It's Only Comment...?

Lord Leveson once remarked that there was an important difference between mainstream journalists with "a powerful reputation for accuracy" and bloggers and tweeters who were "no more than electronic versions of pub gossip". This from the same man who produced a report, following a public inquiry, on newspaper standards by copying and pasting inaccurate information from Wikipedia.

With this in mind I can reveal I have now received a decision regarding my ongoing complaint with the Press Complaints Commission over an article in the Telegraph by Mats Persson regarding Norway's relationship with the EU.

As I noted at the time I was under no illusions of a positive outcome, largely because I suspected that the PCC would be acutely aware that to uphold my complaint would go against the position of every newspaper, all three main parties and the Prime Minister. This despite that even Norway itself acknowledges its influence and representation as a member of the EEA. I was more intrigued on how the PCC would attempt to wriggle out of upholding it.

Thus it comes as no surprise that the PCC found no breach - I reproduce the judgement in full below (my emphasis throughout):

The complainant raised concerns about an article discussing the potential difficulties should the UK leave the European Union. He said that the newspaper had breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice. The complainant stated that it was inaccurate to refer to Norway’s relationship with the EU as “regulation without representation” and subsequently to draw the conclusion that there was “no good off-the-peg model”. He also said that it was misleading for the article to suggest that, under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, EU member states and institutions would be able to block the UK’s market access, as this would contravene international law.

The Commission wished first to note that the article in question was clearly signposted as a comment piece. Clause 1 (i) of the Editors’ Code of Practice states that “the press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information, including pictures.” Clause 1 (iii) makes clear however, that the press are free to report comment and conjecture, provided that it is clearly distinguished from fact. The Commission first considered the complainant’s objection to the description of Norway’s model of European involvement as “regulation without representation”. The complainant acknowledged that this term had been used to characterise the situation in 2012, by Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Eide. The Commission noted that the complainant did not agree with this assessment and considered that it did not address the complexity of the Norwegian model. However, the article was representative of the columnist’s views on how the UK could maintain a relationship with Europe after leaving the Union.  The reference to the lack of a good “off-the-peg” model was clearly the journalist’s own personal opinion.  Readers would not have been led to believe that the article presented an in depth factual analysis of post-EU options for the UK, or of Norway’s relationship with the EU. As such, the Commission did not consider the use of this quotation to be inaccurate under the terms of Clause 1.

The complainant was further concerned by the article’s suggestion that if  Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty were to be invoked to facilitate Britain’s exit from the EU, other member states and institutions “could block market access” for the UK. The Commission noted the complainant’s position that such a course of action would not be compatible with international law. In this case, the statement was clearly a matter of conjecture on the part of the journalist, which, under the terms of Clause 1 (iii), newspapers are free to publish, as long as it is clearly distinguished from fact. The article made clear that the effects of Article 50 were “so far untested”, and the Commission was satisfied that any discussion of them was clearly speculation. As such, there was no breach of the Code.

I do like the term "as long as it is clearly distinguished from fact" - I'm not quite sure if that's a Freudian slip.

What's interesting is the PCC has not attempted to dispute my points and indeed has ignored some of them from my subsequent clarification email which it requested. One such point was regarding Persson's argument that:

“Under Article 50 [of the Lisbon Treaty] and in continuity deals, France, the European Parliament and others could consistently block market access for the UK’s exporters of IT, insurance, banking and other services." 

Yet if the UK invoked Article 50 it still remains a fully fledged European Union member state until either exit negotiations have been concluded or after two years when the EU treaties cease to take effect automatically. Therefore while negotiations are ongoing with regard to a UK exit, for the EU to take such an action against an EU member state would be in fundamental breach of its own treaties and the basic four freedoms of the Single Market. Mats Persson's assertion is just plain wrong - and the PCC ignored it.

And the PCC ignored it by hiding behind the "comment" clause highlighted in bold above. Clearly in their conclusion any lies can be written in a newspaper as long as it is defined as comment.

Strangely then we learn that this principle doesn't always seem to apply to others. Christopher Booker's article in the Sunday Telegraph is listed under comment. This can been seen quite clearly in the screen grab below (and even just by the URL itself):

 

Yet Mr Booker who has written extensively about the EU, climate change and family courts has long been subjected to PCC complaints and rulings. To give but two random examples:

Mr Bob Ward of the LSE's Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment complained to the Press Complaints Commission that an article headlined "Rise of sea levels is ‘the greatest lie ever told'" published in The Sunday Telegraph on 29 March 2009 was inaccurate and misleading in breach of Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors' Code of Practice.

