Posted on 01/25/2005 6:16:15 PM PST by quidnunc
The penny is finally dropping. Thirty-two years after we joined, we are at last waking up to the nature of our subjection before Brussels. It was always going to take a big issue to jolt us from our narcolepsy, and immigration is that issue.
On Monday, Michael Howard promised that a future Conservative government would introduce an upper limit to the number of immigrants, and set a separate quota for asylum seekers. Insofar as one can sense these things, the voters heartily approved. People of impeccably liberal views went along with the contention that we could not open our borders to the entire world.
Passionate Labour supporters could be heard admitting that, on this one, the Tories had got it right.
Then, from Brussels, came the noise of a mighty collective snort. You are too late, said our masters in the Commission. We have been putting together an EU asylum policy over the past eight years, and your signatures — Jack Straw's and David Blunkett's, at any rate — are on all the documents. You want to withdraw now? Tant pis!
It comes as a bit of a shock to find out that the common immigration policy already exists. After all, wasn't this one of those "red lines" that Tony Blair kept swanking about? Haven't the home affairs spokesmen of all parties — even the Lib Dems — made a big issue of keeping our border controls? Yet it now turns out that, although we may indeed keep our physical frontier checks, we have ceded the right to decide who is entitled to cross them.
This is a pattern that one sees again and again in the EU. New initiatives go from being unthinkable to being inevitable without any intervening stage. It happened with the euro and the social chapter. It is happening again with the European army.
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The penny is finally dropping. Thirty-two years after we joined, we are at last waking up to the nature of our subjection before Brussels. It was always going to take a big issue to jolt us from our narcolepsy, and immigration is that issue.
On Monday, Michael Howard promised that a future Conservative government would introduce an upper limit to the number of immigrants, and set a separate quota for asylum seekers. Insofar as one can sense these things, the voters heartily approved. People of impeccably liberal views went along with the contention that we could not open our borders to the entire world.
Passionate Labour supporters could be heard admitting that, on this one, the Tories had got it right.
Then, from Brussels, came the noise of a mighty collective snort. You are too late, said our masters in the Commission. We have been putting together an EU asylum policy over the past eight years, and your signatures - Jack Straw's and David Blunkett's, at any rate - are on all the documents. You want to withdraw now? Tant pis!
It comes as a bit of a shock to find out that the common immigration policy already exists. After all, wasn't this one of those "red lines" that Tony Blair kept swanking about? Haven't the home affairs spokesmen of all parties - even the Lib Dems - made a big issue of keeping our border controls? Yet it now turns out that, although we may indeed keep our physical frontier checks, we have ceded the right to decide who is entitled to cross them.
This is a pattern that one sees again and again in the EU. New initiatives go from being unthinkable to being inevitable without any intervening stage. It happened with the euro and the social chapter. It is happening again with the European army.
You hadn't heard about the European army? It is small, to be sure, but it certainly exists. Uniformed EU troops have been deployed in Macedonia, the Congo and, most recently, Bosnia. They are answerable, not to any national capital or combination of national capitals, but to the EU's own politico-military structures. Yet politicians continue to speak, rather touchingly, of "the need to oppose a common EU defence policy".
So it goes on. We are making a big fuss about the EU proposal to have its own diplomatic service, but it's already up and running. I recently visited the EU embassy in Lima (or the "European Delegation" as it is still coyly known). It employed many more staff than any of the member state embassies, and with good reason: it has assumed almost all their functions.
When I asked the Euro-diplomats what was left for the national missions to do, they grinned at each other and mumbled something about promoting tourism. Yet I'll bet that, when the EU formally calls its delegations embassies, there will be howls of outrage.
The same goes for the European police force ("Europol"), the EU prosecuting magistracy ("Eurojust"), tax harmonisation, human rights questions. In each case, Euro-integrationists pursue a well-tried four-stage strategy. Stage One is mock-incredulity: "No one is proposing any such thing. It just shows what loons these sceptics are that they could even imagine it." Stage Two is bravado: "Well all right, it's being proposed, but don't worry: we have a veto and we'll use it." Stage Three is denial: "Look, we may have signed this, but it doesn't really mean what the critics are claiming." Stage Four is resignation: "No point complaining now, old man: it's all been agreed."
Part of the problem is that, 32 years on, we still have not grasped the nature of EU power. Because the Treaty of Rome is called a treaty, we imagine that it simply binds its signatory states under international law.
In reality, though, the Treaty of Rome created a new legal order, directly applicable within the jurisdictions of the member nations.
So, to return to the case in point, let us ponder what would happen if a future Tory government implemented the policy that Mr Howard adumbrated on Monday. Let us imagine that someone entered the country illegally and that, several months later, he was discovered by the immigration service and ordered to leave. Let us further conjecture that he, like many sans papiers in this situation, suddenly claimed to be the victim of political persecution in his home country.
