Back door law for EU's email and web data storage plan

Draconian, EU-driven plans to require the collection and storage of data relating to every website visited and
e-mail sent are set to be made law in Britain through the back door without Parliamentary debate.

Once passed into law it will not be possible for a future Parliament to reverse this legislation as EU law is supreme.

The requirements of EU Directive 2006/24/EC "on the retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic communications services" were due to be enacted through a Communications Data Bill, scheduled for inclusion in November's Queen's Speech - as first highlighted by the DM back in June.

But the Bill was shelved following heavy criticism of the plans by the then Director of Public Prosecutions, the Information Commissioner and a range of civil liberties groups.

No debate

However, in order to meet the implementation deadline of 15 March 2009 stipulated in the EU Directive, the government is preparing to enact the plans by Statutory Instrument, which are not normally debated by MPs.

Annex B of this Home Office consultation paper(pdf) about the plans sets out the draft Statutory Instrument (SI) to be "laid before Parliament under Paragraph 2(2) of Schedule 2 to the European Communities Act 1972."

That paragraph of Schedule 2 of the ECA 1972 specifies that such SIs are "subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House". This means that once the SI is laid before the Commons it will become law, but MPs will have 28 (or occasionally 40) days in which to propose a motion calling for its annulment.

However, even if such a motion is supported by opposition parties or a large number of backbench MPs, there is no guarantee that a debate will be permitted.

Heavy criticism

Sir Ken Macdonald, until recently the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and the man in charge of prosecuting terrorism in England and Wales, has described the data retention plans as threatening to 'break the back of freedom'.

Giving the Crown Prosecution Service lecture back in October, he said: "We need to take very great care not to fall into a way of life in which freedom's back is broken by the relentless pressure of a security state."

His verdict followed Lord Carlile of Berriew QC, the Government's independent reviewer of terrorism laws, who described the "raw idea" for handing over millions of pieces of private information to the state as "awful".

Britain's Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, also warned that the plans were "a step too far for the British way of life".

Quoted in the Daily Telegraph back in August, he said "There needs to be the fullest public debate about the justification for, and implications of, a specially-created database - potentially accessible to a wide range of law enforcement authorities - holding details of everyone's telephone and internet communications."

Anti-terrorism or state control?

Government plans to spin the data retention scheme as a measure to combat terrorism were dealt a further blow in October, when it emerged that the EU Directive on which it is based was passed by qualified majority voting under "internal market" provisions in the EU Treaty, and not in the field of Justice and Home Affairs, which requires unanimity.

Following objections to this move by several EU member countries, EU advocate general Yves Bot said that the Directive "does not contain any provisions liable to come within the notion of 'police and judicial co-operation in criminal matters'," and was primarily an internal market issue.

No authority - no democracy

The absurd opinion by Mr Bot - whose view is followed by the European Court of Justice in 80% of cases - illustrates how the supposed independent arbiters of EU law are prepared to connive with the EU's law-making institutions to force through under completely inappropriate areas of the EU Treaty authoritarian measures which some EU member countries may try to block - if given the chance.

Further, the back door method by which this EU Directive is set to be implemented here in Britain reveals once again what little opportunity for democracy there is in how the EU's law-making powers are exercised.

The way this law has been brought forward first in the EU and now here in Britain is neither legitimate nor democratic.

Lisbon not necessary for Ireland's commissioner

So there we have it. It's not necessary for Ireland to swallow the entire Lisbon Treaty - and all the power transfers from the elected Irish government to the EU that it entails - in order to retain an Irish Commissioner.

The Irish Times reports today that the Czech EU presidency is preparing a contingency plan for the composition of the Commission in case Ireland rejects Lisbon for a second time later this year.

In the event of a second 'No' vote, the rules of the EU's existing - post Nice - treaty will stand. They state that if the number of EU member states reaches 27, the number of commissioners would then be reduced.

