Mugabe is 82. While this may offend against western cultural norms and our view of the role of opposition as expressed by our MP, realistically Mugabe at his age will only go ‘quietly’ and in honour, not in defeat. The Mbeki settlement is - I regret -the best hope yet.

David Harrington

It would be interesting to see them then dangle in their own wind as they tried to explain why their own proposal is now an example of Tory extremism & they will be voting against it

However, your comments on the EU are, as usual, extremely apposite. I will only add that Lord Hailsham commented in 1978, just before the ‘79 election that brought Margaret Thatcher to power, that the sign of of a strong democracy is a strong opposition. I note that today, we have a strong opposition, but that our democracy appears to be almost in tatters after a decade of a Labour government that came into power not to govern a democracy, but to take and maintain absolute control over a client state. A view which it clearly shares with the faceless incumbents in the EU.

Subj: RE: I will withdraw the Conservative Party from the EPP by Christmas. (Frimley 23/11/05)
Date: 06/01/06 13:35:26 GMT Standard Time
From: CAMEROND@parliament.uk
To: Anoneumouse@aol.com

Thank you for writing to David Cameron - he’s asked me to thank you and to say that he appreciated what you had to say.

David Cameron has made clear that it is his firm policy that the Conservative Party under his leadership will not remain a member of the European Peoples Party-European Democrats Group (EPP-ED) in the European Parliament, and will aim to form a new grouping which reflects more closely our views on the way forward for Europe.

The Conservative Party has a fundamentally different approach on the key institutional and constitutional questions relating to the future direction of the European Union, and it is natural that we should wish to ally ourselves with parties which share that view. But we intend to maintain close relations with other centre-right parties with which we agree on much, but not on these issues.

David Cameron has asked the new Shadow Foreign Secretary to take forward this process, with appropriate consultation of all involved. In seeking a new alignment within the European Parliament, the Conservative Party
will aim to continue to work closely with fellow centre-right parties in the European Parliament on the many issues on which we agree.

Many thanks again for writing.

Yours sincerely,

David Beal
Correspondence Secretary
David Cameron’s Office
House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA

Ah yes, Firm Political Promises

Sarkozy, of course, argues that the other 26 states have rights just as much as the Irish. So there! He is real democrat! So was Stalin!
I am glad to hear, too, that the Irish are getting stroppy about having their democratic will overturned.
The millionaire who led the anti Lisbon vote in Ireland is now going to flood the EU elections with Libertas candidates whose only aim is to overturn Lisbon and make an important point. Are you going to encourage us, John, to vote for Libertas in the EU elections?

The root cause of the EU democracy problem though is that the different peoples that live in Europe do not consider themselves to be part of the same polity and so will not accept living under pan-European decisions that a majority of their countrymen do not support. So long as this is the case, no amount of institutional tinkering can make the EU democratic. International organisations retain democratic legitimacy in politically sensitive matters only through the use of unanimity. The EU began to lose its legitimacy as soon as it introduced the combination of (i) the imposition by qualified majority votes of (ii) law superior to national law in (iii) politically sensitive areas. There are three ways to cut this knot; for example by returning decision-making in politically sensitive areas to national control, or by replacing QMV by unanimity again, but the only way to prevent one parliament binding its successors is to make national law superior to European in all areas other than the common market. If this were done we would automatically create a “Europe a la carte” and even QMV could then be retained for approving EU laws efficiently. Those governments voting in the Council of Ministers to approve EU legislation should be honour bound to implement it nationally for the lifetime of their administrations, but their successors should be able to take a different view without needing to seek the approval of anyone except their national parliament.

It strikes me that a Conservative government could at least try to negotiate such a “Europe a la carte” with a fallback to EEA or Swiss-style EFTA + bilateral treaties should our Continental partners prove unwilling to negotiate seriously.

Perhaps some see these as trivial instances, but they are indicators that we are being swallowed up by the EU, and that it is more and more urgent that we should extricate ourselves from it and reclaim our sovereignty.

