Gays Have No "Right" To Marriage In Europe

The push for "gay rights" suffered a significant setback yesterday in a very surprising venue. The European Court of Human Rights ruled again that gays do not have a "right" to marriage, nor, when in a civil union, the same rights as a heterosexual married couple. This from the Daily Mail:

Same-sex marriages are not a human right, European judges have ruled.

Their decision shreds the claim by ministers that gay marriage is a universal human right and that same-sex couples have a right to marry because their mutual commitment is just as strong as that of husbands and wives.

The ruling was made by judges of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg following a case involving a lesbian couple in a civil partnership who complained the French courts would not allow them to adopt a child as a couple. . . .

[T]he Strasbourg judges ruled that because the French couple were civil partners, they did not have the rights of married people, who in France have the sole right to adopt a child as a couple.

The judges added that couples who are not married do not enjoy the same status as those who are. They declared: ‘The European Convention on Human Rights does not require member states’ governments to grant same-sex couples access to marriage.’

In the 2010 case, Schalk and Kopf v. Autriche, the EUCHR first held that there was no European right to homosexual marriage. The reasoning of the Court stands in direct contrast to Perry v. Schwarzenegger, where an activist gay federal district Court judge overrode the will of 7 million Californians to write into our Constitution a new civil right to homosexual marriage. In the Schalk case, the EUCHR held that there was no textual right to homosexual marriage in the European Convention on Human Rights, and thus it was an issue of social policy to be left to the individual nations. That is precisely what should happen with the issue of gay marriage in the U.S.

It should also be noted that this presents an interesting conundrum for the activist wing of the Supreme Court. In Lawrence v. Summers, the Court, in holding unconstitutional state laws that outlaw homosexual sodomy, relied in part on EUCHR decisions holding likewise. The left wing Court members will have to do some legal gymnastics to if they want now to ignore the EUCHR decision on gay marriage when the issue finally makes it to the Supreme Court.

The issue of "gay marriage" is also of particular import today in the UK, where the "conservative" PM David Cameron plans to foist a right to gay marriage on the people of his nation, a very sizable portion of whom are deeply opposed. Cameron promised that the new mandate would allow Britain's churches to refuse to conduct homosexual marriage ceremonies, but the EUCHR also addressed that in the case yesterday:

The ruling also says that if gay couples are allowed to marry, any church that offers weddings will be guilty of discrimination if it declines to marry same-sex couples.

So we wait to see whether Cameron continues ahead with his plans to push gay marriage down the throat of the people of his nation regardless of this ruling. If he does, he needs to challenged for his position in the Tory party. In fact, he should have been challenged over his refusal to allow the people of the UK a referendum on EU membership after promising it during the election campaign. He is a spineless left-wing snake with about the same commitment to conservative values as Obama.

At any rate, until today, I thought that the lefties, particularly the Euro-leftes, had never run into a new claimed "right" that they wouldn't embrace, regardless of the plain language of their Constitution. Make that doubly true for "gay rights." But life is nothing if not surprising.

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Should Britain Leave The EU & Join NAFTA?

Between Obama - whose first act in the White House was to send Churchill's bust back to Britain - and the Boy Wonder, David Cameron - who renigged on a promise to allow his countrymen a referendum on their membership in the EU - there seems no chance at the moment that Britain and America will become much closer in their relationship, economically or otherwise. But they certainly should. That is the proposition of Iain Murray and James Bennet in an op-ed at the WSJ. They believe that Britain and the U.S. would both benefit significantly if Britain were to minimize its ties with the EU and in its stead join NAFTA.

Britain joined the EU in 1973, when it was nothing more than a loose economic union. Over the next four decades, the EU grew to become an anti-democratic, socialist monstrosity. Yet Britain stayed the course with the EU, even going so far as to jettison Margaret Thatcher when she stood athwart greater ties to the EU. But Britain's legal and political system, the culture, language and traditions, they are all at home in North America. They are not, as Murray and Bennet point out, at home with the nations of continental Europe. And today, the Brits are at a crossroads, whether to surrender the last vestiges of their sovereignty to the EU, or whether to turn towards North America. An attempt by Cameron to keep Britain at arms length from further EU integration has been met with a cold shoulder from the EU members:

. . . French President Nicolas Sarkozy helpfully summed up the results of this month's summit. He told Le Monde that there are now two Europes, one that "wants more solidarity between its members and regulation, the other attached solely to the logic of the single market." The Europe of regulation wants to press forward with deeper integration, stringent budget rules and a transition away from nation-state democracy.

The problem is that no one asked the peoples of Europe whether they wanted this. Nationalism is on the rise. Budget rules have been flagrantly ignored in the past, and the Franco-German plan does nothing to deal with the euro's structural problems, which make southern European countries grossly uncompetitive.

It is obvious to most outsiders that the euro zone's problems remain. The rating agencies have been unimpressed, and downgrades of most euro-zone members and their banks are now more likely than ever. This meant that Mr. Cameron was left with two choices: strike out for the shore or drown with the rest.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Mr. Cameron's decision is the way he made it. It is now clear that he made an attempt—as he had promised British voters—to repatriate powers away from Brussels. This attempt was rebuffed with some prejudice. Given the outright hostility to Britain now evident in the European Union establishment, any further attempt at repatriation will be a non-starter. The implications are considerable.

The European Economic Community (EEC) for which the British signed up in a 1975 referendum—a community of free trade and cooperation, not supranational bureaucracy—is long gone. Worse, even today's less-palatable EU will soon no longer be on offer. Sometime in the next few years at most, Britain will likely face the choice between immersion in a powerful centralized European mega-state and full exit.

Most probably, the choice will be made in an atmosphere of crisis, with dramatic media coverage proclaiming impending doom for Europe. Britain today needs to think seriously about a Plan B, so that it does not have to take an option it will regret for lack of coherent alternatives.

Britain does have other choices. To find the country's new role, British leaders should look to North America.

Alone among EEC members, Britain narrowed some of its major trade networks when it joined. It also traded ordinary Britons' right to virtually bureaucracy-free movement, temporary or permanent, between the U.K. and British Commonwealth nations. This meant losing easy access to prosperous places like Canada, Australia and New Zealand, which enjoy plentiful jobs and high standards of living, for the largely theoretical right to take a job in Düsseldorf or Lille. While much trust was lost between Britain and the rest of the Commonwealth because of this move, strong personal, cultural and economic ties remain and could be revived. Ask the average Briton where he'd feel more at home, Paris or Toronto.

Canada and Australia have well-managed, vibrant economies. Both countries sit on huge deposits of natural resources of ever-increasing value. Britain's top-tier financial sector and still-excellent technical capabilities already play a role in Canada's economy. These ties could be much strengthened.

Britons also feel at home south of the Canadian border. Contrary to an oft-repeated myth, links between Britain and the United States are not reducible to the personal relationships between presidents and prime ministers. The U.S. and the U.K. have always been each other's primary financial partners. A few simple measures could substantially deepen this relationship, especially once Britain no longer needs to adhere to EU rules.

Foremost among these would be to admit a post-EU Britain to the North American Free Trade Agreement. Nafta is not a perfect vehicle, but it has the enormous advantage of already existing, with a nearly 20-year track record behind it. And unlike the EU, Nafta would not seek to impose a single social vision on its members. For example, Nafta has had no effect on Canadian social policy, which is very similar to Britain's—except for Canada having more revenue to pay for it all.

The ongoing euro crisis will not be resolved any time soon, and America will continue to be impacted by bank write-downs and declines in U.S.-European trade. Increasing U.S.-U.K. trade would be one relatively quick and effective way of taking up some of the slack.

