Brexit and Renaissance for European Democracy. Why PM May spoke in Florence in 2017.

On 22 September 2017 Prime Minister took her leading ministers and a gaggle of press to Italy. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was there. So was Brexit Secretary David Davis and Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond. Why? Just for a speech! Then they all returned to London.

Does Germany’s Angela Merkel take such a day trip to foreign lands with her ministers? Does M. Macron? Leaders usually don’t waste taxpayers money for such extravaganzas. They have pride in their own towns and cities.
Aren’t there great cities in Britain? Some are as old or older than Florence. Florence was founded as a settlement by the Etruscans around 200 BCE. it was destroyed by the Romans and rebuilt by Julius Caesar. There are cities in Britain many centuries older. Britain saw off Caesar twice when he tried to invade. He shuffled off to Rome in shame.
Mrs May decided not to take her ministers to Paris, the City of Light. She eschewed Berlin that vortex of the German superpower. Nor were the friendly neighbours of the Netherlands, Belgium or Luxembourg asked to provide a venue. Instead she chose Italy. She tripped to a provincial town, not Rome. Nor did she invite the Italian Prime Minister to listen to her.
What did she do in Florence? She spoke. Aren’t there modern auditoriums in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland?
Apparently not as fitting as the place the British leader chose in Italy. Even as a founder State of the European Community, Italy was then considered on the margins of European power-brokering. Poland and the countries newly freed from the Soviet yoke were not on her list for a suitable backdrop for her speech. And the room in which she spoke was hardly an auditorium with modern acoustics.

Did she choose a richly ornate palace? No. Did she choose the British Institute with its famous library that was celebrating its 100th anniversary? No.
She spoke in an Abbey that had been in disuse. The Santa Maria Novella is the first basilica built in Florence. It dates from the early fifteenth century. But it had been taken over by squatters — pigeons. The place had to cleaned up from their droppings. It was considered an annex of the military police force, the Scuola Sottufficale Carabinieri.

What did PM May say to explain and justify this expense and rupture of custom? She began her speech — without anyone welcoming or introducing her — by saying:

“It’s good to be here in this great city of Florence today at a critical time in the evolution of the relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union. It was here, more than anywhere else, that the Renaissance began –

• a period of history that inspired centuries of creativity and critical thought across our continent and which in many ways defined what it meant to be European.
• A period of history whose example shaped the modern world.
• A period of history that teaches us that when we come together in a spirit of ambition and innovation, we have it within ourselves to do great things.”

“To do great things” together sounds like a forecast.

What do we see today?

• Europe is in crisis.
• UK is in crisis.
• The Westminster Parliament is in crisis.

That could have been said of the general state of Europe in the 1400s. That is why the Santa Maria Novella is an important landmark. The basilica held a meeting in 1439 between European leaders and theologians and the Emperor of the Roman Empire whose practical area of administration was reduced to Constantinople. In the long imperial absence from western European affairs, although he still retained legal primacy, the pope had set up a phantom Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. (It was Fake News, Fake History. It was neither holy, nor Roman nor German!) A decade and a half later in 1453 the Roman Empire, founded around 750 BCE with a millennium-long capital Constantinople, was extinguished by the Ottoman Turks.

The papacy claimed temporal powers over kings and kingdoms. It had tried to extend its fiefdom to the Angles and Saxons with the mission of Augustine around 600. (The Britons who knew better resisted this intrusion.)

Rome’s main weapon was the Latin language and its Latin version of the Bible to the exclusion of the original languages. The Reformation showed it was a Fake too. Greek had not been taught in Italy for seven centuries before the events of Santa Maria Novella. As for the Hebrew Scriptures, only the Jews and some persecuted non-Catholics even knew that this was the sacred tongue of Moses and Jesus.

In 1420 Pope Martin V called for “the extirpation of Wycklifites, Hussites and other heretics” who were not taken by Catholicism. This followed centuries of slaughter of Waldenians, Henricans, Petrobusians and Bogomils. Historian Raphael Lempkin coined the term “genocide” to describe the perhaps one million killed in the Albigensian-Cathar “crusade“.

Why did the Byzantine emperor decide to come west to what was legally part of his empire but effectively lost? That followed decades of Councils organised by European rulers aiming to reform the debauched papacy and bring peace. The emperor sent his envoys. One of the emperors diplomat/scholars, Chrysolorus, stayed on to become professor of Greek in Florence. The Medicis knew that knowledge was power.

Truth has explosive force. So does reaction to corruption.