The PCC's adjuication began:

Newspapers are obliged, under the terms of Clause 1, to take care not to publish inaccurate information, and this applies as much to scientific matters as any other. Indeed, the PCC often considers, resolves and adjudicates on complaints about science reporting.

Yet this clause below quoted to me is nowhere to be seen in Booker's adjudication, despite his column clearly listed as comment:

Clause 1 (iii) makes clear however, that the press are free to report comment and conjecture, provided that it is clearly distinguished from fact. 

Another example:

Sir Nicolas Bratza, a former President of the European Court of Human Rights, complained to the Press Complaints Commission that a column by Christopher Booker had inaccurately reported details of his involvement with a conference at the Council of Europe, in breach of Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors' Code of Practice.

And a PCC resolution despite it being "comment":

The complaint was resolved after the PCC negotiated the following correction and apology, published in Mr Booker's column:

Although my complaint wasn't upheld at least we have further confirmation of another "above the line" organisation eager to maintain the establishment status quo regardless of the facts. The PCC's reluctance to dispute the detail of my complaint however does mean we may have potential should a newspaper attempt to report Norway's "democracy by fax" in an article that is not comment...

But then what do I know? I'm only an electronic version of pub gossip.

Out Of Control

It's not often I read a story that is so shocking I've had to re-read it a couple of times to ensure I'm not imagining it. But Booker's column in the Telegraph today is one of them where he documents another case of abuse of power by social workers.

He writes of a pregnant Italian mother who is bi-polar. Having flown to England to attend a two-week training course she has a panic attack when she couldn’t find the passports for her two daughters. This ends up with her being sectioned under the Mental Health Act. Five weeks later she is forcibly sedated and has her baby removed by caesarean which is taken into care by social workers.

A High Court judge, Mr Justice Mostyn, had given the social workers permission to arrange for a caesarean. She is not allowed to see her baby daughter; her family weren't consulted nor were Italian social workers. In October, another judge, told her that she would be escorted back to Italy without her baby.

It's a damning indictment of the abuse of people's rights by the judiciary and local authority particularly when it comes to 'family courts'. Autonomous Mind notes:

If this story does not underline the brutal nature of ‘public servants’ and ‘court officers’ whose actions demonstrate they are completely out of control and giving themselves authority that is wholly excessive and unjustified, nothing else will.  It is shocking, disturbing, frightening, and it makes me ashamed of my country and the dictatorship it has become.

This abuse of power must be defeated.  Whatever it takes.

Quite. Just out of interest the Executive Director for Family Operations for Essex County Council is Helen Lincoln who incidentally earns £142,000 - just £500 less than the Prime Minister. Her email address is Helen.lincoln@essex.gov.uk.

The EU Is Only Half Finished

As Richard North observes, that the pro-EU Guardian has featured prominently on its front page a Eurobarometer survey which is telling us that public confidence in the European Union has fallen to historically low levels, is of significance.

Not surprisingly there is much hand wringing within that publication of the "fundamental questions of the EU's democratic legitimacy" and what to do about it. But as any serious student of the EU knows democratic legitimacy was never on the table; removing democracy (or preventing "populism" if we are to use the negative redefinition of the term democracy) was always the intention of Jean Monnet - a man who was never elected to public office. The Guardian is thus discovering that the lack of public mandate - or populism - is coming back to haunt the EU in spades.

Conversely though, despite that the EU is not democratic in the sense its Monnet-inspired bureaucrats are not elected, it does not tell member states what to do. As a consequence I'm often dismayed by a significant part of the Eurosceptic movement in their arguments. EU member states choose to belong, they choose to participate, obey and they can choose to leave. That it is the "4th Reich" and the "EUSSR" are easy, lazy and inaccurate criticisms - the truth is the EU cannot force a nation state to do anything; the UK has not been reduced to pleading "please Sir can I have some more?", instead the UK chooses to be in this position. 

And one of the fundamental reasons that the EU cannot force the UK, or any other member state, what to do is that it is not yet, as a project, complete. While the EU has steadily hollowed out member states' institutions, it has not yet fully grasped the baton of power itself to the extent in most cases that there is no-one in charge and no-one in overall control. It's still in a transitional phase, a halfway house where international and supranational EU bodies are at odds with each other, neither one nor the other. Nation state governments have been undermined, yet there is nothing functional to replace it. It's a theme I've touched on before.