Up to now, however, the U.S. has pursued a policy of propping up the euro while discouraging British independence from Brussels. This is incredibly short-sighted. Using the vehicles of the Federal Reserve and the International Monetary Fund to try to fill the gaping hole in Europe's finances will get everybody nowhere. Instead, British, American and Canadian policy makers (along with their Nafta partners in Mexico) should be taking the long view and preparing for a future in which the unsustainable euro zone inevitably collapses. Welcoming Britain back into the North Atlantic economic community would be a win-win for all involved.

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Cameron & Multiculturalism

PM David Cameron attacked multiculturalism in Britain yesterday. Here are a portion of his remarks.



I applaud his raising this issue. Whether Cameron will be able to follow through and change the hold multiculturalism has on Britain is suspect.

Multiculturalism is a direct outgrowth of marxism. Karl Marx, in the opening lines of the Communist Manifesto, stated that "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles [between the] . . . oppressor and oppressed." And that defines the heart and the soul of the left to this day.

The left throughout Europe and America have taken the Marx paradigm and overlayed it upon society. The left divides society into "oppressed" groups by whatever sets them apart from the "oppressor" class, be it Muslims, women, blacks, gays, etc. The left treats the oppressed groups as entitled to special treatment and to freedom from judgment or criticism. Commonly, any criticism is delegitimized as a "racist" attack and the one speaking the criticism is demonized. The flip side of the left's marxist paradigm is that the "oppressor's" culture and history is demonized. This is, in a nutshell, is what actually defines "multiculturalism." It is and always was a tool to destroy traditional society, allowing it to then be rebuilt into a Marxian worker's paradise.

Britain has been on this multicultural path for decades in fits and starts, with it becoming core British policy under the Labour governments of PM Tony Blair and then PM Gordon Brown. It has, when applied to the triumphalist Islam that is pervasive in Britain's Muslim community, become a virulent toxin.

If Cameron is serious about attacking this cancer, then his task is daunting, for it has metastisized throughout British culture and is ensconced in British law. For just a few examples, see the following:

- an 80 yr old woman under attack for publishing her concerns with Islam in a Church newsetter.

- a discussion of Muslim no go areas, attacks on freedom of speech, and the degree of radicalism to be found amongst the Muslim population of Britain

- the problems of honor violence, forced marriages and female genital mutilation among the Muslim population in the UK

- a poll of 600 Muslim students attending university in Britain found that 32% of British Muslim students support killing for Islam and that 40% want to see Sharia Law imposed in Britain.

- any person or organization that takes a principled stand against the encroachment of Islam is inevitably demonized in Britain as "far right wing" and racist. Indeed, the treatment given such groups in Britain is even more vicious and pervasive than the treatment by the left of the Tea Party on this side of the pond. One such organization that figures prominently in the news reports below is the English Defense League. As to whether they are "far right wing," here is their website and below are two interviews with the head of the EDL. The EDL does not seem either racist or "far right wing" to me. They are standing up and saying, "no more." And that is driving the left crazy.

In the immediate aftermath of his speech condemning multiculturalism, Cameron was attacked by the left and by Muslims. This from the Guardian:

David Cameron was accused of playing into the hands of rightwing extremists today as he delivered a controversial speech on the failings of multiculturalism within hours of one of the biggest anti-Islam rallies ever staged in Britain.

Muslim and anti-fascist groups questioned the prime minister's judgment and sensitivity to the issues, saying he had handed a propaganda coup to the hard-right English Defence League as 3,000 of its supporters marched through Luton chanting anti-Islamic slogans. . . .

And this from the Daily Mail:

A major row over Islamic extremism erupted last night after Labour accused David Cameron of being a far-Right ‘propagandist’.
Sadiq Khan [the Labour Party's Shadow Justice Secretary] made the incendiary remark in response to an outspoken speech by the Prime Minister attacking ‘state multiculturalism’, calling for a stronger British identity and signalling a crackdown on Muslim groups. . . .

Gavin Shuker, the Labour MP for Luton South, questioned why Mr Cameron had given his speech on the same day that 1,500 EDL supporters demonstrated in the town. They were policed by 1,800 officers from 14 forces in an operation costing around £800,000.
‘On the day far-Right extremists descended on Luton, is Mr Cameron unwise to attack one form of extremism when another form is on the streets making people in Luton feel unsafe?’

The Muslim Council of Britain’s Dr Faisal Hanjra said: ‘The Muslim community is very much in the spotlight, being treated as part of the problem as opposed to part of the solution.’ . . .

The last quote, from the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), hints at the problems Britain has with its Muslm population. The MCB is Britain's branch of the radical Muslim Brotherhood, yet they are treated by many in the government and the media as spokesman for the UK's Muslim population.

At any rate, to say again, Cameron's task is daunting. Multiculturalism pervades not merely Britain's culture, but its laws. And it is augmented by permisive immigration rules. Moreover, given that multiculturalism is central to the left's power structure throughout the West, they will fight Cameron tooth and nail to preserve it in substance, if not in name. I hope Cameron succeeds, but I will be very surprised if he does.

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A Bill Of Indictment Against The EU

At Brits At Their Best, Iris Binstead of Save Our Sovereignty has nailed her 95 theses to the door of the EU castle. It is a damning bill of indictment enumerating the many ways Britian is being harmed by the EU.

Unfortunately, the political system of Britain is becoming ever more dysfunctional. As I pointed out here, the Brits practice a form of democracy that no longer gives substantive voice to the will of the people. Labour's decision two years ago to transfer the sovereignty of Britain to the EU without a promised referendum of the people of Britain should have resulted in open warfare on the streets of London. It did not. And indeed, David Cameron, the leader of the Tory party, who initially ran on a platform of holding such a referendum, later gave indications that, even if Tories were elected, he would not allow such a referendum to be held. And now Britain is ruled by a Tory-Lib Dem coalition that has ratified Labour's actions.

As Ms. Binstead writes in her preamble:

THOSE READERS who voted at the recent general election for a Conservative Government believing it to be eurosceptic must be feeling utterly betrayed. They were led to believe that Mr Cameron and Mr Hague would not allow the European Union to take further powers away from this country without a referendum. But already there is talk of new financial regulation and supervision, member states’ budgets being supervised, new powers for EU police forces, EU control over immigration and asylum matters, and much more.

Was Mr Cameron’s euroscepticism just a ploy to get votes or has he now been forced to co-operate by the extremely pro-European Union Liberal Democrats with whom the Conservatives are in coalition? Whichever is true, the Sunday Telegraph, 18.7.10, reported that he tried to intervene in the election of eurosceptic MP, Bill Cash as Chairman of the Parliamentary European Scrutiny Committee in an attempt to head off a Tory rebellion on Europe. Many members of the Tory Party were angered by this. There are also doubts about William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, who has vowed to increase Britain’s influence in the European Union by boosting the numbers of UK nationals in the Brussels Civil Service. (UK Press Association, 1.7.10.

Do read the entire post. And as Richard North at EU Referendum recently wrote:

[Co-Prime Minister] David Cameron is happier sharing power with the Liberal Democrats than he would be with an all-Conservative government, according to "one of his inner circle".

If this is true, and it could very well be, it sort of confirms a lot of what we have been saying – the man is not a Conservative, never has been and never will be. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that he would be more at home with his own kind in the Lib-Dims than with a Tory majority. . . .

And yet the British people have no say in the choosing of their chief executive. That is certainly one of the principal reasons that their form of democracy is not responsive to the will of the electorate.

At any rate, all of this comes after last week's announcement that our British cousins were about to start suffering something with which we in the U.S. have some historical experience - "taxation without representation." This from Mary Ellen Synon writing in the Daily Mail last week:

. . . The European Commission has decided to fire up the powers of taxation given to the EU by the Lisbon Treaty. Thanks to David Cameron's refusal to fight the transfer of sovereignty the treaty makes, the British people can now be subject to taxation direct from Brussels, with the Commons -- indeed, with the Chancellor -- having no control over the tax at all.

