twenty-eight heads of democratic governments can make plots of political nepotism to promote their fellow politicians, and exclude ordinary citizens. (They decide the presidencies of the European Council, the Commission, the European Central Bank, the super-secretive EuroGroup and many of the thousands of committees in secret.) They can dine in style. They can revel in the most anti-democratic of environments, SECRECY! How very bizarre! Just the opposite to what Schuman said should happen. He said all Councils, Committees and other bodies should be open and under the supervision of public opinion. Openness separates Democracies from dictatorships!
So why do these great anti-democratic Democrats hate the United Kingdom?
Maybe the Brussels Politburo have a down against the UK because it does not follow their Referendum Rules. The most recent case was the Dutch referendum. In it two out of three Dutch voters blackballed the EU Ukraine Association Agreement. Its real aim was to aim a blow at Brussels’s antidemocracy. It even shook the EPP, the party of Mr Tax Haven. “We need to make Europe more democratic and transparent,” Manfred Weber, Its leader in the European Parliament, told Deutschlandfunk radio, saying there was too much backroom politics going on in Brussels.
The Dutch Prime Minister basically ignored the hugely negative anti-Brussels result. So did Brussels.
The British referendum completely violates another aspect of Brussels Politburo referendum rules. These are called the Greek rules. For one, the British took the result of their referendum seriously as if it mattered. It had less than a four percent majority. Really what a to-do about nothing! The Greek rule says just the opposite. When a Member State has a referendum on an important matter, not just membership, but on something really important like money, then the rule has to be strictly adhered to.
Secondly the referendum question has to be in two languages. The Greek showed the way by having their euro referendum question just partly in Greek but mostly in a foreign language, English. The UK referendum is obviously illegal because they had it in a single language. They did not have part of the referendum text in Greek! They even provided ballots in two separate UK languages. One was in British or as some call it Welsh, the other for the Anglo-Saxons was in English. The two peoples did not have a ballot like the Greeks without translation. They were free to choose!
Then thirdly, the Greeks held their referendum at short notice so no one could really discuss it. The British had major discussions in the press, radio and television, public meetings and on social media. That’s a no-no.
Fourthly, Commission interference. A few days was adequate time for the Commission, Mr Tax Haven, to advise all Greeks that they should vote Yes to the conditions set by their monetary masters. A real referendum is one where the Commission puts itself, heart and soul, on one side of the balance like a butcher with his thumb on the scales. For the UK the Commission President did not even dare set his foot on the island of Britain, let alone interfere. He did not speak to British media. Isn’t that suspicious? This strategy worked well because the British realized something darkly underhand was going on.
Fifthly, the result is to be ignored under Greek rules. The Greeks voted massively NO. But that did not matter. The Greek government was forced to accept the monetary package deal anyway. The Commission hoped that they learned their lesson, a lesson that Cyprus learned earlier. That is money is more important than democracy and honesty. The Commission threatened to seize the savings of small savers, against all previous European laws. In the press room the Commission spokespeople were able to rationalize why they agreed that stealing the citizen’s money would be a good thing, regardless of the law. But eventually the bankers only took some of the money.
Now the sceptred island country of the Atlantic is to be eliminated. The country of the Magna Carta and the laws of Hywel the Good defended both freedom and truth for a thousand years before the Romans arrived to try to pervert them.
That history, of course, was the inspiration of Robert Schuman. At his behest, the Statesmen who signed the foundation document of the European Community, the Treaty of Paris, had first of all to sign the Great Charter of the Community. In the clearest terms it distinguished democratic Western Europe from the fraudulent “People’s Democracies” of the Soviet bloc. It said all measures could only be passed with the free will of the people. Freedom and assent are the prime basis for European Community democracy.
For more than sixty years the Gaullists and other “democrats” buried the Great Charter in the archives of the Foreign Ministry. They refused to publish it again. It was eventually republished by the Schuman Project. The Commission despite several letters have ignored it.
If the Brussels Bunch, the neo-Gaullist Politburo, can ban and bury Britain then they will try to bury Schuman and supranational democracy too. We live in dangerous times.

Carta1: A travesty of Magna Carta -- Europe's Lisbon Treaty!

This month British, American and many Commonwealth countries celebrate the Magna Carta of 15 June 1215. The document signed at Runnymede by King John at the insistence of English and Welsh barons reaffirmed ancient British rights, some of them dating back more than a thousand years before King John. That is well before the fifth century Anglo-Saxons arrived (or the Normans in 1066). The codification of so-called ‘Welsh Law‘ by tenth-century ‘King of the Britons’ Hywel the Good before the English conquest stands as witness to some of these Common Law rights.