One is reminded of Christopher Booker from 2009 when writing about the flaws of the theory of evolution. I don't intend in this piece to either agree or disagree with evolution but merely to highlight that this paragraph from Booker's article which makes for a perfect metaphor of the current state of the EU:

Years ago, a good illustration of this was Attenborough himself claiming to 'prove’ Darwin’s theory by showing us a mouse and a bat, explaining how one evolved into the other. He seemed oblivious to the obvious point that, as the mouse’s forelegs evolved by minute variations to wings, there must have been a long period when the creature, no longer with properly functioning legs but as yet unable to fly, was much less 'adapted to survive’ than it had been before.

It makes for a wonderful analogy that can be applied to the progress of the EU; a project that has removed the "properly functioning legs" from its member states but as yet has not acquired the wings to enable it to fly, making it less adapted to survive. Nothing illustrates this better than the farce that is the Euro - a currency that needs political union to succeed but is unable to complete that very objective thus leaving it in limbo.

Such a mess arises from the strategy of integration by salami tactics and stealth - the implementation of the Monnet method - a tacit admission from Monnet himself that the project was always flawed. The creation of the European Council in 1974 was another admission of failure. Monnet's frustration by the unwillingness of sovereign nations in giving up their power led to the establishment of the European Council as a mechanism to help "Europe through the difficult transition from national to collective sovereignty" - a process that was understood to be one way only. A process that is still ongoing albeit in fits and starts. Yet by trying to force onto a people an artificial system of government without taking them with you in terms of approval was always going to end in tears.

Ironically this "difficult transition" has led to precisely the kind of disorganization that Monnet hated. Early on in his biography he said:

[My father's] view of mankind was optimistic, but I have not inherited it completely. Quite early in life, events taught me that human nature is weak and unpredictable without rules and institutions.

So it's not suprising he concluded his biograghy thus:

"The sovereign nations of the past can no longer solve the problems of the present: they cannot ensure their own progress or control their own future. And the Community itself is only a stage on the way to the organised world of tomorrow."

So it comes to pass that Monnet who abhorred the concept of the nation state will, via his "pet project", inadvertently reinvigorate nationalism across the EU and who, abhorred the natural somewhat chaotic democratic functions of every day life, will end up leaving behind a complete mess.  If it wasn't so serious, one would be highly amused by the irony.

Same Sex Marriage And Europe

Back in December of last year, I noted that while the issue of same-sex marriage didn't register very highly in terms of my interest it had an amusing side-effect of watching the Tories destroy their own party. (I'm using the term same-sex because "gay marriage" apparently offends the sensibilities of some in the LGBT community - I kid you not, Newswatch 7:15 mins in).

Aside from the serious question of democracy (Cameron has no mandate for this) I was always puzzled why the Tories seemed so determined to destroy themselves and their chances at the next election - a view echoed by Richard North in a post a couple of days later. Normally suspicions are aroused in these circumstances that there must be an element of the EU about it. However at the time I drew a blank. But as it now turns out I was looking in the wrong place.

This week in a series of highly informative posts, Richard North has nailed the European angle - its genesis lies with the Council of Europe rather than the EU - culminating in this piece by Christopher Booker in today's Sunday Times, which concludes (my emphasis):

A speech by the British judge, Sir Nicolas Bratza, then head of the European Court of Human Rights, signalled that the court was ready to declare same-sex marriage a “human right”, as soon as enough countries fell into line.

Such are the real reasons that our Government needed to rush through last week’s vote on gay marriage. We are committed to “full implementation” of the Council of Europe’s policy no later than this June (and hence the similar law now being rushed through in France). It has been a brilliant political coup by the gay lobby, aided by Featherstone, May and those shadowy European bodies that, in so many ways, now rule our lives. But why weren’t we told more honestly and openly why it has all happened?

Why indeed? And thus in one sentence sums up our relationship with all institutions European.

Sadly it comes as no surprise that the agendas of a minority of a minority can simply trample over democracy without so much as a by your leave, illustrated no better than the former 'equalities' minister Lynne Featherstone demanding that writers and editors of newspapers should be sacked for publishing an opinion.

With dreary expectation we can expect soon a challenge to the ECHR that churches will be forced against their will to marry same-sex couples.

A Good Question!

From today's Telegragh Letters:

SIR – In all the political manouevrings ahead of the Prime Minister’s “renegotiating” speech on Europe, none of the media discussed Christopher Booker’s point that under article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, renegotiation is not possible without prior withdrawal. Why?
J D Mortimer
Harwood, Lancashire

40 Years

In his last column of the year, Booker of the Sunday Telegraph has a cracker of an article, well worth reading in full, combining the themes of climate change and the EU noting that 2012 was the year that these long held beliefs are beginning to collapse.