Today Janusz Lewandowski, the commissioner in charge of the EU's £116bn budget, announced he intends to press for a new EU tax. The euro-elite want to be able to get their hands on your money without having to ask your Government even for a perfunctory agreement. All this talk about belt-tightening around Europe is making the euro-elite edgy: they have their luxurious pay and pensions and travel allowances, and all their empire-building to protect, after all.

Britain and every other member state is going through terrible budget turmoil, with spending cuts and citizens furious about increases in taxation -- yet now Brussels is getting ready to activate Art 311 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (part of the Lisbon bundle -- the euro-elite don't want to make it easy for you to find it).

It says, 'The Union shall provide itself with the means necessary to attain its objectives and carry through its policies.'

The 'means.' That means money. Your money. Taken away by an unelected single party government (the commission) enabled by politicians over whom the British voters have no political control (the council). The British will have to pay the tax these people demand, but can never vote them out. The commission wants to start with a tax on all bank transactions, or perhaps air travel. It doesn't really matter which. Their point now is to establish the power of Brussels to tax the populations of the countries of the EU without any control by national parliaments. Once that power is in place, the taxes can be ratcheted up.

There you have it, people forced to pay taxes by people they did not vote into office, and whom they cannot vote out of office, and over whom they have no control.

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Paul Revere, a lot a determined men on board a tea ship in Boston Harbour, a lot of other brave men at a green in Lexington, and plenty other men with much to lose, all decided long ago they would not tolerate such a thing. They could not tolerate taxation without representation.

Question: will the British tolerate it? Or will they let themselves be humiliated in a way that even the small ragtag population of 13 British colonies would not allow in 1776?

Given the systemic failure of democracy as practiced in Britain, I think it really will take a "tea party" or two to make their governing class see the light. And I use the term "tea party" in both its historic and modern political contexts. As to the former, in the absence of actual tea to toss in the Thames, perhaps they can start by tossing in David Cameron and William Hague.

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More Observations On The British Empire

Some time ago, responding to the avant Brit socialist line that its Colonial period was unforgivably sinful, I wrote a post on Britain's Colonial past, pointing out:

British Colonialism was Britain's gift to the world. A sizable chunk, if not the majority of the most prosperous and free countries in the world today have emerged from Britain's colonial empire . . . Indeed, as I pointed out in a post below, the U.S. not only adopted most of Britain's legal, governmental and bureaucratic systems, but the Bill of Rights itself is in large measure an amalgam of the rights of British Protestants at the time of our nation's founding. Our debt to Britain is deep and lasting. . . .

The Brits . . . brought a host of benefits to the nations they colonized, from education to the English language, from trade to capitalism, from government bureaucracy and democracy to the British legal system. . . .

David Cameron, Britain's new PM is now preparing to visit India, once the jewel of Britain's colonial possessions, and announced that he is doing so "with a spirit of humility." Nirpal Dhaliwal, the son of Indian immigrants to Britain, writing in the Daily Mail, has pointed out that Cameron does not need to be apologetic to India, as the gifts of Britain from the Colonial Period now form the basis for India's rapid growth and evolution:

Many have interpreted David Cameron's statement that he is visiting India in a 'spirit of humility' as a shame-faced apology for Britain's imperial rule there. But Indians require no apology for Empire and seek none, and nor do Britons need to feel especially guilty for it.

India is the world's second-largest growing economy, producing more English-speaking graduates than the rest of the world combined.
The use of English is the most enduring and profitable legacy of the Raj; without it, the boom in Indian call-centre and software industries could not have happened. . . .

Just as Empire opened the doors of modernity to India, a good relationship between Britain and India will be a mark of how prominent both countries are in the modern world.

All that is best about India - its tolerance, freedom and engagement with the world - has flourished due to the structures and ideas it inherited from British rule.

Despite the often callous profiteering of Empire, the modern Indian state simply would not exist without it. . . .

The attitudes of British intelligentsia towards the Colonial period is deeply distorted by the lens of Marxism and multiculturalism. The reality is that the British Colonial period has proven one of history's most positive influences.

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A Hung Parliament - Updated

The election is over in the UK, but the byzantine maneuvering to create a government is just beginning. With the vast majority of results in, the BBC is predicting:

Tory - 306
Labour: 262
Liberal Democrats: 55
Others: 27

To form a government, there must be a party - or a coalition of parties - holding 326 seats. The Labour Party, which has deconstructed Britain over its past 13 years of socialist rule, still managed to lose only 100 seats. And even though the Tories will be by far the largest party in Parliament, the fact is that the Labour may well be able to retain power through a coalition with the Lib Dems - also a far left party - and a few of the far left minor parties. This from the BBC:

Gordon Brown may start coalition talks with the Lib Dems, who, Nick Clegg admitted, had a "disappointing night" .

The BBC projection suggests David Cameron's Conservatives will have 306 seats. If there are 10 Unionists elected in Northern Ireland then Mr Cameron might be able to command 316 - probably still slightly too few for him to be sure of winning a Queen's Speech.

But Labour and the Lib Dems together would have 317 seats, according to the BBC figures, which even with three SDLP MPs would still leave them at 320 - again probably just a few votes short.

So everything is still at issue - though Labour has a slight advantage. All of this is truly horrendous. David Cameron, who has misled the Tory Party for a decade, attempting to turn it into a light version of Labour, has managed to pull defeat from the jaws of what should have been a victory so thorough as to have banished Labour the halls of government for a decade or more. You could track the recent downward spiral of the Tory party towards this election from the date the boywonder officially reneged on his promise to hold a referendum on the issue of EU.

Assuming Labour forms the next government, Cameron should be booted so fast from the Tory leadership his head should spin. The Tories need to replace him with someone who is actually a conservative and who will actually be governed by his ideals rather than pure political calculation, though it might already be too late. Labour has so deconstructed Britain that it may well be the damage it has wrought cannot be undone. A few more years of Labour misrule - or Cameron misrule for that matter - will like insure the damage is permanent.

Update: It appears that the Lib Dems have already slapped down Gordon Brown and Labour, saying that the Tories should have the first opportunity to form a government. That is code for "make me an offer."

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The UK Through Labour's Looking Glass

Its official. Britain is now a caricature of its once great self.

Once the most powerful nation on earth, Britain strode the globe like a colossus. Britain's legacy to the world has been the most important of the past millennium. The most free and rich nations in our world - from the U.S. to Canada to Australia, India and many others, have all emerged from a period of English colonialism. When the revolutionaries fired the first shots in 1776, what they were fighting for was the rights of free Englishmen. And when our founder's wanted to limit the power of the state, they dusted off the English Bill of Rights, made a few tweaks, and ensconced it as our Bill of Rights.

Yet today, the English Bill of Rights is not but a historical document of no legal worth. The rights of British subjects earned over a millennium of revolt and revolution are circumscribed by a modern Parliament that wields unchecked power. The most insidious restriction of those rights today is the right of a British citizen to be free in their speech. Want to feel the police power of the state, say disparaging things about homosexuality, Islam, . . . or now, vegans. Yes, that's right, vegans are one of only several newly minted victim classes by Labour in their Marxist laboratory that is the UK. This from The Times:

Vegans and teetotallers are to be given the same protection against discrimination as religious groups, under legislation championed by Harriet Harman, the equalities minister.

Members of cults and “new religions” such as Scientology, whose supporters include the film stars Tom Cruise and John Travolta, would also be offered protection, as would atheists.

A code of practice explaining the legal implications of the equality bill states that religions need not be mainstream or well known for their adherents to gain protection. “A belief need not include faith or worship of a god or gods, but must affect how a person lives their life or perceives the world.” . . .

