Removing The UK From The ECHR?

While much emphasis domestically is concentrated somewhat understandably on the UK's membership of the European Union an often forgotten supranational influence on the UK is by the Council of Europe (pictured above) - notably in the form of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) pictured below:

The Council of Europe is a European body, based in Strasbourg, which was an attempt - the second attempt - by Jean Monnet to create "ever closer Union" soon after WWII.

In this it is nothing more than a failed predecessor of its far more successful offspring, the EU - established by the Treaty of Rome 1957. In simple terms the Council of Europe could be considered historically as 'a dry run' for European integration. It's tempting therefore in light of its intrinsic failure to view the Council of Europe, with its same flag and anthem, as a relic of the past which has little importance.

Yet while the Council of Europe floundered in its primary role of creating "United States of Europe" it found a new purpose in human rights, inspired by the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). But this diversity into a role that was not intended meant a flawed and weak structure in the form of the Committee of Ministers, which was unable to keep in check the very court (ECHR) it established. Thus, powered by its supranational ambitions, we now see an unelected court unrestricted by the normal conventions of the separation of powers - no proper legislature to keep it in check.

So unsurprisingly we increasingly see the unchecked ECHR acting as both a judiciary and a legislature combined. A classic example would be prisoners' right to vote regarding the UK. Despite the UK's Parliament's long-standing objections as a reflection of public opinion the matter remains unresolved to the ECHR's satisfaction.

We see another example when it comes to immigration. Booker in his Sunday Telegragh column notes:

But the real problem posed by loss of control over our borders stems not from the EU treaty or even laws passed by politicians. It comes from law made by judges, most notably those of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), as they have interpreted international treaties to mean something quite different from the way their framers intended.

And with the case of Golajan Tarakhel, the ECHR has taken upon itself to trample all over the Dublin Regulation and EU Treaties on a whim. A mixture of unaccountable power with the increasing role of pressure groups has led to a disproportionate effect despite only appealing to a narrow politically active section of the electorate. This has led to mission creep or what is known as “rights contagion”. 

Thus inadvertently what we have here is a war of the supranationals. Jean Monnet despised democracy, and its messy outcomes, and wanted an "organised world of tomorrow" What irony then, and with some amusement, that the mess he left us was at least two supranational organisations at odds with each other - the failed Council of Europe, and its court, now trying to exercise its power against its EU successor.

What is clear is to regain control of our borders we must also remove ourselves from the ECHR as well. Out of this though emerges an interesting question; if the UK joins EEA/EFTA as part of the Flexcit process of exiting the EU would leaving the ECHR as well jeopardise our position in EFTA/EEA?

Firstly it's important to note that membership of the EU does not mean we have to remain members of the ECHR. It is not a requirement of existing member states.

There is no explicit clause in EU Treaties for existing member states to come under the jurisdiction of the ECHR, a point which as we see on Question Time 2012 left Nigel Farage backtracking somewhat under pressure. Nothing in the relevant EU treaties requires adherence to the ECHR as a condition of continued UK membership of the EU - if they had meant to say that, they would have said it. But they didn't.

As Julien Frisch notes on his now defunct blog (my emphasis):

Since through its member states the legal traditions of the ECHR are also informally part of the EU's legal traditions, the European Court of Justice (the EU's court) is already taking into account rulings of the European Court of Human Rights, but so far there is no legal obligation for the Union to follow the Human Rights Convention's provisions.

As per our membership conditions the UK only has to conform in principle, confirmed by the EU Commission:

Respect for fundamental rights as guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights is an explicit obligation for the Union under Article 6(2) of the Treaty on European Union, and the Court of Justice has held that the Convention is of especial importance for determining the fundamental rights that must be respected by the Member States as general principles of law when they act within the scope of Union law.

The rights secured by the Convention are among the rights guaranteed by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. In the negotiations for the accession of new Union members, respect for the Convention and the case‑law of the European Court of Human Rights is treated as part of the Union acquis.

Any Member State deciding to withdraw from the Convention and therefore no longer bound to comply with it or to respect its enforcement procedures could, in certain circumstances, raise concern as regards the effective protection of fundamental rights by its authorities. Such a situation, which the Commission hopes will remain purely hypothetical, would need to be examined under Articles 6 and 7 of the Treaty on European Union.