Tuesday will mark the 40th anniversary of our membership of the EU (EEC as it was known then) "the maddest political experiment in history" where there will be much coverage, some of which has already started. As Booker alludes to, fighting such comprehensive belief systems has been a lonely and frustrating business. Oppose the EU, and you are called "xenophobic", "a nutter", or "Little Englander". Question climate science and the insults consist of “climate-change denier”, “anti-science”, a “flat earther”. But all that has changed:

For many of the major stories which have long been followed by this column, 2012 has been the year when long-dominant belief systems and fondly held illusions have been conspicuously falling apart, portending a time of agonising reappraisal when familiar certainties give way to greater realism and painful rethinking.

On Tuesday, for instance, much coverage will be given to the 40th anniversary of the day in 1973 when Britain finally junked “1,000 years of history” – in the famous words of Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell – and threw in her lot with the attempt to create an all-powerful super-government over the nations of Europe. (Gaitskell had shrewdly predicted, in his speech back in 1962, what the Common Market, as it was then known, was intended eventually to become.)

It is 20 years since this column began regularly reporting on the damage that our membership of the European Union (as it was then about to become, under the Maastricht Treaty) was starting to inflict on our national life. In those days, to question our membership was to be dismissed by all right-thinking people as a crank, a nutter, a xenophobe who could not be taken seriously. When at the start of 1992, I first began reporting horror stories about the tidal wave of new regulations hitting so many British businesses with the approach of the Single Market, along with the destruction of our fishing industry and much of our agriculture, we were still locked into that forerunner of the single currency, the ERM (almost unanimously supported, it is salutary to recall, by every political party and right across the media).

Forty years on from our entry into “Europe”, as we see “the project” plunge deeper into the misery and chaos it has brought on itself by its even more hubristic desire to give the EU its own currency, British attitudes to our membership have changed beyond recognition.

Reality has kicked in, which Booker notes must inevitably be painful and bewildering, for those that hung to such beliefs for so long

Made From Norwegian Wood

As Richard North notes, you can tell that the 'Norway' proposal has put the wind up the Europhiles made evident by the amount of attention that they're paying to it, imbue naturally with BBC bias by omission. By eliminating the apocalyptic economic warnings of leaving the single market that will inevitably be rolled out en masse, Norway leaves only the (untrue) 'fax democracy' argument against leaving the EU. Negate that and they are left with nothing.

Norway, like Lichtenstein and Iceland are members of the EEA and EFTA (with Switzerland being a member of EFTA only). They participate fully in the committees that assist the EU Commission in administering or developing framework programmes and specific programmes:

All in all, Norwegian officials take part in just over 200 committees under the European Commission. The presence of Norwegian experts provides an opportunity to exert influence through direct participation at a time when national points of view are usually still flexible and before positions have become firmly established.

This comes under Articles 99 and 100 of the 1994 Agreement of European Economic Area. Artcle 99 (page 32) states (my emphasis):

1. As soon as new legislation is being drawn up by the EC Commission in a field which is governed by this Agreement, the EC Commission shall informally seek advice from experts of the EFTA States in the same way as it seeks advice from experts of the EC Member States for the elaboration of its proposals.

2. When transmitting its proposal to the Council of the European Communities, the EC Commission shall transmit copies thereof to the EFTA States.
At the request of one of the Contracting Parties, a preliminary exchange of views takes place in the EEA Joint Committee.

3. During the phase preceding the decision of the Council of the European Communities, in a continuous information and consultation process, the Contracting Parties consult each other again in the EEA Joint Committee at the significant moments at the request of one of them.

4. The Contracting Parties shall cooperate in good faith during the information and consultation phase with a view to facilitating, at the end of the process, the decision-taking in the EEA Joint Committee.

And Article 100 says:

...when drawing up draft measures the EC Commission shall refer to experts of the EFTA States on the same basis as it refers to experts of the EC Member States.

Clearly then Norway has the opportunity to have input into the formation of single market rules via the EEA Joint Committee and the EEA Council. Then ultimately Norway, and other members of EEA, has the insurance of a veto as a longstop. It is a right that Norway has already deployed when, in 2011, it vetoed the EU's 3rd Postal Directive (2008/6/EC), as this quarterly report from Posten Norge (Norway's Postal Service) writes:

The postal market in Europe was liberalised with effect from 01.01.2011 in accordance with the EUs third Postal Directive. However, a decision made at the Labour Party National Conference makes it clear that the Norwegian government does not wish to implement the EU's Third Postal Directive. The consequences of a possible veto are uncertain, but the Board of Directors considers the risk of the EU imposing sanctions on Norway Post's activities outside Norway as low.