This is nuts. Labour has once again taken the failed theory of multiculturalism and doubled down on it. A vegan diet now classifies as a religion? There is damn good reason to criticize those who eat a vegan diet. The simple fact is, on a pure vegan diet, you can't get enough B-12, thus inviting health problems. It is not a natural diet - rather, it is by definition an unhealthy and unsafe diet. The people that eat vegan - and scream from the rooftops that everyone else needs to start doing it also - are bonkers. And those who believe in abstinence from alcohol are now placed on equal footing with Christianity? Spare me.

If you are not living in the UK or are not following all of this closely, it is difficult to understand just how insidious all of this is. The practical reality of legal protection as a victim group under UK law is to give those newly minted victims carte blanche to push their avant garde life style into all four corners of British society on one hand, while the protection is used as huge cudgel to beat British society into silent submission on the other. If one of the Queen's reckless subjects has the temerity to object, they stand a real chance of inviting all sorts of negative consequences. Follow the link here to get a feel for those negative consequences. This is a cycle we see over and over again, with favored victim classes of the UK's left being held beyond not merely legitimate criticism, but lawful criticism.

If you are a white male in Britain, you are under attack from the Labour government. If you have a problem with radical homosexual agenda being pushed in state schools, better not say anything or you too will feel the discrimination. If you challenge the insane open doors immigration policy in the public sphere, you are treated as a pariah. And of course, if you are a Christian in Britain, you are under attack from the Labour government. That last is important because this latest decision of the Labour government is not merely multiculturalism taken to insane heights, it is also part of Labour's century old war on Christianity. Labour is raising every avant garde lifestyle choice to be the equal under the law with actual religion, thus calling the fundamental worth of Christianity into question. The PC culture of Britain is insane. It's Alice through the looking glass across the pond.

This once great country is now gone so far off the rails that, from an ocean away, it is becoming increasingly difficult to recognize the UK as a Western democracy. It is certainly moving into the sphere of soft totalitarianism. Moreover, with the vast majority of power transferred from Parliament to the EU, the fact is that it really no longer is a functioning democracy. The people of Britain can still vote, but their Parliament no longer has all that much to do. That of course came about after Labour refused to hold a promised referendum on the issue of transferring Britain's sovereignty to the EU. It was despicable - as is the current Tory position, that they will treat this Labour coup as a fait accompli. One wonders if the great ship of British state can ever be righted?

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Climategate Update 10: Climategate Reverberates from The UK To Down Under

Accross the pond, the Daily Express has become the first national newspaper to give front page billing to Climategate. On the flip side of the coin, the BBC is furiously fighting a rear guard action to minimize fall-out from Climategate.

Down under, Australian PM Kevin Rudd, who has made cap and trade legislation to "combat global warming" the centerpiece of his agenda and who, but a week ago, seemed destined to see it pass the legislature, watched as the measure went down in flames today. The Times of London has the story.

James Delingpole rounds up the evidence that Climategate is starting to unravel the AGW world. Writing at UK's Telegraph. Delingpole brings up plans by some scientists to bring criminal fraud charges against the CRU. Equally of interest, he tells of a challenge to the Tory Party's David Cameron over Cameron's own mindless embrace of the green madness. This from Mr. Delingpole:

Watch out Green Dave! The Independent reports on the growing backlash within the party to Cameron’s libtard-wooing greenery. Turning to the Independent for a balanced report on environmental matters is a bit like consulting Der Sturmer for a sensible, insightful view on the Jewish question. Still, for once, the house journal of eco-loonery seems to have got it right and the point made by Tory backbencher David Davis is well made:

“The ferocious determination to impose hair-shirt policies on the public – taxes on holiday flights, or covering our beautiful countryside with wind turbines that look like props from War of the Worlds – is bound to cause a reaction in any democratic country.”

At PJM, Ed Driscoll has a great roundup of climate scares then and now. The sky is falling, the sky is falling indeed.

Also at PJM, Christopher Horner picks up an interesting disconnect regarding Michael Mann and "Mike's trick" to hide the decline.

And also at PJM, an interview with distinguished scientist Roger Pielke, Sr., who discusses how climate science has been corrupted by the IPCC and how contrary voices have been ignored. Among his specific charges, Pielke states that the surface temperature data being relied upon has significant problems of reliability. While Pielke does not question some level of AGW, he believes the IPCC conclusions have been proven untenable.

Updates: This from PJM on what is likely to be the most important aspect of the fallout from Climategate - the application reconsideration of carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the EPA's regulatory authority:

In light of the Climategate fraud scandal, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) on Wednesday filed a petition asking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to suspend its plans to regulate greenhouse gas emissions using the Clean Air Act, pending a thorough investigation of and public comment on the newly released information. . . .

Reason Mag has a very good article on the damage Climategate has done to the field of climate science and what that field needs to do to recover some sembelance of credibility. Someone needs to tell Barbara Boxer that it involves a bit more than simply prosecuting the individual or individuals who leaked the CRU e-mails. She is in complete denial.

As is the Huffington Post which, according to Newsbusters, is in the midst of a fully blown Climategate panic attack.

And Jon Stewart has a lot of fun with Climategate, though he has to add an evil Republican in for balance apparently:



Prior Posts:

Climategate and Surrealism
More Climategate Fallout
Climategate Update 3
Climategate Update 4: CRU Records Worthless
Climategate Update 5: IPCC's Chairman Mao
Climategate Update 6: Climategate In Video
UNEP, Green Religion & Global Governance
Climate Update 7: IPCC's Chairman Mao Plays The Obama Card, Peer Review Analyzed, Scientific Method Explained For Paul Krugman
Climategate Update 8: The NYT Reports
Climategate Update 9: CRU Head Phil Jones Steps Down During Investigation, An MIT Prof Explains The Holes In AGW Theory, And Climate Fraud Is Everywhere

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An Invitation To Anarchy

The problems of the UK seem to be multiplying. Britain suffers from an aging system of electrical production and a government that has dithered over its fantasy love affair with non-carbon technologies for over a decade. As the EU Referendum states, the end result is a real possibility of the "lights going out" in the forseeable future. This situation, already quite serious, just got worse. A group of greens who did tens of thousands of pounds in damage to a coal fired electrical plant has been cleared of the charges upon jury trial. The defense turned the trial into a referendum on global warming. The jury accepted the defense. The defense was supported on the witness stand by Zach Goldman, a Tory candidate for Parliament, who argued that civil disobediance was justified in this case.

This from the Independent:

The threat of global warming is so great that campaigners were justified in causing more than £35,000 worth of damage to a coal-fired power station, a jury decided yesterday. In a verdict that will have shocked ministers and energy companies the jury at Maidstone Crown Court cleared six Greenpeace activists of criminal damage.

Jurors accepted defence arguments that the six had a "lawful excuse" to damage property at Kingsnorth power station in Kent to prevent even greater damage caused by climate change. The defence of "lawful excuse" under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 allows damage to be caused to property to prevent even greater damage – such as breaking down the door of a burning house to tackle a fire.

The not-guilty verdict, delivered after two days and greeted with cheers in the courtroom, raises the stakes for the most pressing issue on Britain's green agenda and could encourage further direct action.

. . . During the eight-day trial, the world's leading climate scientist, Professor James Hansen of Nasa, who had flown from American to give evidence, appealed to the Prime Minister personally to "take a leadership role" in cancelling the plan and scrapping the idea of a coal-fired future for Britain. Last December he wrote to Mr Brown with a similar appeal. At the trial, he called for an moratorium on all coal-fired power stations, and his hour-long testimony about the gravity of the climate danger, which painted a bleak picture, was listened to intently by the jury of nine women and three men.

Professor Hansen, who first alerted the world to the global warming threat in June 1988 with testimony to a US senate committee in Washington, and who last year said the earth was in "imminent peril" from the warming atmosphere, asserted that emissions of CO2 from Kings-north would damage property through the effects of the climate change they would help to cause.

He was one of several leading public figures who gave evidence for the defence, including Zac Goldsmith, the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Richmond Park and director of the Ecologist magazine, who similarly told the jury that in his opinion, direct action could be justified in the minds of many people if it was intended to prevent larger crimes being committed.