In other words the Commission’s reply confirms that European Convention standards are general principles of EU law. Thus as long as the UK adheres to the principles of the European Convention even via a domestic bill, for example - a UK Bill of Rights which closely follows the Convention - there is no need for a EU requirement for membership of the ECHR to enforce it. This enforcement could be done by domestic judges alone.

However complication, in terms of EU membership, comes in the form of the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The Lisbon Treaty gave an enhanced role to the ECJ in human rights protection with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU. The ECJ less an independent judiciary body but more a fundamental component to help facilitate European political integration.

While Lisbon broadened the scope of human rights protection within the EU, it came with a problem of overlapping jurisdiction. There are now two equally binding legal texts, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU and the European Convention of Human Rights, and subsequently two corresponding European courts; the ECJ and the ECHR both concerned with human rights protection but also inevitably concerned with who will be 'top dog'. A problem which was compounded by Article 6 (2) of Lisbon which requires the EU to join the Council of Europe given that it now has a legal personality. Some five years later the legal complications have yet to be resolved.

Inevitably therefore the opaque imprecise nature of implication often leads to contradiction and dispute between differing supranational bodies each eager to assert its supremacy - in blunt terms a penis measuring competition.

Therefore we can see that one benefit of leaving the EU but retaining a EFTA/EEA status would remove us from the ECJ jurisdiction and as such removing a possible judicial conflict. Also EFTA/EEA status means that no longer is "Single Market status" one of a supranational organisation but instead is made up of treaty rules which are agreed by countries with the EU rather than between EU "member states".

Yet despite this another possible supranational conflict may arise. Similar to EU membership there is also no specific requirement in the 1994 EEA agreement for countries to join the Council of Europe and thus come under ECHR jurisdiction.

That said the question of whether EEA countries had to be members of the Council of Europe never arose as a political issue due to applicants already being long-standing members of the Council of Europe when they joined the EEA; Norway in 1949, Liechtenstein in 1978 and Iceland in 1950. In fact no country has ever applied to be a member of the EU or EEA without first being a member of the Council of Europe and no country has ever left it.

But while EEA members are directly removed from the ECJ they rather like EU member states still have implicit obligations to the ECHR not explicit ones and they are subject to another supranational court - the EFTA court which is modelled on the ECJ. The implicitly of ECHR obligations are made clear in the preamble of the EEA agreement that "a European Economic Area will bring to the construction of a Europe based on peace, democracy and human rights".

Thus although not specified in terms of adherence to the ECHR, the EEA agreement it is argued could be endangered if EFTA states were able to obtain advantages, for example in competition, by applying provisions of European integration law in a manner conflicting with the ECHR. But even here we can see that the EFTA Court is willing to stand up to the EU and the ECJ when it ruled that Iceland did not break EU depositor protection laws by refusing to return Icesave money. 

Thus Europe is awash with unaccountable supranational courts each eager to compete with the other. So as Switzerland has shown we are beginning to seeing a conflict between these competing and incompatible supranational bodies and democracy - where despite a vote earlier this year imposing limits on immigration, Switzerland has been caught by an ECHR judgement on deportation.

In the words of Chris Grayling over prisoners right to vote; "Parliament must squarely confront what it is doing and accept the political cost".

Breaking The Law?

There are in my view two fundamental objections to the European Court of Human Rights’ judgment on the UK’s position on prisoners’ right to vote.

The first is by allowing an unelected and unaccountable court to effectively act as a legislator as well; telling Parliament what laws it can and cannot pass - against the expressed wishes of the UK population. It is with dazzlingly irony that the judgement doesn’t actually give prisoners’ the right to vote but instead removes that very right from the rest of us.

The second is that the right to vote is not a human right, unlike for example access to food, clothes and medicine. It instead is a contract between the government and its taxpaying citizens. Democracy resides on the basis of the rule of law. As responsible adults we have duty to abide by those laws, even ones we disagree with and in return we have the privileges of being able to make or influence those laws. It should, if it worked properly, allow us to have say in how our money is spent.

Thus if we breach our side of the bargain and break a law we should expect to be removed from the process during a period of incarceration as a consequence of not keeping our side of the contract.

Conversely if we have no means of making law – we simply have no choice- as in a dictatorship run by fear via tanks on the streets then we have a moral right to ignore the law and break it by virtue of the government having not kept their side of the bargain. An example of this is the Arab Spring.