With important WTO talks taking place in Geneva today, the United Kingdom (a country which once had an empire on which the sun never set) has been relegated to the role of impotent bystander. While the rest of the world decides on the future of global trade, we must adhere to whatever common position Mandy can cobble together. This must be an example of the “influence” that EU membership gives us.

Now that the UK has formally ratified the Lisbon Treaty, and assuming that the ‘colleagues’ can come up with a creative solution to bypass the Irish electorate, we need an update from David Cameron on what a future Conservative Government will do about this unacceptable state of affairs.

As a young professional, I am not ill, nor do I have children. Therefore the Schools’n'hospitals discourse is of little interest to me. With these issues being one of the few (in an ever-diminishing list of) competencies left in Westminster’s hands after Lisbon, there’s little incentive for me to go out and vote.

What I fail to understand is why Mugabe even pretends at democracy. Surely whatever it it that’s stopping him from declaring himself el-Presidente for Life (and having Morgan Tzvangarai shot) could be used to get him to resign…

At times I wonder how our politicians expect to survive long enough to pick up their solid gold pension plans, for as you say they have destabilised our constitution, rubbished everything we stand for, and sold us out to the EU, which means they couldn’t respond to the wishes of the British electorate even if they wanted to.

So it seems to me all it would take is one further situation to develop and our politicians would be looking in the face of a lynch mob. Something not beyond the bounds of possibility, for it could be quite easily envisioned that in an economic downturn British people would find they are being made redundant in preference to foreign EU nationals, just as British business has preferred to employ them rather than British people. And the likely response from the British political establishment would be what? Would it be something like…’ Well this is the joys of the EU we have signed you up to that you didn’t want, and no we aren’t going to do anything about it as we don’t want to lose face with our EU elite brethren and anyway you and your opinions don’t matter!’

Hmmm I think I will have to buy some share in some rope manufactures.

I have my Parish Council, about 15 members on that one.
Then there is my District Council another 60 members.
My MP.
My County Council, another 70.
Then there is my EU Parliament Constituency MEPs, 10 of them.
Oh, can’t forget my Regional Assembly 111 of them.
Not forgetting my EU Committee of the Regions Quangocrats - 44 for the UK - appointed by the Regional Assemblies.

And, probably a lot more that I don’t know about. All with my best interests at heart.

Now, if you tried to introduce this structure in southern Africa, you would probably run out of available Swiss bank account numbers on day one!

Thus when the overwhelming majority in Russia vote with Putin, Russia is “undemocratic” & the Russians abject failure to vote for Kasparov’s tiny western funded party proves it.

One of the fundamental problems with politics is that language gets misused & words like “sustainable”, “democracy”, “freedom not to smoke”, “social”, “liberal”,”defence”, “peace”, “public information” etc get used to describe their opposites. Democracy is rule by the people, even when, as with Hamas, they make a bad choice. Anything less discredits the idea.

Unbelievable.

http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com

Really Mr Redwood, the surprising thing is you think such a headline worth writing.

The EU has never been interested in democracy, as for Mugabe, you can barely assemble a sentence containing both his name and the word democracy, without it becoming a cynical joke.

JR: “True democracy is not the tyranny of the majority …”

Always so.

An acceptable democracy, is one where the wishes and inclinations of the majority are moderated by an acceptable and accepted constitution, Reinforced by an independent judicial system.

In England, for a time, the constitution was revered because it was slightly mystical ( there being no single consitutional document ), hallowed by time and having provided the best recipe in Europe leading to the highest degree of freedom to the largest number of people.

The Labour contribution, accelerated by New Labour is to disparage something *just because* it is old. They have destroyed the institutions of the british constitution, while their accomplices in the media and yes, the Church of England, have disparaged every manifestation of british culture.

We are facing a whirlwind, and everything that might have given us refuge once, has been destroyed.

The Tories have made their contribution too, thank you Mr Edward Heath, Mr, Geoffery Howe, Mr Kenneth Clarke, Mr Michael Hesteltine, to name but a few. Each of these have played their part in destroying the british constitution.