"Loss Of Sovereignty"

From the American PBS Newshour:

The Game Is Up

Nigel gives it both barrels:



(I always like the fact Nigel is introduced with the words 'freedom and democracy'. How the other members must hate hearing that phrase).

hattip: Oh What Now!

The EU. What's In It For Me?

From Muffled Vociferation, my attention is drawn to this new EU website promising:

A No-Nonsense Guide for UK Citizens to what the European Union Delivers.

I think we've already worked that out for ourselves, thanks.

This website is firmly in the "we haven't got our message across" camp, the default position of every deeply unpopular government who's unable to comprehend why. Labour were masters of this before the last election.

The website even has it's own EU Myths page. Pro EU loving types simply adore these, as if dispelling a few silly tabloid articles somehow justifies its existence. It doesn't.

Funnily enough, that the EU is a fundamentally corrupt, undemocratic, self-serving bureaucracy which won't take 'no' for an answer doesn't appear under EU Myths. I wonder why?

Update: Reading the myths, they don't even give an original source as to where the story came from. And quite often, as I posted here they are result of assuming a paper has said something which it hasn't.

A Waste Of Time

This question from Lords Hansard:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will encourage or require the installation of closed circuit television cameras in abattoirs.

I'll be honest and admit that my first response to reading this was; why? Are they trying to catch which pig is nicking the biscuits? Anyway it's to do with animal welfare so not an ignoble cause. The subsequent debate trundles along for a few minutes arguing pros and cons until we get the real answer:

My Lords, we have no power to insist that every abattoir should have CCTV, and that will be made even clearer when the latest EU regulation, Regulation 1099/2009, comes into effect.

That's right. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley) is admitting that the Government has "no power".

What's the point of Parliament again?

Irish Daily Star Front Page

They're not very happy are they?

EU: Democratic Elections Are Irresponsible

Because those pesky voters will get in the way:

EUROPEAN OFFICIALS have warned that any collapse of the Coalition before an EU-IMF rescue deal was struck would be “very irresponsible”.

As the Greens signalled their exit from Government in January and anxiety about contagion risk from Ireland’s crisis weighed on the euro, a source familiar with the position of European negotiators said it was their clear understanding with the Irish authorities that the Government would be able to pass the 2011 budget next month.

Shocking, I mean the voters might get a say on how their Government has acted or on the budget. Of course this is utterly disgraceful. EU commissioner Olli Rehn has also waded in:

It is essential that Ireland will pass the budget in the timeline foreseen and certainly sooner rather than later because every day that is lost increases uncertainty. Let's adopt the budget, let's get it out of the way, and let's move on.

Let's get it out the way? Let's move on? Rather like the Lisbon Treaty? Piss off you unelected tosser.

One Year On

My blog has been going for a year, today. A big thank you to everyone who has read and commented on my posts.

Irish Times Front Page

Today:

No Democratic Mandate?

"People have no democratic mandate to change that" (40 seconds in):



Tough! The Irish have had their democratic mandate, they voted, via referendum, yes to:

• Third Amendment (8 June 1972): Permitted the state to join the European Communities.
  
  
• Tenth Amendment (22 June 1987): Permitted the state to ratify the Single European Act.
  
  
• Eleventh Amendment (16 July 1992): Permitted the state to ratify the Maastricht Treaty.
  
  
• Eighteenth Amendment (3 June 1998): Allowed the state to ratify the Amsterdam Treaty.
  
  
• Twenty-sixth Amendment (7 November 2002): Allowed the state to ratify the Nice Treaty.
  
  
• Twenty-eighth Amendment (15 October 2009): Allowed the state to ratify the Treaty of Lisbon.

That's more of a say than I've had.

The End?

When the Guardian write articles like this, you know the Euro is in biiiiiig trouble:

The Irish people expected to pay in austerity cuts for their banks' sins have another option. Reject the ECB and IMF, ditch the euro”

And the Aussies have noticed:

EUROPE'S single-currency trial is looking more and more like an error.

AS Europe's money men bail out Ireland to the tune of about E80 billion ($110bn), the next key question concerns the European Union's failing currency: can it survive in its present form?

The simple answer? No

But Ireland's woes threaten not only the euro - the grandest of the EU's grand projects - but the EU itself. The kind of rhetoric normally reserved for hardened Eurosceptics has found its way to the heart of the European mainstream and its seat of power in Brussels,

Good. And the Irish bail-out saga is not quite going to plan either:

The latest is that Ireland's government is on the brink of collapse. The Green party, a junior partner in the current Irish coalition, called for a General Election. The prospect of an election is likely to undo the short-lived stability the markets demonstrated on this morning, we are told.

hattip for Guardian article: Douglas Carswell