. . . During the trial the defendants said they had acted lawfully, owing to an honestly held belief that their attempt to stop emissions from Kingsnorth would prevent further damage to properties worldwide caused by global warming. Their aim, they said, was to rein back CO2 emissions and bring urgent pressure to bear on the Government and E.ON to changes policies. They insisted their action had caused the minimum amount of damage necessary to close the plant down and constituted a "proportionate response" to the increasing environmental threat.

. . . He added: "This verdict marks a tipping point for the climate change movement. When a jury of normal people say it is legitimate for a direct action group to shut down a coal-fired power station because of the harm it does to our planet, then where does that leave Government energy policy? We have the clean technologies at hand to power our economy. It's time we turned to them instead of coal."

Ms Hall said: "The jury heard from the most distinguished climate scientist in the world. How could they ignore his warnings and reject his leading scientific arguments?"

Read the entire article.

This is all rather breathtaking in its ramifications for Britain. Energy policy in Britain, already in the hands of the fantasy based folk, has now been handed to the loons to do with as they will. The protection of law has just been removed from every coal plant in Britain. And it has occurred with the blessing of a Tory candidate for parliament. Iaian Murray has much more on the ramifications at NRO.

The Judge allowed the defense to turn his court into a circus from the sounds of it, and into a referendum on global warming itself. This can only turn out very badly for Britain. It makes an utter mockery of the law.

But beyond that, the fact of a Tory candidate coming out in support of the defense just boggles the mind. It is certainly suggestive that the degree of seperation betwen the hard left Labor party and the Tory party is but a few degrees at most. Its tough to have a working adverserial system when the opposing parties have no differences in policy. I await to see how the boy wonder, Tory party leader David Cameron, responds to this one.

EU Referendum has much more commentary and links.

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An English Lesson For E.J. Dionne

Dionne really is such low hanging fruit, going after his insipid columns is akin to taking a few practice swings with a bat before stepping up to the plate. Today he completely mistakes what is going on across the pond as the basis for his suggestion that McCain make a sharp left turn to be more like Obama.
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You can find EJ Dionne's column here. Dionne's message therein to McCain today - ditch conservative principles and become more liberal, just like the Tories did, and you stand a chance of winning the election.

There are just a few problems with that. First and foremost among them is that Republicans lost power when they lost their mooring from conservative values. They spent our wealth like drunken Democrats. When the now indicted Sen. Stevens put the Bridge to Nowhere on the Senate map, all but a few Republicans walked across it like lemmings. But that aside, looking to the UK, it is true that the Tories would never be mistaken for conservatives in the U.S. They are Labour lite - but they have been that way for the better part of a century. Voters are not warming to the Tories because the Tories have suddenly changed brands. To the contrary, they are utterly rejecting Labour, whose ideas are pretty much the mainstream socialism that Obama promises.

I've been calling Britain a laboratory in modern socialism for years. If there is a lesson to be learned from the British experience, it's that socialism is a grand failure.

As to why the Tories lost power in the first place - they sacked Margaret Thatcher because of her opposition to the EU. When Thatcher came to power, she did so on the heels of hard economic times. She revamped the British economy and tore the economic heart out of British socialism. She was villified for it, and when she lost power, that did not mean the end to the Tory problems on Europe. That, plus a series of sex scandals and some bad economic times did in Thatcher's successor, John Major. The Tories imploded, much as Republicans in 2006.

Now, after eleven years of mucking things up like only socialists can do, we are being treated to the spectacle of Labour embracing conservative principles in an effort to hold onto power. The latest Green Paper on policing, promising a devolution of power, is about as far off the left playbook as Nancy Pelosi embracing drilling in ANWR. So, to the extent that there has been movement in the political parties over the past decade in the UK, its been the movement of Labour towards the center left occupied by the Tories.

That aside, EJ did chuck in a few laughers with the best being far and away to assert that Gordon Brown and Obama share a "broadly center left world view." Gordon Brown is anything but center left. And to claim that there is anything about Obama that can be characterized as "center" or even "center left" is laughable. This is a guy whose voting record is well to the left of the only self-proclaimed socialist in Congress, who wants to declare Iraq a defeat, and who wants to institute cradle to grave socialism in the U.S. That is "center" only if you are in Cuba or Venezuela. Even China has given up that ghost.

Oh well, Dionne may never get anything right in his columns, but he always provides fine entertainment - unintended, though it may be.

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Labour Takes It In The Shorts

The socialist Labour Party was trounced in mid-term elections two months ago, and now, in a by election, have lost possibly the safest seat they had, Glasgow East. The Tories are publicly urging PM Gordon Brown to call another general election and even one Labour MP has now called for Brown to step down.
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This from the Telegraph:

Challenged by David Cameron, the Conservative leader, to call a general election after the loss of Glasgow East to the Scottish National Party, Mr Brown said he was "getting on with the job".

Preparing to meet trade union leaders in Warwick, the Prime Minister said: "We've got to listen and hear people's concerns and that's exactly what we are doing. People are worried every time they go to the petrol station for fuel and worry about the costs. These are concerns that are happening in every other country.

"My full focus is on taking people through these difficult times."

But Graham Stringer, a former minister and the MP for Manchester Blackley, added to the pressure on his leader by becoming the first Labour MP to publicly urging for Mr Brown to consider his position.

Mr Stringer said the Cabinet must have a "closed and honest discussion,” adding: “We need a new start and that can only come from a debate around the leadership.”

In one of the biggest electoral upsets of recent times, the Scottish National Party candidate John Mason last night overturned a huge 13,507 majority in Glasgow East and clinched the former Labour stronghold from the Labour candidate, Margaret Curran, by 365 votes.

Speaking earlier outside his home in west London, Mr Cameron said the result showed that voters were telling the Prime Minister: "We think you're failing and we want change."

Mr Cameron said: "I wonder whether we can put up with this for another 18 months.

. . . This morning Des Browne, the Scottish Secretary, admitted that it had been a "bad night" for Labour. But he said that the party had recovered from previous by-election disasters and could do so again. He maintained that Mr Brown was the best leader for the country in difficult times.

. . . The defeat sends a chilling message about Labour's electoral prospects to already dissatisfied party backbenchers, the majority of whom enjoy much smaller majorities. Labour's collapse in a working class area also suggests that the party's traditional support is joining the middle classes in turning their backs on the party.

This morning Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP deputy leader, said that if the result were replicated at the next general election, Labour would be left with only one MP in Scotland. She described the victory in Glasgow East as a "sensational, spectacular, epic result".

She said: "The cost of living, fuel prices and food prices were an enormous factor in this by-election. But also for the first time in history this was a by-election between two governments - the Labour Government in London and the SNP Government in Holyrood. Clearly the Labour Government is deeply unpopular."

Mr Brown has already seen a safe Labour seat lost in May when a 7,000 majority in Crewe and Nantwich was reversed by the Tories. Last month Labour came fifth in the Henley by-election. But for half a century, Labour has enjoyed political supremacy in the east end of Glasgow – the party's 25th safest seat in the country and its third most secure in Mr Brown's Scottish heartland.

In the poll, Mr Mason received 11,277 votes (43 per cent), beating Mrs Curran, who took 10,912 (42 per cent). The SNP's vote increased 26 percentage points on the 2005 General Election, while Labour's fell 19 points. . .

Read the entire article

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Britain's Final Chances

The EU will become a super-state once its Constitution, embodied in the Treaty of Lisbon, is fully ratified by all member countries. The EU is an anti-democratic experiment in socialism that stands in contradiction to Britain’s anglo-saxon traditions of representative democracy, individual rights and capitalism (see here, here, here and here). While membership in the EU has proven a boon for Britain’s political class, it has proven very bad for the rest of Britain in innumerable ways that only portend to worsen.