And this leads me onto our membership of the European Union. One of the most insidious consequences of EU membership is it encourages UK citizens to demand that their government breaks the law when we have no moral right to do so. The EU - and this is crucial - does not rule by fear, it rules by our consent.

The UK, by due process via Parliament has chosen to be a member, has chosen to implement EU law and in many ways gold plates such laws, and has chosen to accept EU diktats. Thus Parliament remains sovereign because it still has the right to leave. It simply chooses not to. The fault line in our democracy is between us the people and Parliament, not between us the people and the EU.

The EU is a club we as a country chose to join and as a country we can choose to leave. The basic principles of joining any club are as follows:

1. Abide by the rules or laws
   
   
2. Change the laws within the context of membership
   
   
3. Or leave

Public opinion is increasingly saying option a) is not acceptable, option b) which Cameron allegedly advocates is not possible as has been pointed out many times, so that only leaves option c). But option c) remains elusive because the UK population has not yet exercised their peacefully, law-abiding right to demand exit via current electoral processes.

And the establishment cannot cope with option c) so they try to work within option b) with unproductive results. It leads to demands to treat EU membership like an a la carte menu; apparently we abide by the laws we agree with and ignore the ones we don’t. But ironically it becomes a demand that says we wish to remain members - because if we left abiding by EU rules would no longer be a problem.

One can see this a la carte phenomenon by today's Daily Mail article on immigration which made its front page:

 

This from the same paper that has continually argued for membership of the same club i.e. the EU:

Let the Mail lay all its cards on the table. This paper has no desire for Britain to pull out of Europe [EU]...

Richard North rightly takes apart its report on the detail of immigration - immigration is a fiendishly complex issue, yet what also is disturbing is the Daily Mail (who supports EU membership) implying very heavily that the Government should break the law as the paper cannot bring itself to argue that we should leave the club:

But the threat of big fines from the European Court of Justice was brushed off by almost two thirds of the public.

They said that – even if it meant legal sanctions – the Prime Minister should keep the restrictions in place to ‘serve the national interest’. And 80 per cent of voters say Westminster should retain the final say over who enters the country. 

And even Tory MPs agree:

But, under EU rules, the arrangements must be lifted on January 1. Any failure to do so would be considered a breach of the free movement directive – a founding principle of the EU.

Britain would most likely face heavy fines, but the European Court of Justice – the EU’s enforcement arm – is notoriously slow moving.

Tory MPs believe the 2015 general election may even have passed before a verdict is handed down.

I most definitely don't want to encourage the government to break the law - it should be subject to the same laws as the rest of us - otherwise therein lies a very slippery slope indeed. Instead what such position highlights is sovereignty or more accurately the lack of.

Such sentiments are also expressed in the view, often in newspaper comments, that other countries ignore EU laws so why don't we? Such sentiments are not true - we are not the most compliant state and nor is it correct that other EU nations flagrantly ignore EU law. We can see this by the latest report by the EU Commission on application of EU law (click to enlarge):

As becomes apparent the UK has more infringements than France, yet is still 9th on the list. And also regarding infringment procedures the UK comes 9th (again click to enlarge):

The implementation of EU law is actually rather good across all member states and so it should be, we chose to join we can choose to leave. But while we remain members we have a duty to abide by the law - EU law or otherwise - so any demands to ignore EU law while we choose to remain members carries with it no moral weight.

We simply just have to leave...

Kicking The Arse Out Of Deja Vu...

The running sore that is the Human Rights Act and the European Court of Human Rights means there is more faux outrage from the Tories, and the Telegraph about it:

Chris Grayling, the Justice Secretary, slams 'unacceptable' interference by Strasbourg judges as one of Britain's most dangerous terrorists claims his rights were infringed

The inteference?

One of Britain’s most dangerous al-Qaeda terrorists is seeking to have his conviction overturned on human rights grounds, The Telegraph can disclose.

[Abdulla Ahmed Ali] alleges the jury would have been prejudiced by media coverage of a previous trial. 

And of course it's "unacceptable" - it goes to the heart of our country's sovereignty and democracy.

In response Mr Grayling goes on to say that the Conservatives will go into the next election promising abolition of the Human Rights Act (HRA). But one asks how abolition of the HRA will defend ourselves against the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) especially taking into account that the Act was passed to help give UK courts a mechanism to remedy breaches of a Convention right, without having to go straight to the Strasbourg court.