Contrast this with the UK, who eagerly implemented the relevant EU Directive into the Postal Services Act 2011:

The Bill implements provisions of Directive 2008/6/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 February 2008 amending Directive 97/67/EC with regard to the full accomplishment of the internal market of Community postal services.

This Directive amends Directive 97/67/EC which was previously amended by
Directive 2002/39/EC. References are to the consolidated version of the Directive.

The same EU Postal Directives that have done enormous damage to our Royal Mail service.

And not only has Norway used the veto but it also uses the right as a threat to enhance its negotiating position on a number of occasions. For example in 2011 the Norwegian government considered using its veto against a new EU Directive, then being discussed by the EU Parliament attempting to set a limit to the European banks deposit insurance guarantee. In an interview with the Norwegian newspaper “Nationen,” Norwegian minister of finance, Sigbjørn Johnsen, refuse to accept the upcoming regulations from Brussels (via Google translate):

"[The EU] understand well the arguments we make, and I feel that the arguments go in, but time will tell if we get through", says Johnsen "But yes, the veto is even considered. But our main line is getting through."

However one shouldn't get carried away. The Norway solution is anything but a permanent solution for us - and most certainly it is not perfect. In many ways Norwegians suffer from the same problems as us, ruled by homegrown Europhile politicians, stitch-ups in their Parliament as a result - which make, despite the power of the veto - Norway one of the most obedient countries towards the EU and the EEA:

Norwegian lawmakers and bureaucrats obediently follow directives issued by the European Union (EU), now probably on controversial data storage rules as well, even though Norway isn’t an EU member. The latest example of obedience brought together arch-rivals Labour and the Conservatives, because of their leaders’ desires to avoid an EU veto.

Despite Norwegian public's scepticism about the EU, made clear in two referendum rejections of membership, Norway has incorporated approximately three-quarters of all EU legislative acts into Norwegian legislation as part of the EEA - according to this massive 900 page report commissioned in 2010 by the Norwegian Government as a comprehensive review of Norway’s agreements with the EU. 

Thus the willingness of Norway's parliament to bend to the will of the EU is not because of a 'democratic deficit' as a consequence of Norway being a member of the EEA, as the introductory text claims (page 7):

The most problematic aspect of Norway’s form of association with the EU is the fact that Norway is in practice bound to adopt EU policies and rules on a broad range of issues without being a member and without voting rights. This raises democratic problems.

...instead the deficit lies between Norway's parliament and its own people. Norway has more power over EU regulations in relation to the single market than ourselves, but it chooses by and large not to utilise it. Now doesn't that sound familiar? So ultimately exiting the EU in whatever format we choose still requires a massive overhaul of democracy at home in relation to how we're governed.

In Or Out?

As anyone who's spent time arguing against the EU knows, it can be a lonely old business. Aside from the difficulties of putting across the insidious and devious nature of it, one can expect regularly the 'traditional' insults of; racist, 'little Englander' and xenophobic in response. Though apparently this doesn't apply when France, Ireland, Norway, Sweden or Denmark reject, in referenda, further EU integration.

However with the impending collapse of the Euro, everyone is now becoming a Eurosceptic as Christopher Booker points out in tomorrow's Telegraph:

No one expressed this more vividly last week than Max Hastings, in a two-page “recantation”, headed “Sorry, I was wrong”. Having always been a fervent “pro-European”, he proclaimed, he now saw the EU as “a disaster which is blighting every aspect of British life”. The euro folly, crippling regulations, uncontrolled immigration – he chucked everything in to show how the EU has become a monster threatening catastrophe “unless its terms and powers are drastically recast”. And yet (as I recall from the days when I worked for him, and he could scarcely conceal his contempt for my criticisms of the EU), Sir Max has never grasped the real nature of this mighty project or the vision behind it, which is finally colliding with reality.

Yet, as Booker points out, they all miss the point (or are too thick to understand) - they're arguing for powers to be returned rather than confronting the only realistic viable option on the table; that we need to exit. To ask the EU to be reformed or to be more democratic is a bit like asking a wheel to be less round. It completely undermines its raison d'etre:

No sentence in Hastings’s piece was more poignant than his observation that “in its early decades the Common Market was a benign institution, set up to liberalise trade”. He still cannot grasp that the Common Market was only ever intended as a first step towards the ultimate goal, the embryo of everything the EU has since become, – a vast overblown system of government reaching into almost every area of our lives, and symbolised above all by its hubristic desire for its own single currency.

The question therefore has only ever been simply one of 'in or out'. There is no halfway measure and never will be. And while MPs and those in the MSM carrying on bleating otherwise, life (and the collapse of the EU) will carry on without them.