Czech deputy prime minister Alexander Vondra told the Irish Times, "On the composition of the commission we have to be ready for both possible scenarios: One scenario is that the Lisbon Treaty enters force at the end this year or we have to act and co-operate in the EU under Nice."

In order to meet the requirement that the number of commissioners must be 'at least one less' than the number of member states, a solution now being touted is that all member states maintain a commissioner except for the country that holds the position of EU foreign policy chief.

To gain an advantage in one of the most sensitive areas of debate during the first referendum, the Irish government had already secured an agreement from the EU that the clause in Lisbon enabling all member states to retain a commissioner would be invoked - if the treaty is approved.

But in highlighting the reality that changes to the composition of the Commission to the same effect can be made without the Lisbon Treaty being in force, the Czechs have kicked away the foundations of one of the main propaganda points set to be used by the 'Yes' lobby in their attempt to win the second Irish referendum.

Euro behind Greek riots

by Marc Glendening, DM Campaign Director

The credit crunch has, of course, resulted in the usual group of EU-obsessives calling for Britain to join the euro.

Interestingly, they never name the specific rate at which they think we should join, or would be allowed to join at - a rather critical piece of information around which all arguments about the economic implications of such a move would rotate.

Nor do they explain how, exactly, we would be economically better off by joining - putting to one side the enormous constitutional/anti-democratic implications of taking this extreme course of action.

Presumably, the euro-obsessives are not seriously suggesting that it would be to our advantage to lose the capacity to set our own interest rates, or allow the pound to fluctuate according to the specific requirements and features of the UK ecomomy?

Floating exchange rates and adjustable interest rates are safety valves that Britain would be crazy to abandon.

One eurozone country that is providing a real-world example of what can happen when your government passes all key macro financial control to the European Central Bank is Greece.

The continuing riots in Athens and elsewhere - while they may have been originally instigated by anarchist groups in response to the shooting by police of a fifteen year old youth - have grown in size because of the poor state of the economy and rising unemployment.

The Greek government is virtually powerless to tackle these underlying economic problems. The only option left to them to try and stimulate domestic economic activity has been to drive down real wage levels at a time when the lower paid - those still in jobs that is - have already seen their living standards reduced. In part, of course, because of the significant price rises that have accompanied the transition to the euro.

In properly constructed, national currency unions central government has the means to redistribute money to those regions that are particularly suffering during a recession. But because the EU currency has been established without a massive treasury behind it, Greece will not be in receipt of fiscal transfers from the taxpayers of other euro member countries.

German chancellor, Angela Merkel has made it very clear that she has no intention of using her taxpayers' money to bail out debt-ridden countries like Greece, Italy and Spain.

So, the Greek government is in a real bind with no room for manoeuvre, have been turning down the lid on the economic pressure cooker, and now we are seeing the public response.

Similar unrest is predicted soon for Spain, where the economic situation is also highly precarious. Ireland is also in an increasingly bad way.

What the electorates of these and other crisis-ridden euro economies will soon realise is that kicking the incumbent 'government' out of office and replacing them with the 'opposition' will make very little difference, as the main levers of economic control have left the country for good.

The incredible political and economic implications of the euro have not yet sunk in among the peoples and the media classes of the Eurozone members. They soon will and then things will get very interesting. And potentially very nasty.

~ written by Marc Glendening, DM Campaign Director

Eurospin: new moves to push Britain into the euro

by Marc Glendening, DM Campaign Director

If so much as a flea catches a cold in outer Mongolia, the European Commission, the president of France and the British Liberal Democrats insist that this proves the need for a greater centralisation of power in Brussels in order to achieve
'co-ordinated action'.

Rarely is it explained how exactly the transfer of yet more powers to the EU will help rectify the particular problem being addressed.

Of course, the real motivation of the EU-extremists is not to actually solve particular problems per se, but primarily to continue building a new state - a centralised system of government in Brussels.