Florence and Rome were at loggerheads. In 1478 Pope Sixtus IV tried to assassinate the Medici brothers in Florence’s cathedral. Giuliano died. Leonardo da Vinci, then the same age, became the envoy of Lorenzo Medici to help build up anti-Roman military power in Milan. The Florentine bishops excommunicated pope Sixtus IV. He ‘waded deep in crime and bloodshed,’ wrote a contemporary.

In 1439 the emperor wouldn’t go to Rome. Nor would the pope travel to Ravenna, erstwhile imperial capital in the west, then under Venetian control. So he came to Florence where there was a semblance of biblical scholarship.

Florence was overwhelmed by the arrival of Emperor John Paleologus VIII decked in oriental splendour and with a sumptuous retenue of 700. He also brought with him Joseph II, Patriarch of Constantinople, together with 22 metropolitans, bishops and many theologians and scholars. Pope Eugenius IV may have been surprised to know that his title of ‘pope‘ came from the Greek word meaning ‘father‘ and was applied to all priests in the Greek-speaking world and earlier throughout Europe.

But rich as he might appear, the Roman emperor lacked arms and armies to defend his capital that Constantine established in the 320s. He was shaken by the Catholics’ fraudulent claims too. Would he trade his Orthodox “heresy”, submit to a union with the Roman Catholic pope in exchange for west European swords and men?

This tentative of unity failed on a number of counts. Europe failed to send troops to defend Constantinople. And the theologians there would not countenance the errors of the popes.

The lasting legacy was not the personalities involved. Who remembers their names buried amid fakes of power-brokers? It was that Europeans were able to understand the original Greek and Hebrew and get to grips with the quest for truth in a world full of Fakes. Erasmus published the Greek text side-by-side with an accurate Latin translation.

Fake Faith was finished.

Truth was the motor of the Renaissance.

Brussels and London and all the other capitals are faced with the same problem of truth and true democracy. As usual they may try every other way but the right one until everything else is eliminated. It is time for Europeans to rid themselves of fake history and fake treaties like that of Lisbon. They were rejected in referendums.

It is time to reassert the elementary idea that democracies mean that the people, not the unaccountable politicians, are in charge. That is why the five European institutions of Schuman and the European Founding Fathers that describe a fair and honest balance between

• Nations,
• Associations,
• Individuals

must eventually prevail.

Questions to UK Attorney General Cox and Brexit Committees

To House of Commons and House of Lords Brexit Committees

Questions to be put to Attorney General Geoffrey Cox.

Please circulate to all committee members:

Serious flaws in the legal procedure for the Brexit Article 50 letter have been pointed out to Parliament in two enclosed Petitions. Action, and legal and constitutional clarification is urgently required. Six copies of the book “Brexit and Britain’s Vision for Europe“, sent to Brexit Secretaries of State and Brexit Committees, deal with the issues in full.
The petitions raise three issues, vital for the prosperous future of the UK and good relations with our European partners.

1. Euratom. No ballot paper was issued, nor prior notification given, nor publication made, nor Government statement in Parliament about leaving Euratom before the vote of 23 June 2016. Nuclear security, energy and medicines should not be compromised by a flawed Brexit concept defying and overstepping any legal authority of the people in the referendum. No assent was given. Whatever HMG thinks, or opinion Parliament later passes, Euratom is a distinct and separate international treaty for 28 Member States in a Community system.

2. European Union only, not EEC. The ballot paper was about leaving “the European Union” not the European Communities. The 1975 Referendum gave a two-thirds majority in favour of staying in the European Community.
The European Union was defined in the subsequent treaties as additions to the European Economic Community, EEC. This included new institutions and bureaucracies. Many times referendums were promised. None materialised. Major changes were introduced against the popular sentiment, especially in the Lisbon Treaty, almost identical with the undemocratic and rejected Constitutional Treaty.
The Euratom and European Coal and Steel Communities were not subsumed in the EU.
Leaving the European Union means leaving EU treaties that have not been ratified by the people in the 1975 referendum. It does not mean leaving the EEC Customs Union, Single Market or nuclear safeguards of Euratom.

3. Referendum required for Treaty validation. The articles modifying the EEC to make it the EU Treaty were rejected in referendums in France, the Netherlands, Ireland. The exact words of article 50 were rejected by referendums when it was called the Constitutional Treaty. They would almost certainly have been rejected in UK had the referendum been carried out at any time before 2016. It was promised by both Labour and Conservatives. They stated such a referendum was necessary to validate it. HMG cannot use referendum article 50 in the unvalidated EU Treaty. It is an abuse and a breach of duty. It is both unsafe and dishonest.
First, a review is needed. Article 50 needs to be paused. The treaty needs ratification by referendum to validate it. So said both governments. HMG is now trying to use this flawed operation to override the non-exit clauses validated by the 1975 referendum. It is unsafe to do so. Both the EEC and Euratom have articles stating that the treaties are “concluded for an unlimited time” (article 240 EEC, 208 Euratom). Why? Because all States and peoples agreed that Open Democracy was the only way for the future of Europe to solve problems. HMG cannot override the people’s voice and due constitutional process without dire consequences.

