The Commons vote to reject a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is yet another
alarming reinforcement of the progressive decline in democracy in the UK and
in Western Europe generally. It beggars belief that one who has been elected
as MP and as such is in debt to the basic principles of democracy can vote
in such a way as to directly deprive the electorate of a say in the future
of their country. The European Commission crushes us piece by piece, its
aim, as is evidenced by the constitution surrounding its presidency, being
fundamentally undemocratic. Around Europe, policies become instituted one by
little one, bringing one country in line with another by way of a top-down
pressure, and bringing the continent into line with a prestructured agenda.
Look at last year's smoking ban, in the UK, in pubs and clubs, and the way
other European countries have instituted similar policy, the politicians
playing on the lack -- and now indeed futility -- of protest-orientated
resilience among the populace against the gradual erosion of civil
liberties. Look at the lack of transparency in the policy-making process.
How many among us knew, at the turn of the new Millennium, that the reason
the UK car industry in Birmingham collapsed was that it was illegal for a
government in Europe to provide financial support to ailing industries? How
many of us know of the thousands of the very poorest farmers in the very
poorest developing countries who have their prices undercut at a swoop by
the manipulative economics of the Common Agricultural Policy? How many of us
had any say in the major corruption scandal at the heart of the European
Parliament, that hit the headlines in the incipient phases of that
Parliament, and -- despite the fact that it was plain that all involved
should be behind bars -- resulted in not a single resignation or sacking,
but only a mild rap over the knuckles for each MEP involved?
And who, or what, one might ask, is behind this democrophobia? Is it the
good principles of restoring the global balance of power by mollifying the
military and economic might of the US? Is it the good principles of
liberal-thinking, human respect that give form to the EU Court of Human
Rights, hand-in-hand with economic and political development? Is it the good
principles of trade and fair trade, balanced with culturally sensitive
foreign policy? Very far from it. It is a body that draws up all the most
influential treaties in Europe, as it did the Maastracht, and in whose
pocket the European Commission is very evidently to be found: a very
little-known group, even among top-ranking Eurocrats, known as the European
Roundtable of Industrialists, which brings together some 45 top-ranking
executives and chairmen of the most powerful multinationals centred in
Europe, these having a combined turnover of around 1,600 billion Euros.
Tom
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