So are the Tories proposing scrapping the HRA but staying in the ECHR?  If so this would still leave the Home Secretary powerless to deport individuals in the interest of national security.  Or do they want to pull out of the ECHR altogether? Leaving the Strasbourg court would mean not only the UK is out of step with its international obligations but would also mean having to leave the EU altogether. A condition of EU membership is to be a member of the Council of Europe - thus the ECHR. Leaving the EU is a course of action the Tories will not contemplate.

Naturally we've been here before with Tory rhetoric on ECHR rulings, many times:

Britain may have to pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights entirely in order to extradite foreign criminals, David Cameron says.

And here in (2006):

Mr Cameron claimed existing human rights legislation was hindering the fight against crime and terrorism, at the same time as failing to protect people's civil liberties. 

And here (2011):

Theresa May, the Home Secretary, risks an explosive rift inside the Coalition with an explicit call for the scrapping of the Human Rights Act.

And here (2013):

Theresa May, the Home Secretary, said that "by 2015, we'll need a plan for dealing with the European Court of Human Rights". "And yes, I want to be clear that all options - including leaving the convention altogether - should be on the table."

And here (2010), "it makes me physically ill to even contemplate to give anyone in prison the right to vote" says Cameron.

Not forgetting that "abolition of the Human Rights Act (HRA)" was exactly the promise they went into the last election, then...look what happened in 2010...

The Daily Mail revealed yesterday that the flagship Tory commitment to scrapping the Human Rights Act and replacing it with a British Bill of Rights is to be put on the back burner.

Then we're reminded that Cameron is not opposed to another coalition in 2015...

 Clegg and Cameron 'in secret talks on setting up a second Coalition' despite backbench opposition

So what is it? Repeal the HRA, but remain in the ECHR, leave things the same, or leave the HRA and the ECHR but try to remain in the EU or just leave everything. Who knows? The Tories don't. This is what happens when you first set out to deceive...

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.

Quote Of The Day

From the Telegraph Editorial (my emphasis):

Already the bombardment has started: Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the Council of Europe, this week insisted that Britain must be either completely in, or completely out.

Erm... wrong Council, Van Rompuy is President of the European Council. The Council of Europe is not even an EU institution.

Hang The Euro

Apologies but again due to real life getting in the way, blogging has been a bit slow round these parts.

Being busy though hasn't stopped me getting annoyed by the utterly irrelevant debate on reintroducing the death penalty - a campaign led by the self-proclaimed 'King of the Blogosphere' (Guido Fawkes), who is, by being less than forthcoming with the truth, a parody of the very medium he continuously professes to hate - the MSM. A tip Guido, the death penalty is forbidden as a result of our membership of the EU and Council of Europe via us signing up to Protocol 13.

Still, we'll have a couple of days of universal coverage of the 'passionate' debate, then probably a vote by MPs and...fuck all will change as the issue is decided by Europe.

Meanwhile... the Euro contagion spreads, rather than being a rumble in the distance you can tell it's serious this time - not only has the BBC led with the issue on its news bulletins but Barroso has been uncharacteristically blunt about the crisis. Previously the Euro has always managed to limp along regardless, but today's events look increasingly like a tipping point - panic is in the EU air.

Thank god the football season starts on Saturday to take my mind off things - though not sure it helps that my team's manager is Italian!

UKIP In Barnsley

Barnsley has a by-election on 3rd March, here's one of the UKIP candidate's posters:

hattip: Michael Heaver's Blog

Why Prisoners' Right To Vote Is A Good Thing

After 5 years the issue simply won't go away. The saga of the rights of prisoners to vote is still rumbling on, much to the discomfort of Cameron. There's a Parliamentary vote on Thursday which Cameron, knowing that he could lose on a whip, has allowed a free vote. And today the Policy Exchange think tank has called for withdrawal from the 'expansionist' European Court of Human Rights:

The report, written by a former government adviser, Dr Michael Pinto-Duschinsky, says the UK has become "subservient" to the Strasbourg court.

He says it also ignores the traditional British freedom of the press.

The report claims the 47 Strasbourg judges have "virtually no democratic legitimacy" and are poorly qualified compared to Britain's own senior judges.

Lord Hoffman, a former Law Lord, who wrote the foreword to the report, said Strasbourg has "taken upon itself an extraordinary power to micromanage the legal systems of the member states".

The report says the ECHR is a "virtually unaccountable supra-national bureaucracy".