And so, predictably, the international credit crunch crisis - just as with the recent events in Georgia, concerns over energy supplies and terrorism - has resulted in advocates of euro membership, such as Lib Dem home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne, urging those EU member countries outside the eurozone to sign up.

Huhne was recently joined by Roland Rudd of Business for New Europe (formerly the pro-euro campaign Britain in Europe) writing in the Evening Standard and perpetual EU-fanatic Will Hutton writing in the Observer that Britain should again consider scrapping the pound.

Only yesterday, speaking to the French media, European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso tried to build the growing euro spin by claiming that entry to the eurozone of some EU member states who had previously strongly opposed the move is "now closer than ever before."

According to EUobserver, Barroso said "I'm not going to break the confidentiality of certain conversations, but some British politicians have already told me, 'If we had the euro, we would have been better off'."

"I know that the majority in Britain are still opposed, but there is a period of consideration under way and the people who matter in Britain are currently thinking about it," he continued.

Yet no concrete reasons are ever provided as to how joining the euro and handing economic control to the European Central Bank would actually improve the situation for Britain, Denmark and Sweden.

Higher mortgages

For a start, the eurozone currently has higher interest rates than Britain, which we would be forced to adopt if we joined. The idea of Huhne, Rudd and Hutton that what British homeowners need right now is a rise in their mortgage bills is economic madness.

It's not as if, in return for such costs, countries inside the currency zone are immune in some magical way from the crisis - Spain and Ireland being good examples. In any case, as we are so often told, the crisis is "global" and extends way beyond the borders of the EU.

If advocates of the euro really believe that only a transnational currency and economic decision-making structure can prevent, or at least ameliorate, the consequences of international economic recessions they should have the courage to argue for a single, World currency (plus, supporting system of government and taxation, possibly based in New York, Calcutta or Johannesbourg).

It would be interesting to see the likes of Federal Union and the European Movement try to sell this proposition to the peoples of Britain, France and the rest of Europe.

Job cuts

In fact, as even the Brussels-supported Centre for European Reform admits, membership of the euro can make things even worse for struggling economies because they no longer have the option of a floating exchange rate making their exports more attractive to external markets. Nor can they alter interest rates.

If Britain had joined the euro some years back, on the advice of the same band of euro desperados who are popping up again now, the recent fall in the value of sterling that has made the products of Britain's exporters cheaper to eurozone buyers would not have been possible.

The only solution would have been for exporters to cut costs by other means, perhaps by cutting jobs or by depressing the real wages of workers.

Regional instability

As Simon Telford and Phillip Whyte further point out, one of the key problems facing the single currency is that it is not yet backed up by a Treasury and the institutions and resources of a fully integrated state.

So, the European Central Bank does not have the means to redistribute billions of euros between the different parts of the currency zone, in the same way Britain or America have the capacity to use fiscal stabilisers to try and shore up the worst affected parts of their own single currency areas.

When president Sarkozy suggested at the recent EU summit that a central fund of 300billion euros be established for the ECB to be able to bail out banks within the EU, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, was quick off the mark to quash this idea.

Unsurprisingly, she is not prepared to see her taxpayers have to contribute even more money to the EU - money that might be used to rescue banks in Spain, Italy, Greece and other nations.

This is why the authors rightly remind us: '...no monetary union has yet survived outside a political union'.

Real objective

The ultimate aim of the EU political class is to transform, incrementally, their system into a single state. The Lisbon/Constitution Treaty will take several steps towards this objective. However, the increasingly remote elite want to achieve this goal in as politically painless a manner as possible.

This means not alerting their own national electorates to the real objective or its implications and this is why the likes of Merkel are, at this stage, reluctant to transfer huge additional sums to Brussels or agree to a EU federal level of taxation.

Nothing would be more likely to awaken the peoples of Europe to what is happening than for the EU to move in this dramatic direction.