Petition on Euratom

Petition Article 50 treaty Flaw

UK’s and Europe’s future and prosperity depends on tackling its common responsibilities for the Democratic Deficit. Europe’s history shows that in 1950 its two millennia of wars and killing can be changed into unprecedented peace. This new challenging phase needs to be tackled with the same determination for honesty and good will to all.
Many thanks for your urgent attention to this. I look forward to hear your response.
David Price
Editor, Schuman Project
eurDemocracy

Petition to UK Parliament: Brexit from Euratom and Common Market is illegal

SUCCESS! 

After several attempts to get the Parliament panel (composed of 11 MPs) to accept a petition that exposes the negligence of parliament to follow legal and constitutional rules on Brexit, the petition panel finally agreed to the Euratom petition. This exposes two major flaws in the Brexit process. Both Labour and Conservative governments when in office reneged their correct policy positions for a clear referendum on the EU treaty.

It emphasizes that the British people have a fundamental right to decide on the way Europe is being constructed. Up till now such decisions have been made behind the closed doors of the European Council.

Why the Petition on Euratom is important:
1. In her Article 50 letter to Brussels Prime Minister May specifies that UK will leave Euratom. BUT the idea of leaving Euratom is not on the ballot paper of the Referendum. I have found no Government statement about Euratom before the referendum, nor speech in Parliament, nor any mention of Euratom in the publication they sent to all households. The Lisbon Treaty on the European Union and the Euratom treaty are quite separate in law. Euratom was signed in 1957 and British people voted to remain in it as part of the European Community in 1975. The Lisbon treaty is the last in a series of treaties that modified only one of two treaties signed in 1957 -- the European Economic Community treaty, known also as the Common Market. The EU system is vastly different from the original Community system.

So leaving Euratom needs democratic approval by the people.

2. The second part of the petition is potentially even more important. The petition makes clear that the UK people only voted to leave the European Union. And that this is very different from the European Community and the original European Economic Community treaty. Hence all the additions and amendments that change the democracy of the original Economic Community treaty are declared illegal.
These are the changes that, ever since the 1980s, people have ceaselessly complained about. They give the Community system "a democratic deficit". They include a whole series of closed door committees and bureaucracies. They involve a system that continues the Gaullist abuses of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This subsidy to French farmers/ voters and others reached to nearly three quarters of the entire European budget. The UK objected. Agriculture represented only 2 or 3 percent of the economy. However despite the cuts to the CAP, the EU leaders found means to keep the budget at the same level of taxation! CAP still takes more than a third of the budget. And they are expecting a great budget increase in the coming years. Why? Where is the means to deal with the future, innovation and science? Why is youth unemployment so high and wages low?

Many thanks for helping start this great debate about democracy in Europe.
It is of historic proportions.

Please feel free to circulate the link below from Parliament. Any British citizen worldwide and people resident in UK may sign up to the Petition.
Click this link to see your petition and start sharing it:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/240327

When it reaches 10,000 the government will respond formally. When it reaches 100,000 signatures it will be debated in Parliament.

Many thanks.

PM May and Parliament get Petition about their "Great Brexit Fraud"

MPs Reject Petition exposing the "Great Brexit Fraud" but Government gets the message. 

Is That Petition Clear?

Apparently not. A panel of 11 MPs again rejected my Petition on the "Great Brexit Fraud". The Petition was nevertheless sent to Prime Minister Theresa May and key Brexit ministers and committees. 

The Petitions panel said its reason for rejection was that it was not sure what I was asking! The panel is composed of five Conservative MPs, five Labour and one Scottish nationalist. 

They should have been well aware of the background. 

Prime ministers of both Tory and Labour parties pledged that a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty was necessary to recognize it in law and constitutionally. They promised a referendum to deal with "massive" changes leading to a "European Super-State".
In other words the Lisbon treaty makes a major dislocation to British democracy and the UK constitution. It creates powers ABOVE the nation State -- directly contrary to the founding principles of the Community system. Robert Schuman was clear: the nation State was the final arbiter of the powers delegated in a Community. The people must be free to choose.

The legal need for referendums about the destiny of the country is not in dispute. Earlier, UK Referendums on changes affecting the Constitution were universally agreed as necessary without demur. They were held for democratic assent in establishing Assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. They considered a referendum necessary for asking the Scottish population about independence in 2014. 