Britain's integration as an EU province is also very bad for the U.S. Britain has been America's closest European ally. As Britain is subsumed into the EU, so goes both its special relationship with the U.S. and, in a larger context, a critically important member of the anglosphere whose traditions and values animate the freest and most prosperous nations on earth.

Britain is at a tipping point on the EU membership in many ways. Things look bleak at the moment. Gordon Brown and Labour are determined to transfer Britain’s sovereignty to the EU without any vote of the people. The "conservative" Tory Party is little more than a light version of the socialist Labour party. As I posted here, it is led by David Cameron, a weak man driven by political expediency rather than conservative principles who has said that he will treat Labour’s actions as a fait accompli. What is going on in Britain is a stealth coup by a disingenuous political class that is being largely supported by British media though minimalist and superficial coverage.

We are down now to the last three chances to derail British ratification of the Lisbon Treaty and transfer of the bulk of its sovereign powers to the EU. The House of Lords must vote on the Lisbon Treaty this week. Ireland is the only country to hold a referendum on the treaty, and they do so on Thursday. Lastly, there is a court case seeking to force Labour to uphold its pledge and hold a referendum on the EU. Speaking on these issues are Melanie Phillips, John Bolton and EU Referendum’s Dr. Richard North.
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Author Melanie Phillips has written an exceptional article documenting the current situation and the stakes at issue:

. . . The EU is the issue that all politicians are ignoring in the hope we will forget about it. Most immediately, they hope we have forgotten to be concerned about the European Constitution, which is masquerading as a bog standard treaty over which we need lose no sleep.

This constitution, which would bring into being an unprecedented bureaucratic super-state and end once and for all what remains of the independence of EU member nations, was dumped after it was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005. It was then resurrected in all but name as the Treaty of Lisbon, which Parliament is in the process of ratifying. This week, that constitution faces a triple test.

Today, businessman Stuart Wheeler's legal challenge to Labour's refusal to honour its manifesto pledge to put it to a referendum reaches the High Court. On Wednesday, the ratification Bill reaches the House of Lords. This Bill was ruthlessly shoe-horned through the Commons. This week we will see whether their Lordships will also spinelessly roll over, or recall their historic role as a last- ditch defence of this country's interests against such abuse of power.

But something else is happening which our politicians didn't bargain for. As we know, the constitution has to be approved by every member state or else it falls. On Thursday, Ireland votes on the treaty - and it looks as if it might vote against it.
The Irish government is filled with panic and horror at the possibility that the Irish public might actually be thinking for themselves. For the EU has always relied on bamboozling the public about the joys of EUtopia and terrifying them that their whole world will collapse if it is thwarted.

More and more people, however, are realising that they have been lied to, not only about the constitution but about the whole EU project. In Britain, we were told from the start that it was only an economic union which would entail no loss of sovereignty.

That was the very opposite of the truth. The dirty little secret is that, even without the constitution, political power has simply drained away from Westminster to Brussels.

In a little-noticed but quite devastating speech in the Commons last week, the Tory MP Peter Lilley recorded that last year the EU passed no fewer than 177 directives - more or less equivalent to our Acts of Parliament - and 2,033 regulations enforceable in the UK, as well as making 1,045 decisions which affect us.

Our own Trade Minister has admitted that 'around half of all UK legislation with an impact on business, charities and the voluntary sector' stems from laws passed in Brussels. . . .

Now the former Tory policy adviser Lord Blackwell is arguing that Britain should renegotiate the terms of its EU membership, restricting it to trade agreements and common security and environment policies, but rejecting EU control over monetary policy, foreign affairs, defence and justice.

An opinion poll run by his group Global Vision suggests that more than a third of voters across all parties would back a prospective Conservative Government pledge to negotiate such a change, and that people would support it in a referendum by more than two to one.

The fact is that those opposed to the creation of a European super-state are not the 'xenophobes' or 'Little Englanders' of the overheated Eurofanatic imagination.

. . . The EU is fundamentally an anti- democratic project, based on the belief that the individual nation is the source of the ills of the world and that by contrast supra-national institutions offer the solution to all its problems.

It is that absence of democratic transparency which is now corrupting not just European politics but our own. The fresh outbreak of 'Tory sleaze' over the expenses gravy train is rooted in Brussels, where corruption is the accepted way of EU life.

Yesterday, the Irish government said that a 'no' vote over the constitution would be a crisis for Europe. What rubbish. The plain fact is that the EU has brought about a crisis for democracy within Europe. Which is why it is essential that we should renegotiate our place within it.

Politicians, however, run a mile from any such suggestion. The terror of acknowledging the true nature of what has happened, in case he is required to address it, has propelled David Cameron into a cul-de-sac.

His pledge to allow the British people a vote on the constitution is worthless since - as he has only now admitted explicitly - once the treaty is ratified it will be almost impossible to do anything about it.

But since his party has warned that the constitution will spell the end of British self-government, this turns Mr Cameron into the Hamlet of the European debate - an awesome talent for speeches denouncing tyranny, but a complete inability to act against it.

Mr Cameron is paralysed by fear of reigniting the Tories' internal civil war over Europe. But the Tory Europhiles are now moth- eaten has-beens who have comprehensively lost the argument with the British people.

The fact is that Parliament is now so emasculated it is becoming the equivalent of Westminster regional council in the Republic of Euroland.

. . . It is time to end this charade. Whatever happens to the constitutional treaty in Ireland or anywhere else, Britain must now re-negotiate its relationship with the EU. The politician who does so will be a hero to the nation. Which is why Mr Cameron should ignore the faint-hearts and suede-shod Euro-fanatics in his ranks. This country must rediscover its identity and sense of purpose, or else it is finished. It can do so only if it regains the power to govern itself.

The issue is quite simply whether democracy in Britain has a future at all. It could not be more fundamental. . . .

Read the entire article. Former UN Ambassador John Bolton spoke at the University of Dublin against ratification of the EU treaty, both because it is anti-democratic and its effects on NATO and the US-British relationship:

The Lisbon Treaty poses a threat to NATO and undermines democracy by handing more power to Brussels, a former senior advisor to President George W Bush has warned.

John Bolton, . . . said the new Treaty could hurt the military alliance between Europe and the US.

He was speaking only days before Ireland hold a referendum on the EU Treaty, the only member country to do so, with the latest polls showing the Yes campaign slightly ahead.

But an Irish vote No on Thursday will mean the Treaty, which abolishes dozens of national vetoes and creates the new post of EU president, cannot come into force in any of the 27 member states.

. . . Mr Bolton has previously warned the deal threatens Britain's special relationship with the United States and yesterday said he would not understand the Irish giving "more powers to bureaucrats."

He added: "The only people you elect have a very limited role and I think this treaty will further enhance the power of institutions in Brussels without extending democratic authority to people."

. . . A Global Vison/ICM poll published yesterday found 64 per cent of Britons would back a renegotiated looser relationship with the EU in a referendum, against 26 per cent who would oppose it.

Read the entire article. Dr. Richard North, who runs the EU Referendum blog, added his own thoughts to those of John Bolton:

. . . For sure, the official US view is very much at variance, expressed in a report last month from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. This stated that Washington would support a more "muscular" EU, provided that European defence spending was sufficient for a radical improvement in military capabilities on this side of the Atlantic. Some four months previously, in a speech in Paris, Victoria Nuland, the US ambassador to NATO, had overtly supported a militarily stronger European Union . . . That support, though, was conditional on the Europeans embarking on a "radical improvement in military capabilities, with a far more focused policy on defence spending.

"While we cannot say that Bolton's view in any way reflects official US policy, it may be a straw in the wind. From the Istituto Affari Internazionali in Rome, we recently had a report indicating that many of the EU member states were having trouble meeting their existing defence commitments. While between 2001 and 2006, France, Britain and Spain spent more than three percent of gross domestic product on defence, Italy spent only 1.47 percent, and spending in Germany and Sweden sharply declined.