Challenge ahead

So, the EU project is now facing a major challenge and its leaders must be praying that a quick economic recovery results in the single currency not being tested seriously in terms of its current inner - political - contradictions.

If it is, EU politicians will have to choose whether to, on the one hand, confront public opinion and rescue their beloved euro with full blown political/fiscal integration.

Or, on the other, let the whole project unravel because at this stage the respective peoples in most of the key member states are not prepared to pay the full price.

~ written by Marc Glendening, DM Campaign Director

How many years is too many?

As trailed in September, the EU Court of Auditors (ECA) has for yet another year seriously criticised the 'legality and regularity' of the EU's accounts.

The ECA's latest report into the EU's 2007 spending marks the 14th year in a row that auditors have revealed major failures in how the EU manages the huge sums of public money for which it is currently responsible.

Every year Britain stuffs an average £10.2bn of public money into the EU's leaky pot. That's money otherwise denied to schools, hospitals, fighting crime or poverty, or which could make a real difference to people's lives in many other areas.

Like funding tax cuts, without hiking borrowing even further.

Despite this long EU record of lax spending controls, earlier this year a majority of MPs - mainly Labour helped by the SNP and Plaid Cymru - approved an unjustifiable 63% increase in our payments into the EU's budget, giving up £7bn of Britain's rebate in the process.

Even without the subsequent worsening of the credit crisis, this was monumental irresponsibility with public money on the part of our 'representatives'.

Failing policies

According to Open Europe, the EU budget is dominated by two failing policies: the Common Agricultural Policy, and the so-called Structural Funds.

In the area of agriculture spending, out of 196 transactions of subsidies auditors examined, 61 were affected by error, with 40 of those errors (two thirds) classified as 'serious'.

In the Structural Funds budget, which was worth £37bn (€45.5bn) in 2007, 54% of the funded projects were found to contain "errors".

As the former Commission chief accountant Marta Andreasen - sacked by Neil Kinnock for revealing financial mismanagement at the heart of the European Commission - writes in The Times; "What the auditors have been saying for years is that most of the payments made by the Commission from its £70 billion-a- year budget cannot be deemed legal or regular. That is, that they cannot confirm those payments have been made to the correct person for the correct purpose and for the correct amount."

Waste and fraud

Andreasen goes on to say, quite rightly: "It stretches credulity to insist, as the Europhiles do, that this does not mean that there is fraud."

Of course, the evidence is all around us. Almost every week there is a new example of EU waste or fraud, and to illustrate the point Open Europe have published (pdf file) '100 examples'.

One of the worst recent examples was the news that, despite governments across the world tightening their financial belts and re-focussing their budgets on measures to support their economies, the EU next year wants to splash £6.3bn (€7.8 billion) promoting itself as a “global player”.

The Times tells us that £243m (€300m) of this will be spent on EU "embassies" and a near £11.3m (€14m) on an “information” budget to help "sell Europe’s new role as a global heavyweight."

For the EU to be considering spending such huge sums on propaganda and institutional self-aggrandisement while Europe heads into recession exhibits a neo-feudal arrogance that is the inevitable result of a body having access to huge funds with such little accountability.

Media whisper

Yet despite this gross waste of money going on right under our noses - and in the context of government borrowing going through the roof and cuts to public services threatened - where's the outcry in the national media?

Can the shameful routine of the EU's audit have caused them to lose their perspective over this issue and, in their apparent boredom, let the public down?

Now is certainly not the time to let serious financial waste go unpunished.

As for MPs, how many years of the EU failing its audit and billions going to waste is too many for them to tolerate? Fifteen years? Twenty?

Labour MPs have made clear where they stand. Most (by no means all) are quite happy to hand over more and more of your money to the EU regardless of the annual routine of auditors being unable to explain how the majority of that money is being spent.

Most also remain unable to grasp the simple concept that excessive spending in one area will cause cuts in other, perhaps more important, areas. Too many MPs seem to operate on the fantasy basis that public funds are unlimited, allowing them to splash what they like on the EU without consequence for public services.