It goes without saying that changes or destruction to the democratic constitution of the whole United Kingdom must be subject to the people's voice. That is why all recent governments were unanimous in promising a referendum on the EU treaty. 

But neither Labour or Tory/Liberal Democrat, Tory or Tory/Democratic Unionist governments ever provided a referendum on the European Treaty and how it differed from the European Community. These constitutional changes have been made since 2000 and well before. They culminated in the Lisbon Treaty of 2009. 

Instead, the Conservative government had a referendum based on article 50 of the treaty -- that assumes the treaty was already legal! To my mind that is a scam. 

Add to this outrage the fact that the treaty and all articles with few exceptions were rejected in French and Dutch referendums when the treaty was called the Constitutional treaty. To say that there is any substantial difference between the treaty rejected by these referendums and the Lisbon Treaty forced through without a referendum is, as the Economist wrote, "pitifully unconvincing." 

So let us just admit the Fraud. Cheat the people and they vote against you. So let us then logically analyse how Brexit became inevitable. That is the first step to repair confidence.

The Government is now in a deep, black hole of a Brexit dilemma. No one can agree about what to do. 

• How does the country escape financial ruin if all euro-based trading leaves UK and the City? 
• Legal collapse (No replacement agencies are in place, nor treaties)? 
• Industrial pauperisation?
• How can a country look into the future with every British and European regulation legally unsafe?  

So what can be done about it?

• Why on earth would an honest government try to hide the fact that the treaty was soundly rejected in French and Dutch referendums? 
• That Governments promised one in the UK? 
• That Britons are still waiting for that? 
• Then to add insult to illegality the government is wrong in using an article in a treaty that first requires a referendum to activate it?

Surely it would be logical and necessary to examine the CAUSE of the problem? It needs to secure the future.

The Petition panel rejection allowed me to accomplish my main goal -- to bring the illegality of the Brexit referendum decisively to the attention of the Prime Minister and her main Brexit ministers. It is now up to them to make a decision. History will judge them -- and maybe the Court of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in Strasbourg.
They should be aware of the consequences for parliamentary democracy and long-term lack of trust in UK institutions. 

Both UK and Brussels are descending on a dangerous path to anarchy and oligarchy. Popularist demonstrations and hostile populist governments are the warning signal for even greater disorder.  

What I did was to ask the Petition panel for an appeal of their decision. No mechanism is provided. So I wrote the following letter -- with copies to the Prime Minister and four main Secretaries of State (Barclay, Lidington, Hunt, Fox) involved in Brexit, Brexit committee chairmen in the Commons and Lords, plus those former ministers to whom I sent my book in 2016 a few months after the Referendum result. That included Boris Johnson and David Davis.  

A second petition on Euratom and Brexit is still under consideration by the panel. Euratom covers nuclear non-proliferation, safety, energy policy and medicine. It has been successfully applied since 1973.  

The petition requires the Government to reverse its Article 50 Letter about leaving Euratom as it gave no notice or means to reject an exit. It had no debate. Before the vote it did not state in Parliament nor publish anything about leaving Euratom. Nor did it say anything about Euratom on the referendum ballot paper. Click this link to sign the petition:

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/240327/sponsors/new?token=NxmQu89aiqTQ7r14A7oq

Dear Sir or Madam,

{My petition is entitled } “Parliament and HMG must retract Article 50 Letter. Legal basis in treaty is flawed”.

I was surprised to be informed yesterday that my petition had been rejected by the petitions committee.

It was stated that "It’s not clear what the petition is asking the UK Government or Parliament to do. Petitions need to call on the Government or Parliament to take a specific action. We're not sure exactly what you'd like the Government or Parliament to do. The Lisbon Treaty came into force in 2009."

I believe I was eminently clear about what the government and Parliament should do. I enumerated the following two points as 

"Action required by Parliament and Government.. 

1. Withdraw or suspend Article 50 Letter

2. Hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty to validate so it can be used for its Article 50." 

I also wrote to the Prime Minister Theresa May in 2016, four Secretaries of State concerned (Trade, Foreign Office, Cabinet Office and Brexit) and a number of MPs on the Brexit committees explaining the issues involved. I sent a copy of my book "Brexit and Britain's Vision for Europe" to each of them. 

A parliamentary discussion is urgently needed to review the legality of action that HMG and Parliament have already taken. Both major parties when in Government and Opposition said that a referendum was necessary to validate the EU Treaty. It can be concluded therefore that a referendum was considered legally indisputable to them. 

And then they reneged. 

The reasons they did not go through with this pledge and legal obligation is the crux of the debate that is now required by the public and the signatories of the petition. It also provides the solution to the Brexit dilemma.