Before my readers get the wrong impression regarding my blog post title, I would like to express that personally I'm against prisoners' having the right to vote for two main reasons:

1. Firstly it is my view that the right to vote is a contract between our country's citizens and the Government. As responsible citizens we have an obligation to respect the rule of law. As part of that contract to abide by Government laws (even ones we don't agree with) it is only fair and justified that there is a process which gives us the opportunity to remove them from power and vote in a different Government who can change existing laws (no Parliament may bind its successor etc)
   
   Therefore it follows that criminals who have broken the law have - by choice - refused to abide by their side of the contract, so it is only right that while they are incarcerated temporarily (however long temporarily is) that the Government removes their right to have a say on law making - for breaching the terms and conditions of being a responsible citizen. In short, if you want the right to vote don't break the law.
   
   And this contract works both ways: if a Government removes the right to vote (effectively hands over power to foreign undemocratic and unelected bodies) then it has broken its side of the contract and so removes law abiding citizens from the obligation to abide by its laws. A la Egypt and us; it's a two-way process.
   
   
2. More importantly and connected with the first point, my main objection is that this decision regarding prisoners' right to vote is not being made by democratic discussion in Parliament, with parties voted in by the will of the people. It is being made instead by an undemocratic, unaccountable foreign court. The dazzling irony is that prisoners are being given 'democratic rights' by an unelected, unaccountable court against the democratic wishes of the British people. That position is fundamentally wrong, as well as strangely surreal.
   

However despite my fundamental objections I wish to be pragmatic. Given the current situation our country finds itself in it is my belief that prisoner votes are a good thing because it helps hasten our exit out of the EU. (yes the decision is largely a non-EU European Court of Human Rights one but such details are unimportant in the propaganda war - Europhiles constantly criticise the press coverage of the EU over eggs but are happy to ignore other more fundamental issues).

As I argued here the problem with fighting the EU is its Directives. Essentially the electorate at large do not care about the EU technicalities of food safety, the intricacies of foreign treaties or the differences between the EU and the Council of Europe. And this is exacerbated by the fact that laws - which get made in Brussels - aren't articulated clearly by our traitors in Parliament. Our so called government does its best to hide EU laws.

That's why the prisoners' voting saga matters, it does resonate, it can't be hidden and our political class cannot pretend otherwise. Instead of having to constantly recite EU Directives that lead to Post Office closures, higher fuel bills etc there is now a demonstrably direct link with a toxic issue and Europe. Even the BBC can't hide it - having it on the front page of their web site today.

Quite simply it's another example that the unaccountable European elite will implode because it will over reach itself - with power comes greed. The more power the EU / Europe gets the more it reveals itself. And this is its fundamental weakness - it will intrude more and more on issues that do cause electoral heartache: taxes, health, crime etc - something the EU acknowledges itself.

It was only ever a matter of time before politically toxic decisions were made that could no longer be hidden by UK politicians.

In effect John Hirst has unwittingly helped the UK move nearer the EU exit door, which in turn will repeal prisoner voting rights without interference from unelected foreign judges.

In Two Minds

On the one hand this article annoys me:

The European Union's ruling on giving British prisoners the vote is a blatant breach of our sovereignty.

It was an institution of the Council of Europe ruling, not the EU, but on the other hand any anti-EU publicity is good, however confusing, especially given that other devastating EU policies get ignored.

However that the Telegraph makes such a basic error says a lot about its journalism.

War Of The Supranationals

As you are probably aware Article 6 (2) of the Lisbon Treaty states:

The Union shall accede to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Such accession shall not affect the Union's competences as defined in the Treaties.

This means that it is not only a desire but a duty for EU institutions to accede to the European Convention of Human Rights which is supervised by the European Court of Human Rights based in Strasburg. The EU institutions will be subject to rulings by the non-EU Council of Europe.

But of course the accession has not been that simple so far. The negotiations have been protracted and...quite frankly a bit of a mess. (The now defunct blogger Julien Frisch has some good posts on the various problems here.)

However, the ECHR blog points me to a recently released working paper on the accession question (downloadable here) which highlights some other anomalies and questions that need resolving. This one caught my eye:

The difference to cases involving secondary EU law is that violations can only be remedied through a Treaty amendment following the procedure set out in Article 48 TEU. Normally such an amendment requires the consent of and ratification by all Member States*. This means that the EU institutions cannot remove the violation by themselves. They are dependent on the Member States.