Chirk Codex in Welsh

The Magna Carta forced the English king to recognize that Justice was not at the whim of the ruler but a supranational value. Both Anglo-Saxons and Normans were a little slow in learning. Since time immemorial ancient Keltic and Cymric laws always maintained the principle, enunciated at the start of their assemblies ‘the country is above the king‘ ‘Trech gwlad n’ arglwydd’
Robert Schuman, the Founder of the European Community system, was a passionate theoretician and practitioner of democracy. He was an admirer of the British and American democracies. His definition of democracy improves on Lincoln’s famous adage of democracy being ‘of the people, by the people and for the people.’
Schuman said that ‘What characterized a democratic state were the objectives that it proposed for itself and the means it searches to attain them.’  Thus while European unity was a good goal in the modern world what was also important was the means by which it is attained and the instruments by which that unity is governed by the people. He continued:
‘It is at the service of the people and acts in agreement with it.’
Service to the people is a vital criterion. It is, in other words, the search for the common good. Just by writing those words evokes the need for a broad debate about what is ‘service’ to the people. What is really the common good? It requires the public exploration of ‘European values’ based on spiritual and moral foundations.
That is why Schuman drafted a Great Charter of the European Community. Also known as the Europe Declaration, it was signed by all the Founding Fathers when they agreed to the Community principles on 18 April 1951. They also signed the first treaty, that of a European Coal and Steel Community, whose basic idea was to expose in practical terms how peace could be constructed and how democracy could be erected at the European level.



The Great Charter of Europe gives as a major principle the following:

In signing the treaty founding the European Community for Coal and Steel Community, a community of 160 million Europeans, the contracting parties give proof of their determination to call into life the first supranational institution, and consequently create the true foundation for an organized Europe.
This Europe is open to all European countries that are able to choose freely for themselves. We sincerely hope that other countries will join us in our common endeavour.

That assurance and guarantee was vital as the Community system stood starkly and courageously in contrast with so-called ‘People’s Democracies’ of the Soviet zone of control. No west European country could boast the  98 percent turnout of voters in the German Democratic Republic (DDR) from 1950 to 1970s. What is even more ‘enviable’ was the extent that 99 percent voted for politicians of nominal Christian Democrat, Liberal, Socialist and other parties who supported the common Communist programme. Only a fraction of one percent voted against this Soviet-controlled programme!
Were elections really free? Obviously not. But at least the DDR let the people vote, even in referendums! The common programme was devised in secret without free public criticism or open to the free press.
Where are we today?
This month of June 2015 is also the tenth anniversary of the burial of the sad affair of the Constitutional Treaty! (Sometimes it is erroneously called the ‘Constitution’. It was never a real constitution, as its author, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, constantly said.)
France voted against it. With a 69 percent turnout, 55 percent said ‘NON’! The Netherlands were more emphatic — 69 percent No! Other Europeans in other States were set to vote against it. But their right to hold a referendum was withdrawn! By whom? The representatives of the people!
Schuman always respected the referendum votes (for example on the Constitution of the Fourth Republic). Even de Gaulle did too, although he used the referendum as a means to maintain autocratic power against the influence of political parties. When the people said No to his reform proposal, he resigned. How many politicians resigned in 2005?
Unfortunately the present breed of politicians is even more cynical and underhand. The politicians served their Constitutional Treaty up again. Not as a full text, but as amendments to the current treaty for the European Economic Community. Their document was a list. It was an incomprehensible mass of ‘omit this’ and ‘replace it with that’. The politicians said publicly that it was exactly their plan. It had to be incomprehensible to pass it through parliaments! They refused to publish the complete, amended treaty. One Belgian minister said:

‘The aim of the Constitutional Treaty was to be more readable. … The aim of this treaty is to be unreadable. … The aim of the Constitution aimed to be clear, whereas this treaty had to be unclear. It is a success.’ (Flanders info, 23 June 2007)

Was he sacked? No, he became a European Commissioner!
Instead of a referendum ( which was sure to be lost!) the political class agreed it amongst themselves. It gave parties money and power. They voted it in in their parliaments under party discipline. In some parliaments this was voted without seeing the text! In others, like France, it required a change to the national constitution to enable this unethical manoeuvre to be done. The European Parliament to its lasting shame refused to publish the full text before symbolically voting Yes on it.
No further referendum!
It produced the same result as the ‘Constitutional Treaty’ but was renamed the Lisbon Treaty. Was it identical? Yes except for the removal of articles on the official flying of the European flag and playing the European anthem. What a coldly Machiavellian piece of democratic mockery that action was.

Do European flags fly today at the Commission’s Berlaymont?

The basic principle that Schuman enunciated (signed by all Founding Fathers as the Charter of the Community) was that all steps towards European unity must have the wholehearted support of the people by democratic vote at all levels of European activity.
The Founding Fathers provided several independent institutions to guarantee that the Community would be easily distinguish as ‘Democratic Europe’ from the false and artificial ‘People’s Democracies’ of the Soviet zone.
These include:

• a Council of Ministers that was open to the press in all its deliberations and decisions (not yet happened!).
• A European Parliament that was elected under a single set of electoral rules (not yet happened!).
• Consultative Committees that were elected by European Associations (not yet happened!),
• Commission whose members  are honest as Court judges and have thus divested themselves of any relevant interests including membership of political parties (not yet happened and party membership is to be mandatory!).

Aren’t you glad that Europe today is not cynically controlled by Communists!