Constitutionally and legally, the Lisbon Treaty needs to be properly validated according to their own promises, commitments and "cast-iron" guarantees of action. The EU treaty has changed not only the British constitution but added new institutions and power in Brussels "massively" modifying our relationship with Europe earlier (to quote Mr Cameron). 

The previous European Community arrangement was subject to approval by referendum in 1975. No further change can be made from the Community system without a further referendum. This is especially the case as the Lisbon Treaty completely changes the European Community system so radically. Both EEC and Euratom had articles (approved by the public in the 1975 referendum) that the treaties were in force for an unlimited period. 

That means that Brexit under Article 50 of a subsequent treaty is ruled out. Permanence of the democratic link to the Continent and commitment to democratic solutions in open democratic institutions cannot be overruled by a legally unsafe treaty, consistently opposed by a majority of the population. This is especially the case as the Lisbon Treaty and its earlier reincarnation were roundly rejected by other Member States in their referendums. 

The petition would also provide the means to resolve the blockage in Parliament on the Withdrawal Treaty -- where no majority can be found to move forward. A clarification of the UK constitutional position could provide a breathing space to consolidate UK policy. A judicial review of our democratic relations with Europe and its democracies is essential for a stable near- and long-term future. Britain's voice is crucial for democratic reform of the European institutions to make them more open and accountable. The Democratic Deficit that has been on the political agenda for three or four decades needs to be tackled seriously.

I would therefore request that you supply me with

(a) the details about how this decision was made and clarifying the grounds it gave for rejection.

(b) the time and place the decision was made,

(c)  the names of MPs who voted, with their reasoning.

(d) the system for making an Appeal because a decision was not impartial.

Yours etc

  

The GREAT BREXIT FRAUD -- a short history

The Brexit referendum has already cost the country millions perhaps billions of pounds. Tax-payers’ money. Your money. The Pound has sunk in value. The stock market has been hit. Industries are in a quandary. Some have moved out. Some have had to build or rent extra warehouse space because of the threat of Just-In-Time supply schedules will be broken by customs delays. Workers have been laid off. Harbours have been dredged in order to find new shipping capacity. It has also left many families in tears and fears at the consequences. The EU-27 have also spent millions.

Who gets the bill? Who is to blame for the Brexoshambles?

Who called the Referendum? That was David Cameron, the Prime Minister in 2006 and again in 2016.

But the reason I would call it a CHEAT and not a CRIME is that it is unclear still if it was due to ignorance or political charlatanism. But it certainly depleted public and private treasuries. It sapped national confidence. It turned the island into a sack of fighting cats.

I give Cameron the benefit of the doubt. But one thing is clear: All the heart-burn, anxieties and worries of millions of citizens and costs of billions were unnecessary!

How was the whole Referendum Operation concocted as a FRAUD? If it were purely a political problem, why is the British Parliament in turmoil? Politicians know how to wheel and deal.

This is a problem of a different order. Where is common sense? Where is the national interest? Why do the British have what has been called a Zombie government, a prime minister supported by her party but with no policy?

They have all been caught in a trap. It is a trap meant to throw right and wrong into stark silhouette. Robert Schuman‘s noble design to have honest government in Europe dates from July 1948, the turning point of all European political history. it is a date that today’s leaders in Europe refused to acknowledge.

But first we need to analyse how Europeans got caught in the trap. Why are those rendered impotent in the parliaments guilty of dishonesty?

Why are all the MPs of any party nonplussed about how to proceed?

The reason is they have all been FOOLED and SCAMMED. They don’t know who is to blame. Nor the real problem. Both Brexiteers and Remainers are right to a certain extent. And the more they believe they are acting correctly, the more they strain every muscle to their direction. They also voted to enter the honesty or integrity trap.

But they can’t agree on common action. The can’t agree on the EU Withdrawal Act. They can’t agree on ruling out a no-deal exit. They can’t agree about a further referendum. (It might be followed by yet another and another if the result was “unsatisfactory”. In 2016 UKIP’s Nigel Farage said that if the Brexit campaign lost by 48 to 52%, it would be “unfinished business“. A two-thirds majority, he said, was needed to avoid a neverendum.)

And they can’t agree on hardly anything. The deadline of 29 March looms large.

They are just like the trickster who tied two mules together and placed them facing two piles of straw. They died of over-exertion and starvation!

They have all been made victims and participants in an elaborate political fraud. The politicians have been hoisted on their own petard. So have the whole British public. They are all so deceived that they are walking around like the blind bashing each other with sticks.

Have all the politicians been struck mad? Hokus Pokus! If it were entertainment we would call it a conjurer’s trick.