David Davis, as home secretary, would order his repatriation on the ground that we accepted as refugees only those who had been so identified by the UNHCR. The illicit entrant would at this stage take his case to judicial review and the judge, as things stand, would uphold EU law and order that he remain in Britain pending the assessment of his case.
The judge would act in this way, not simply because judges enjoy overturning deportation orders (although they do), but because he would be obliged, under Sections 2 and 3 of the 1972 European Communities Act, to give precedent to EU rules over our own parliamentary statutes. That is why, for example, the Metric Martyrs lost their case. Although a 1985 Act of Parliament explicitly allowed traders to use either metric or imperial units, an EU directive said otherwise, and our appeal court was obliged to give precedence to the latter.
Mr Howard understands this very well. Not only is he a lawyer himself but, as home secretary, he clashed almost weekly with our judges - not least on immigration cases. He must have known that the EU would react as it did to his proposals: indeed, I suspect he was banking on it. He has said before that he wants to take powers back from Brussels but, until now, the issue on which he was planning to go into battle - the recovery of our fishing grounds - seemed rather marginal to most inland voters. Now he has found a casus belli where the country will be behind him.
It has been a besetting British vice that we ignore what is happening on the Continent until almost too late. But, when we finally rouse ourselves, our resolve can be an awesome thing. I sense that this may be such a moment.
bump
The Feal is already done. The French and the Germans have finally taken over Europe without firing a shot!!
The DummoSocialists are in progress here in the United States, to turn over this country to the New World Government and to Hell with the United States of American and it's Constitutional Republic!! The Eletist are on a roll to conquer and enslave the world population. How long will this enslavement last??
The Hate Crimes Laws are nothing more than the implementation of the Values set forth in the European Socialist Manefesto. They undermine our Gurantee of Freedom of Speech by the Constitution. The Hate Crimes were put into law to do just that. We have the right to Hate just as we have the right to Love. The Constitution of the United States is slowly but surely being replaced with the Socialist Version of the European Constitution, read it for yourself:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1318061/posts?page=6#6
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1318038/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1318034/posts
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/hearings.asp?formmode=view&id=954
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1254190/posts
"we are at last waking up to the nature of our subjection before Brussels"
Never could understand how the brits would fall for this.
Brittain can't "take power back" (aka renegotiate nice and such). If M.Howard decides to stick to that and win it just means that Britain leaves the EU.
Brilliant.
Britain SHOULD leave the EU BTW the next article is great
Stage One is mock-incredulity: "No one is proposing any such thing. It just shows what loons these sceptics are that they could even imagine it." Stage Two is bravado: "Well all right, it's being proposed, but don't worry: we have a veto and we'll use it." Stage Three is denial: "Look, we may have signed this, but it doesn't really mean what the critics are claiming." Stage Four is resignation: "No point complaining now, old man: it's all been agreed."
Don't forget: Tony Blair is not only the Prime Minister, he's also the President of the World Socialist Party.
Just because he pretends to be our ally, don't count on it. It is that leadership role in the Socialist Party that binds him together with people like Clinton and Koffi Annan. That is where his loyalties are, and America is still the #1 target. Tony is a Trojan Horse of the NWO - not only in Britain, but here as well.
"...it just means that Britain leaves the EU."
Sounds like a plan!
The world is truly going to have a "I coulda had a V8" surprise when this election breaks all expectations.
Oh. And the EU sux. Go Brits!
That's when the American people will wake up. The problem is they will have changed the laws just a little at a time, nothing unreasonable, after all our weakness is COMPROMISE !! They demand, we COMPROMISE!!
This line must be drawn and it must be drawn now! We cannot afford to COMPROMISE our Constitutional Rights according to the US Constitution.
We must get out of the UN and cut all ties to that bunch of Gangsters!! We ahve been supporting the World programs for the destructikon of our own country!
They may succede in disarming us, but I know this too, If an American Wants a weapon, he will get one, No doubt about that!! The Eletist won't be able to talk their way out of this CRAP!
Dubious conclusions to say the least. Blair spent his first three years as party leader purging the Labour Party of its last remnants of socialist policy to make it electable. While it's undoubtedly true that many of his party members went along with this, then and since, for reasons of electoral expediency, everything Blair says and does show his instincts to be of the right rather than the left: and it was the socialism of his early career which was an expedient facade, not the other way round.
Our government is working on a similar immigration policy with the OAS and the Summit of the Americas. Thats why illegals now can take social security benefits to their home countries, thats why it costs less for illegals to send remittances back to their home countries and thats why banks and other businesses are accepting the matricular consular phony IDs so they can open bank accounts here and get loans.
Its also why the Small Business Administration has an office in Mexico and one of the reasons that the white house is pushing so hard to ratify CAFTA and the FTAA.
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