Even more recently, we had seen reports that the French military is in trouble, with most of France's tanks, helicopters and jet fighters are unusable and its defence apparatus on the verge of "falling apart".

Elsewhere on this blog we recorded the difficulties EU member states had in equipping its force for Chad and latterly we concluded that – in terms of military performance, the idea of European defence was an "unrealisable dream".Despite this, we have seen continued attempts by the EU to create a "European Army" – but all that actually amounts to is a "dedicated military headquarters", more structures and oversight of the military function by the EU parliament.

. . . For some member states . . . the objective of pooling military structure is to spend less money on defence.

Going back in history, one must recall that one of the greatest supporters of the nascent European "project" – in the fifties and sixties – was the US government, with CIA money being channelled into the European Movement. Not least, the US then saw in a united Europe a bastion against the emerging threat of Communism which threatened to engulf the whole of Europe.

Now, if Bolton is seeing the EU defence ambitions as a threat, he cannot be the only influential American to take that view. This may reflect the assiduous work of a number of British teams who have been over to the States, working through right-wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation – warning them of the dangers.

As did it help the EU on its way, therefore, there is now a glimmer of hope that the US could be instrumental in prising away the UK from the "project", having seen – at last – that the EU represents a danger to the interests of democracy and global security.

Read the entire post. NATO as it is has significant, possibly existential problems. Most NATO nations other than Britain do not field a functional military and most NATO members are not fully supporting the NATO mission in Afghanistan. Moreover, given the anti-democratic nature of the EU, having all of the member nation’s forces integrated and under EU central control could prove problematic down the road for any states whose restive populations decide they no longer want to be part of the grand socialist experiment that is the EU.

At any rate, we are nearing the end of Britain's chances to sidestep the transfer of their sovereign rights to the EU. Much will be decided by week’s end.

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Tory Perfidy and British Sheep

If ever you questioned whether the Tory "Conservative Party" presented an alternative to the socialist Labour Party, put your questions to rest. They are no different. Even as Labour transfers British sovereignty to the EU without any say of the British people, the Boy Wonder shows his true colors. David Cameron states that he will not hold a referendum on the EU. And in reply, nary a "baa" is heard from the sheep across the pond.
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All three major British political parties, Tory, Lib Dem and Labour, promised the electorate three years ago that they would not transfer sovereignty to the EU without a referendum of the electorate. Labour ripped up that promise and has signed on the EU dotted line, refusing a referendum. Now the Tory party has tossed up its arms and said that they will not hold a referendum either. This from the Telegraph:

[Tory Leader] David Cameron has admitted that he may never be able to fulfill his promise to hold a referendum on the European Treaty.

The Conservative leader had wanted a poll on the Lisbon Treaty before its powers came into force, but has said it may be too late to reverse them by the time he becomes Prime Minister.

Legislation to ratify the EU Treaty is currently being pushed through Parliament by the Government, and should complete its final stages well before the next General Election, which is likely to be held in just under two year's time.

. . . Addressing a meeting in Harlow, in Essex, Mr Cameron admitted it would be "almost impossible" to have a referendum on the Treaty if it was already law in the UK and the rest of Europe.

He added: "We may have to say, well look, we're not happy with this situation, here are some of the powers we'd like to have back.

"But we can't give you that referendum on the Lisbon Treaty because it's already been put in place across the rest of Europe."

Read the entire article.

This is the penultimate betrayal of the British electorate. Cameron's excuse for his position is pure prevarication. Per the new Constitution, there is clearly delinieated method for withdraw from the EU which Britain could accomplish and then negotiate any method they want with the EU for trade, etc. That is not what the professional politicos of the Tory Party want. This must be a God send for Cameron, as he and his cronies get fully onto the EU gravy train and now use the laughable excuse of a Labour fait accompli to justify their complicity. As Peter Hitchens said not long ago, "I can guarantee that, as long as the Tories occupy the place which should be taken by a proper opposition, there's not the slightest hope of real change for the better." He is spot on in his assessment.

The Tory Party, since the day they got rid of Margaret Thatcher because of her opposition to the EU, has been sleeping in the same bed with Labour on this. The EU is a gravy train for the professional politicos of Britain. It is anything but that for the British populace, but that matters little since they have no say in the matter.

In America, a change on the scale of what is happening in Britain would require a fundamental revision of the Constitution - and indeed, the tsunami of laws and regulations from the EU are working a fundamental and quite likely irreversible change in Britain. My sense is - and I say this without any sort of melodrama - were a fundamental change of such a magnitude to our structure of government be taken fiat in America as it is being done in Britain, blood would fill the streets. Yet there is nary a "baa" from the sheep across the pond. I will simply never understand this - not from the country that has fought so dearly and repeatedly for its rights, from the time of the Magna Carta forward through to the battlefields of Europe.

Update: I do stand corrected. I forgot for a moment the EU Referendum, possibly the best blog on both sides of the pond, which has been leading the fight on the EU. Unfortunately, even they see no hope in the foreseeable future.

Update 2: The one country holding a referendum on this new EU Constitution is Ireland. They will vote on 12 June. As it stands today, the "No" votes hold a slight lead. Even if Ireland does vote down the Constitution, it will probably not even slow down the EU.

It should also be noted that the EU's latest anti-democratic effort is to do away with representation of Eurosceptic parties in the EU parliament.

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Cognitive Dissonance In The UK

There is a real bit of cognotive dissonance occuring in the UK today. By that, I mean people are acting way out of character. Before addressing the specifics, understand that one of the most fundamental differences between the political right and left is the difference in how each views centralization of power and the degree to which each believes the government should intrude into the lives of the governed. I could wax uneloquent on this, or I could just quote from the far more eloquent and incisive Thomas Sowell:

[W]hat the political left, even in democratic countries, share is the notion that knowledgeable and virtuous people like themselves have both a right and a duty to use the power of government to impose their superior knowledge and virtue on others.

They may not impose their presumptions wholesale, like the totalitarians, but retail in innumerable restrictions, ranging from economic and nanny state regulations to "hate speech" laws.

If no one has even one percent of all the knowledge in a society, then it is crucial that the other 99 percent of knowledge - scattered in tiny and individually unimpressive amounts among the population at large - be allowed the freedom to be used in working out mutual accommodations among the people themselves.
These innumerable mutual interactions are what bring the other 99 percent of knowledge into play - and generate new knowledge.

That is why free markets, judicial restraint, and reliance on decisions and traditions growing out of the experiences of the many - rather than the groupthink of the elite few - are so important.

Elites are all too prone to over-estimate the importance of the fact that they average more knowledge per person than the rest of the population - and under-estimate the fact that their total knowledge is so much less than that of the rest of the population.

Central planning, judicial activism, and the nanny state all presume vastly more knowledge than any elite have ever possessed.

The ignorance of people with Ph.D.s is still ignorance, the prejudices of educated elites are still prejudices, and for those with one percent of a society's knowledge to be dictating to those with the other 99 percent is still an absurdity.

Read the entire article here.

In one way, the Tory party in Britain are acting true to the form. They are running on the platform of devolving power to local governments in Britain - something the UK desperately needs. As it stands now, the British do not even elect their own local police chiefs. The degree of central government control over decision making in Britain is really quite amazing. And when it comes to the nanny state, that term is defined by modern Britain. That the Tories, who claim the mantle of conservative, should embrace devolving real power to localities makes perfect sense. But then there is the EU.

The dissonance on the conservative side comes from the inexplicable Tory support for the EU - a form of highly centralized, highly regulatory, anti-democratic government which is the penultimate leftist construct - and which will turn Britain into a mere province. Even after reading Peter Hitchens's take on Tory support for the EU, I still find it difficult to fathom. And on a related note, there is equally as much dissonance in the Tory refusal to unequivocably say that they will allow the people of Britain a referendum on the fundamental issue of whether the British government can unilaterally transfer sovereignty of the British nation to the EU. Both of these scenarios as pertain to the EU are impossibly dissonant with the concept of conservatism.