To understand the trick, we have to analyse the sleight of hand. There is more than a single trick involved or a single victim. How did the politicians trick themselves? How do we get back to reality? We need to go back a decade or more — when the politicians of Europe were conducting their own nefarious trick operations. They failed.

It was called the European Constitution. The idea of dreamy-eyed, shallow-brained utopians was to turn the three European Communities and associated technocracies into a Federal State. Federal States have constitutions don’t they? Wouldn’t that give politicians new powers? It would also shut the people out from decision-making.

The Constitution was an illusion, right from the start. Valery Giscard d’Estaing was in charge of the operation. Unfortunately for the federalists he let the cat out of the bag– several times. It was a big-time SCAM.

He declared that, although it was called a Treaty establishing a Constitution for the Europe, what he was designing was NOT a Constitution but a Treaty. It was a ConstitutionALTreaty, he said. It was a treaty like all the others that proceed it. Only this time instead of being called Maastricht, Amsterdam or Nice it was called Constitutional. That word ‘constitution‘ was just spin.

Constitutions are not created by treaties. Any constitutional lawyer knows that. Treaties are agreements between States, usually for regulating matters like trade. Constitutions date back to the earliest civilizations. Even before the Code of Hammurabi in Babylon around 1700 BCE, there were constitutional codes like that of Esh-Nunna in central Mesopotamia several centuries earlier. One of the oldest codes extant dates from around 2100 BCE, the third dynasty Sumerian Code of Ur-Nammu. Older ones are known to have existed.

Forging a European Constitution that cheats nations of their own constitutions takes a lot of impudence and affrontery. Thieves are trying to bury four thousand years of the history of civilization! That audacity is why Europe is in a mess today.

Constitutions embrace and describe the functioning of the whole State and the principles that govern it. They have power to override all laws and law-makers, domestic and external. Constitutions, to work well or at all, have to have the support of the people and other associations and institutions. That demands justice.

If a group of people try to usurp the powers of the people in a State, it is called Tyranny. That’s what the Americans objected to in 1776.

The so-called Constitutional Treaty, despite its frippery, was just a treaty. it could have been named after a city, like Maastricht, Amsterdam or Nice.

And in fact it later was! Lisbon!

It was really a power grab by power-hungry politicians to take powers from the citizens without any commensurate democratic control. The Community was based on the free choice of citizens and nations.

Ah democratic control! Legitimacy!

That’s where Prime Minister Tony Blair came unstuck too. In order to get the Constitutional Treaty validated by the States, it had to be passed by the Parliaments. And it was a Biggie. So it had to have a referendum in nearly all States.

Mr Blair promised twice that there would be a referendum of the British people. But somehow he did not get around to have a referendum. Mr Cameron, then in opposition, denounced the “massive transfer of powers” of the Treaty. Parliament laid down a Bill for the European Union Act 2005 for a Referendum on the treaty. The question was to be:

Should the United Kingdom approve the Treaty establishing a Constitution for the European Union?

The bill was first introduced during the parliamentary session of 2004/05 and received a second reading. It fell at the end of that parliament. The bill was reintroduced in the new Blair parliament in the 2005/06 session. However it was withdrawn after its first reading by Jack Straw on 6 June 2005 following “no” votes in referendums that were held on ratifying the European Constitution in France and in the Netherlands. Why? Didn’t Britons have an equal right to express their wish?

The British voter have had no chance to voice their opinion on any treaty since 1975. Vast changes of undemocracy have taken place since then. Fortunately for Europe, others did. French electors saw through this folly. In 2005 they rejected the Constitutional Treaty by an impressive 55% majority.

OOOH LA LA, the French! That makes a difference. Some nations think they are more equal than others! It got worse. The Dutch voted the Constitutional Treaty down by an even larger 61% majority. The French had a cultural concept of the Social Contract from Rousseau. But this was not a question of a majority oppressing a minority, that democrats feared. It was a clear signal that the majority was sending up a warning flare that the whole of French society should reject this “Constitution” as it hid overt and disguised dangers to democracy.

Lined up to vote were six other States. They had been left to the end of the calendar for a reason. Momentum. They were less enthusiastic. They had democratic traditions. They didn’t seem to like the treaty: Czechs, Danes, Irish, Poles, Portuguese and last of all were the British!

But the treaty was now exposed as a deceit for duplicitous despotism. Still, the fraudsters did not give up. They still hoped it could become the new Constitution, even by the bizarre antidemocratic edict of the European Commission President Barroso. He said that it would just take a majority of States! That’s like saying that if you have a dozen people and seven say a bottle contains healthy liquid and five say it is poisonous, then it is all right for all to drink it.