This has already been acknowledged in the Matthews case, where the EU Act on Direct Elections was held to violate the right to free elections of Article 3 of the First Protocol to the ECHR and the United Kingdom as a Member State of Member State of the EU was held responsible for that violation.

For the question of the correct respondent, we should therefore apply the solution found above: where a Member State acted, that Member State is the correct respondent; where the EU acted, it is the EU. This should be independent of whether the alleged violation is found in primary or secondary law.

I'm sure having read that some of you have worked out where this is going. Not only can another unaccountable institution effectively force changes in the Lisbon Treaty but a successful human rights challenge, that as a consequence forces the EU to invoke article 48, could be enough to trigger a referendum in this country (if Cameron finally gets round to passing a 'referendum lock'. No wonder he's reluctant).

This scenario is probably unlikely - a few weasel words will probably allow him to wriggle out of any 'referendum lock' but it does highlight the potential consequences of the Lisbon Treaty, and that the more we integrate, the harder it becomes for the Tories to 'pretend' they are euroceptics. Something has to snap.

*It's worth noting that the infamous self amending part of Lisbon - Article 48 - has 'implicit' and 'explicit' clauses. All bar one are explicit, i.e. any self-amendment to the Treaty requires the UK Parliament's permission (along with the other 26 member states), however the notorious 48.7 clause is implicit; basically Parliament always agrees to amendments unless it specifically objects.

Sprechen Sie Englisch?

Yes, and only English especially if celebrating the European 'day of languages':

Babel-like EU, with its 23 official languages and over 40 regional tongues, on Thursday marked an upcoming "European Day of Languages" with a speech delivered essentially in English.

The European Commission spokesman announcing Sunday's ode to multilingualism -- highlighting the benefits of languages for small businesses -- kicked off his speech in English, but on hearing sighs at a media briefing peopled by many nationalities tried his hand at other tongues.

His go at German, French, Spanish, Italian and Polish won applause for a good try but grins for below-par pronunciation.

Likewise the statement announcing the multilingual celebration was posted in all European Union languages but the calendar only in English.

EU Gets Blamed For Something It hasn't Done

Interesting headline from the Express, (by interesting I mean of course it's complete bollocks):

ANGER erupted yesterday as it emerged ministers are to give prisoners, including rapists and murderers, the right to vote in time for next year’s Scottish elections.

Anger yes, understandably. So far so good:

In a move overturning a 140-year-old bar on inmates having a say on who runs the country, the UK Government signalled it will finally concede to a controversial European human rights rulings.

Ministers have unsurprisingly capitulated, though it's taken a little longer than I thought. Still not sure what the EU has to do with it, anyway:

At a meeting of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers last week the UK said it was now deciding how to implement the move.

A Council of Europe spokesman said: “The Committee insists that the UK Government take the necessary measures before the elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in May.” A spokesman for Victim Support Scotland said: “There will be victims of crime who will find the thought of prisoners getting the vote particularly galling.

Ok accurate enough but the Council of Europe is not the EU, we're now on paragraph 6 and still no mention of the EU - so why the headline?

The European Court of Human Rights declared in 2005 that a blanket ban breached the European Convention on Human Rights.

Indeed, and then in the penultimate paragraph all is revealed:

Scottish Tory justice spokesman John Lamont said the initial European Court ruling was “unfortunate” but added: “Britain has to comply or face legal action by the EU.”

Er...legal action by the EU? Perhaps John Lamont could elaborate as this is a judgment which has nothing to do with it, or is Mr Lamont getting his Councils mixed up. As he's a Tory I would guess the latter.

Actually I'm fairly relaxed about the mix up. No doubt it will annoy the perestroika elements of the Euro blogosphere but I have more sympathy with Richard North's view:

This is an issue that also gets the Europhiles squibbling, rushing to the defence of their precious construct as they realise that this is an issue that could turn public sentiment against their heroes.

They point out that there are subtleties and complications to the way the legislation is implemented, which means that the EU is not entirely to blame (or at all in the minds of some of the little darlings).

But who cares. This is a propaganda game. There are many things which the EU does for which it completely escapes blame, so it is a kind of rough justice if it gets blamed for things for which it is not entirely responsible.

Quite. And there's nothing like the EU being blamed for prisoners' votes to boost the 'out' camp.