However, come the next election, when they have to justify their choices to the rest of us in the real world who know how finite budgets work, they will not be able to avoid personal responsibility for the local public service shortfalls or cuts caused by their irresponsible spending on the EU.

But perhaps more importantly these days, what would the Conservatives do about it?

EU Decide: watch online

ITV's EU Decide programme documenting the Luton referendum is now available to view online via their 'catch up' facility - click here.

According to ITV, 3.1 million people watched the programme on Monday evening, equating to 13% of everyone watching TV at the time - tremendous publicity for the case against today's EU.

Eddie Izzard's contribution for the European Movement's 'Yes' campaign stands out in particular for absurdity more suited to his brand of surreal comedy than serious political comment.

People should, he says, support passing ever more decision-making power to unaccountable Brussels institutions if they "like people" and are "human beings." That's deep, man!

Trying to show off his international credentials, the fatuous Mr Izzard goes on to give a list of countries in which he has performed - Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France and Holland. A collection of countries that either aren't members of the EU at all or have rejected in referendums major elements of further EU integration like euro membership or the EU Constitution.

"People are very similar" he says he has found on his travels. In those countries it certainly seems they have similar views on the EU. When given the chance to vote, they firmly reject giving the EU more power. Quite the contrary to Mr Izzard's outdated, integrationist views.

The 'Yes' campaign's choice of business advocate for the EU in Ireland was also an interesting one. Brendan Palmer, described as involved in 'Electronic recycling', clearly runs a business that has been a major beneficiary of EU regulations.

The EU's Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (2002/96/EC) forces manufacturers of electrical products to pay for them to be dismantled and recycled at the end of their working life.

Back in 2006, Josh Claman, UK head of Dell computers, said that the costs of these rules "absolutely will be passed onto the consumer". And what were those boxes we see being folded at Mr Palmer's 'electronic recycling' company?

So no doubt having done very nicely himself out of an EU Directive that has hiked the cost of electronic equipment for the vast majority, what a shock to find that Mr Palmer is something of a fan of the EU!

The Results: EU Decide, ITV Tonight

The DM has scored a resounding victory in the Luton EU referendum.

The head-to-head battle with the European Movement, filmed for ITV's Tonight programme, resulted in 63% voting 'No' to the Lisbon Treaty and a ground-breaking 54% voting to come out of the EU altogether.

The result reflects major disatisfaction not just with the prospect of further decision-making being passed to the EU but also with the extent of the EU's current powers, its costs and damaging effects of its activities.

The programme documenting the campaign was shown on ITV1 this evening and is typically seen by 3-6 million viewers.

Two questions were asked and the full results were as follows:

Question 1: Would you vote YES or NO to the Lisbon Treaty?

Yes: 27%
No: 63%
Don't know/Undecided: 10%

Question 2: Do you think we should stay IN or come OUT of the European Union?

Stay in: 35%
Come out: 54%
Don't know/Undecided: 11%

The DM's latest leaflet, headlined Break Free from the outdated EU (pictured above), was the main leaflet delivered by the 'No' side during the campaign.

Leading with the question What part of 'No' doesn't the EU understand?, it explains the real effect of the EU's powers and goes on to describe how a Europe of co-operating national democracies, free from the EU's superstate agenda and excessive cost, would benefit us all in many ways.

For example, more money for essential services, enhanced democracy, an improved environment, the protection of civil liberties, cheaper food and more effective international co-operation.

It was accompanied by a photocopied flyer accenting the sheer cash costs of the EU on one side, and explaining the EU's role in post office closures on the other.

With our Europeans for Diversity banner together with the involvement of friends in the European Referendum Campaign and clear solidarity with the French, Dutch and Irish peoples who have already voted 'No', the strong international theme of the 'No' side will also have played a major part in the success of the campaign.