Tyrannies are deadly. States are Sovereign and guardians of their own welfare. What sort of democrat takes chances with a disguised dictatorship trying to be kind and cuddly? Some people are not fooled by politicians’ smooth talk.

It soon became clear even to Barroso that arithmetically the Constitutional Treaty was dead. Or was it? Three years later the politicians -- meeting of the Heads of State and Government (not yet officially the European Council) behind closed doors as usual -- declared that they were going to raise the corpse, add more articles, and call it the Reform Treaty. All that voting of the people, they said, was in vain. This time there would be nothing as inconvenient and ham-fisted as voting. Politicians, the main beneficiaries, would force the treaty through parliaments without any need of the people to worry their pretty heads. Governments had majorities and their party machines revved up to obey. Conscience went out the window. The party whips have ways to break your fingers if you don’t vote on party lines!

The effect was the same as if the Constitutional Treaty had been passed — against the wishes of the people. That is tyranny. Despotism by deceit and democratic duplicity. It created a new secretive oligarchy called the European Council. The people never agreed to this. The founding fathers thought it should never be created. They had good reasons.

But the politicians said:

The people need not worry about what they discussed there — the doors would be closed to the public. But to reassure them we will from time to time issue decrees and press communiques.

The Reform Treaty arose like a phoenix from the ashes of the “Constitution” warship that the people had sunk by their cannonade of Noes and Nons. It was the spitting image of the Constitutional Treaty. Not surprising. Many articles were word-for-word identical. The pirate ship was renamed by Mr Barroso and his friends as the Lisbon Treaty. That’s a quick card shuffle designed to add an extra bit of confusion to the trickery.

There is no denying the gravity of the treachery and international turpitude. A major change of the whole governance system of Europe was rejected by Europeans in referendums. Then, in spite of the people’s voice, the governments acting in secret, colluded to restore the very same treaty and add a few more poisonous articles. Instead of putting this to the people, they forced the treaty through parliament in such a way they avoided all electoral responsibility. The representatives, the servants, of the people treated their masters as fools.

This is a monstrous abuse of powers — paralleled for those who want a historic precedent — with the seizure of power by Adolf Hitler who used the Enabling Laws in Weimar Germany. He then wiped out all oppositional parties. Perhaps he considered them too “popularist”.

Mr Cameron then promised that if elected he would ensure that a referendum would take place on the EU Treaty. But when he made a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats, he dropped the idea. He was hissed for this hypocrisy. Then for the next election he promised that if re-elected he would hold a referendum.

In a September 2007 article for The Sun newspaper, Mr. Cameron promised,

“Today, I will give this cast-iron guarantee: If I become PM a Conservative government will hold a referendum on any EU treaty that emerges from these negotiations.”

In 2009 Mr Cameron, still in Opposition, introduced a Bill in Parliament for a Referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. He called for the public to ‘pile up pressure‘ for a referendum. Too much power would pass to Brussels, Mr Cameron told BBC. He said he would not let matters rest if he took office as Prime Minister. he said major constitutional issues were involved; Brussels “was in the endless process of building a superstate.”
The Labour party record is even worse. It twice submitted a Bill for a referendum to Parliament. It twice abandoned it. The lookalike Lisbon Treaty was then championed by Prime Minister Tony Blair but it was signed reluctantly and a little bit after the official ceremony by his replacement, Gordon Brown on 13 December 2007. Mr Blair had promised a referendum on it. But, Mr Brown said he would not do it. To say the Lisbon Treaty was different from the Constitution is “pitifully unconvincing.”

The Lisbon Treaty was therefore ratified by Parliament only WITHOUT any public assent in June 2008. But due to the Irish rejection in a referendum did not come into force until 1 December 2009.

The record of both British governments and three parties, Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrats, is horrendous in their criminal and constitutional disdain.

But the EU Treaty was not ratified legally because it was a major constitutional change. The last time any thing near this level of change took place was entry into the Community system. For that governments and parties agreed that the 1975 Referendum was necessary. How much more the EU treaties with their “massive changes” to Britain’s democracy? Only the Irish had the possibility to hold a referendum and they had no hesitation at first in rejecting it. What does that say about the deplorable state of democracy in Europe and the despotic attitude of its leaders.

It never needed to happen. It has set back democracy and prosperity by more than a decade.

The only remedy now lies with the Courts.

Spitzenkandidat system is EU's Destroyer of Democracy

In all European history, the European Commission amounts to the greatest innovation of political governance systems of Europe.

• It is not found in centralised systems.
• It is not found in confederal systems.
• It is not found in federal systems.

The European Commission — which was first called the High Authority — is an Honest Broker. What is the highest authority in a democracy? It is the call of justice and honesty. We can all recognize natural laws of justice, especially when it affects us.