That said, there appear to be equally dissonant rumblings on the left. Earlier this month, an MP Frank Field, wrote what looked like a conservative manifesto, arguing that the left should decentralize control to a large extent. I was amazed to find that he was a member of the Labour party. He was clearly trying to neuter the appeal of the Tories, who are now ahead in the polls. But to even raise the issue is unthinkable to many on the left who ususally see the answer to all problems, including those caused by government regulation, to be more government regulation.

That said, I was amazed to find a similar appeal to Labour to consider decentralizing power on the opinion pages of The Guardian. The Guardian is a UK newspaper where you can find some of the best straight reporting of any newspaper, bar none. That is why I read it daily. The opinion pages are another matter entirely. Guardian opinions are so far left that, by comparison, the NYT editorial board look like neocons. For example, I read an opinion piece on the Guardian not too long ago bemoaning the fall of communism in the Soviet Union. Yet, there today on the editorial page is reliable leftie Martin Kettle arguing that "new Tory ideas about devolving power deserve a hearing:"

[T]he two main parties are now travelling in very different directions. Labour, according to Cameron, wants to use the digital revolution to modernise the bureaucratic state - through ID cards and the computerisation of the welfare state. The Tories, says their leader, have a radically different approach. They want to use the information revolution to liberate citizens and take them into what Oliver Letwin rather grandly calls "the post-bureaucratic age".

So is the devolution of the state, at last, the elusive great divide across which the two parties will battle for the nation's votes in 2009 or whenever the next election comes?

Cameron's speech came at the end of a seminar that was rich in interest and ideas about the evolving modern Tory attitude to the state's role. . .

Cameron and his shadow ministers today repeatedly talked about the centrality of fairness to any devolved settlement. It would be blindly partisan to pretend that there is no serious new thinking going in Tory ranks or to rubbish what Cameron and his team are saying as either irrelevant or deceitful - though I'm sure that won't stop many from doing just that.

The stubborn question that won't go away is that centralised state systems do not work as well as socialists used to think - or as some social democrats continue to hope. Devolution of power in the centralised British state has become a live issue in our politics because it appears to be the answer, or at least part of the answer, to some real failures of delivery and public satisfaction in the centralised system. It won't do to dismiss the Tory contribution to this debate - or the New Labour contribution to it either - as if it is simply some further abject moral failing by discredited political fainthearts. If only things were that simple.

All the political parties are struggling to present themselves as the party of devolution, choice and localism. They do so because our state system does not work well for the citizen. All the parties, though, have problems about doing what to replace it with - not just the Tories. The LibDems talk about devolution and believe in it - but they won't be the next government. Labour may well be the next government - but there's a gulf between what Labour says on devolution and what it believes. Moreover, Labour's record is hardly ringing proof that the man in Whitehall knows best. The Tories, though, both talk about devolution and believe in it . . . They are entitled to be taken seriously on the subject now - and entitled not to be dismissed a priori as either naive or deceitful. . . .

Read the entire article. This is left wing heresy of the highest order. This from a leftie appearing in the Guardian is cognitive dissonance so loud as to be deafening. Between that and what the Tories are doing on the EU . . . I'm just not sure which way is up any more . . .

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Muslim Organizations Call For The Resignation of Bishop Ali-Nazr After His Remarks on Muslim No-Go Areas

Comments made by Britain's Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, about the existance of Muslim areas in Britain that are no-go areas have set off a firestorm in Britain. At least one prominent Muslim leader, Manzoor Moghal, chairman of the Muslim Forum in Britain, has confirmed the Bishops assertions. Writing in the Daily Mail, Moghal expressed his horror at the rise of radical Islam in Britain's Muslim population, and, in a stinging indictment, expressed his judgment that the U.K. socialist's policy of "multiculturalism has backfired spectacularly." Their beliefs would seem supported by a recent article in the Times, discussing how multiculturalist policies have fanned the flames of radicalism in Britain to the point where the majority strain of Deobandi Islam now present in Britain is more radical and militant than that to be found in Pakistan where it forms the core of the Taliban ideology. Just as a reminder of what that means, the Taliban are the fellows in the picture at the left, executing a burkah clad mother in Kabul's soccer stadium a few years ago.

Not surprisingly, today, we have various Muslim organizations in Britain calling for Bishop Nazir-Ali's resignation. And also not surprisingly, we have a supposedly conservative Tory party member coming down on the side of the Islamists. This today in the Telegraph:

Religious groups have demanded the resignation of the Bishop of Rochester after he claimed that Islamic radicals had turned parts of Britain into "no-go" areas for non-Muslims.

The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali wrote in The Sunday Telegraph that fundamentalism had made some communities hostile to Christians and those from other faiths.

But Mohammed Shafiq, from the Ramadhan Foundation, said: "Mr Nazir-Ali is promoting hatred towards Muslims and should resign."

Ajmal Masroor, of the Islamic Society of Great Britain, said: "It's a distortion of reality. Our communities are far more integrated than they were 10 years ago.

"If the Church of England had an iota of fairness they would take serious action."

But senior figures from the Church of England have backed the Bishop of Rochester's remarks about faith and said Christians in predominantly Muslim areas could feel isolated and nervous about how to express their belief.

The Bishop of Burnley, the Rt Rev John Goddard, said his colleague had raised serious questions about the role of faith, race and culture in British society.

The Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Rev Nicholas Reade, said it was becoming difficult for Christians to share their faith in areas where there was a high proportion of other faiths.

William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, said: "I don't think that view is factually correct. I'm not sure where these no-go areas are, I don't recognise that description."

But Bishop Goddard said that Christians, who are outnumbered in many parts of Blackburn, were frightened that their ideas could be misinterpreted by other faiths and seen as a form of oppression.

. . . Bishop Goddard said Christians in northern towns such as Blackburn and Burnley, where 95 per cent of the Asian population is Muslim, could find life difficult.

"I think they sometimes feel as though they are strangers," he said. "It is a question of how people of different beliefs work together. Of course, the vast majority of Muslims are peace loving."

Endorsing Bishop Nazir-Ali's comments, he said: "Bishop Michael has raised these issues as a start of a debate which has serious connotations.

"The seriousness is how do you enable people of different cultures, races and faiths to live together as one nation, that seems to be at the back of what he is saying." . . .

Read the article here. One wonders if the good Bishop might not receive a visit from the U.K.'s police, as has Lionheart for the audacity to question Islam in the UK.

As to the blanket statement by former Tory party leader and now shadow Foregin Secretary, William Hague, that he refuses to believe the Bishop's allegations, that goes to the heart of the rot in Britain today. The Tories sold their soul and have not been a conservative party since they got rid of Attila the Hen, Margert Thatcher - Britain's most successful PM since Churchill - because she opposed Britain's integration into the EU. Today, under the leadership of the boy wonder, David Cameron, the Tories are merely a lite version of the Labour Party. As evidenced by Mr. Hague, they are courting the Muslim vote irrespective of reality, just as Labour has done. They recently forced the resignation of one of their prospective candidates for office becasue of his "Enoch Powell" comments on how immigration is threatening Britain. And the Tories are playing games, refusing to state unequivocably that they hold a referendum on the transfer of British sovereignty to the EU once accomplished by the odious Gordon Brown. It is utterly horrifying. Britain cannot look for salvation today to the party of Churchill.

Britain's Independent Party seems to be picking up the mantle of conservatism, but you rarely hear of them. They get no play in the press because of what appears to be institutionalized bias. We are witnessing a great nation committing national suicide. My only thought is God save the Queen - because it would seem at this stage that her only hope is divine intervention.

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