This innovation explains why Europe now has PEACE. Without it peace would not have happened. Monkeying with it is the most dangerous stupidity that Europeans could think of. Brexit is just the latest outcome of a partisan, party-political Commission.

The fallacious Spitzenkandidat system EXCLUDES non-political citizens. It restricts the Commission to the BIASED -- those with political ideologies in parties funded by who knows who.

In May 1948 Robert Schuman, the initiator of Europe’s peace-enhancing democracy, called for a Regulator of Liberty to help European States re-establish themselves after WW2. Schuman was then Prime Minister of France. Western Europe with frail democracies was facing a massive Soviet Red Army that had already taken control of Central and Eastern Europe.

Why a Regulator? This first stage was to help resolve disputes between democratic States, to safeguard the future but also propose measures for the benefit of all. The first such Regulator was for Liberty. The Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms listed our essential civil liberties. It showed the Soviet system was a party dictatorship, intent on crushing religious and other freedoms. Autocracies were equally dangerous.

The Regulator was something that ordinary people could understand. But it was still highly controversial for people who had not thought through the problem of war and peace.

Democracies are under the Rule of Law. But governments sometimes abuse their powers of law-making. Governments can be abusive. Germany in the interwar years was nominally a democracy but it turned sour as Nazis seized power. How can democracies prevent this from happening again?

Individuals and groups can appeal to European judges when personal or other Liberty has been violated. That would stop States descending into the black cellar of a gangster State like Nazi Germany. What would be the rules that the judges would apply? Natural law, human rights and fundamental freedom.

Europeans then could have growing confidence in cross-border relations and economies of scale. First it was necessary to only tackle the most vital part of the economy. There was no question in Schuman’s mind of creating an instant federal system covering all aspects of society. He dismissed the idea as ‘utopian’.

For historic reasons of the causes of war, Schuman targeted the international cartels that led to both of the two world wars and for the Franco-Prussian war in 1870. Cartels fired up the nationalist arms race before the world wars. Cartels also profiteered internationally by exploiting the arms sales by sharing patents.

Europe, he said, must proceed step by step. So the regulator was first introduced in a more technical system of European cooperation like the single market of the European Coal and Steel Community. Then it was applied to the Customs Union of the Economic Community and the nuclear security system of Euratom. Thus a technical type of Regulator of Liberty was required within each Community.

Imagine if a group of ideologues controlled the major armaments firms in Europe. What if a party was able to control the customs tariffs or the internal Single Market and hence aspects of all international trade? What if some ruthless power-hungry group of gangsters controlled the nuclear industry in Europe. They could possess the sole means to build nuclear bombs. They could define security policy and extract a ransom.

None of these foreseeable events is in the public good in one country or all European countries.

The Commission acts as an Arbitrator of the parties concerned working for their good as defined in rules by the parties concerned. It oversees industries, workers and consumers as well as assuring technical advancement and regional fairness.

It is not composed of one Arbitrator but a group or college. Think of it as the Jury of Europe. The Jury is chosen because each of its members is considered non-partisan, free of any prejudices of the case before them.

Who chooses them? A Jury is chosen from a list of citizens. And they are chosen not by a positive vote because they look handsome or pretty. They are chosen by elimination of prejudice.

INDEPENDENT. They have to be NON-PARTISAN and seen to be impartial by both parties in a dispute. The Commission members have to be totally independent but also experienced in the subjects that come before them.

That is what the treaties say from the start. The Commission must be made up of experienced people who have shown they are not biased in favour of any State, political party, commercial or other interests or personal bias. They are independent of any issue that comes before them. They cannot be accused of bias because their experience shows that they are not partisans for one side or the other.

That is why democratic countries hold to the Jury system composed of free and honest citizens. They judge the issues at stake. The Jury is the highest judge. A Jury can make a judgement in defiance of the judge in court and the law passed by a parliament. Both of these could themselves be biased. How? The judge because he wants to stick to precedent. The parliament because the parliamentary majority may have been nobbled by lobbyists or special interests. The laws themselves may reflect ideology, corrupt practice, not natural justice.
And thus the concept of an impartial, non-partisan authority must be safeguarded.

De Gaulle wanted to destroy the Community idea that brought Europe its first lasting peace. How did he plan to attack it? He wanted to turn the impartial Commission into a political secretariat where his Gaullist representative could dominate proceedings. Thus he could dominate the whole politics of Western Europe.

Democrats would have none of this. Statesmen like Luns, Spaak, Bech and others opposed him.

So should we. Political parties should not control the Commission by their fraudulent Spitzenkandidat system.