I tried to tell you that the plan was to turn the United Kingdom into a colony of the European Union, bound forever by its laws while having no further say in their content. No one doubts that now. Brexit will only happen when the majority of the House of Commons has been elected on an economic programme that would simply be impossible to implement without leaving the Single Market and the Customs Union. That means the Labour Left. It actually cannot mean anyone else. But in the meantime, what? Five points of primary legislation are now necessary.
First, the restoration of the supremacy of United Kingdom over European Union law, using that provision to repatriate industrial and regional policy as Labour has advocated for some time, using it to repatriate agricultural policy (farm subsidies go back to the War, 30 years before we joined the EU, and they are a good idea in themselves, whereas the Common Agricultural Policy most certainly is not), and using it to restore the United Kingdom's historic fishing rights of 200 miles or to the median line.
Secondly, the requirement that all EU legislation, in order to have any effect in this country, be enacted by both Houses of Parliament as if it had originated in one or the other of them. Thirdly, the requirement that British Ministers adopt the show-stopping Empty Chair Policy until such time as the Council of Ministers meets in public and publishes an Official Report akin to Hansard.
Fourthly, the disapplication in the United Kingdom of any ruling of the European Court of Justice or of the European Court of Human Rights unless confirmed by a resolution of the House of Commons, the High Court of Parliament. That would also deal with whatever the problem was supposed to be with the Human Rights Act.
And fifthly, the disapplication in the United Kingdom of anything passed by the European Parliament but not by the majority of those MEPs who had been certified as politically acceptable by one or more seat-taking members of the House of Commons. Thus, we should no longer be subject to the legislative will of Stalinists and Trotskyists, of neo-Fascists and neo-Nazis (such as have now entered government in Austria on condition that there be no British-style referendum on EU membership), of members of Eastern Europe's kleptomaniac nomenklatura, of people who believed the Provisional Army Council to be the sovereign body throughout Ireland, and of Dutch ultra-Calvinists who would not have women candidates.
Or would we? There is now at least one MP who would certify the political acceptability of every Far Left and ultra-Left faction. There is a reason why that MP has not been made so much as a Parliamentary Private Secretary, even under Jeremy Corbyn. Such will never be the lot of, in a crowded field, the most left-wing person ever elected to the House of Commons.
And, again, I tried to tell you that the single biggest internal security threat came from the Far Right. Again, no one doubts that now. Thomas Mair, the murderer of Jo Cox, described himself to the Police as "a political activist", and so he was. No Irish Republican organisation has murdered a Member of Parliament in the present century or in the preceding decade, and the people responsible are now such pillars of the British Establishment that they are entertained at Windsor Castle. No Islamist or Leftist organisation has ever murdered a Member of Parliament. But the Far Right has done so, only last year.
National Fronts come and BNPs go, EDLs come and Britain Firsts go, but certain institutional and organisational manifestations of the Far Right are perennial, hitherto even permanent. Mair's is the Springbok Club, which is run by the people who also run the London Swinton Circle. And that, in turn, was addressed by Liam Fox (born 1961) and by Owen Paterson (born 1956) as recently as 2014. Ah, those old 1980s Tory Boys, in their Hang Mandela T-shirts and all the rest of it. Wherever did they all end up?
In the Thatcher and, to a lesser extent, Major years, there were Ministers who were members of the Western Goals Institute or the Monday Club, which latter had played a key role in securing British accession to the EU. Those crossed over, via such things as the fiercely Eurofederalist League of Saint George, to overt neo-Nazism on the Continent, to the Ku Klux Klan, to apartheid South Africa, to Ian Smith's Rhodesia, to the juntas of Latin America, to Marcos and Suharto, to the Duvaliers, and so on. Nick Griffin's father, Edgar, was a Vice-President of Iain Duncan Smith's Leadership Campaign. He answered what was listed as one of its official telephone numbers (in his house) with the words "British National Party".
If it is not 15 years, then it is not far off, since the Ku Klux Klan went to the trouble of emailing every member of the then Derwentside District Council, from the United States, promising to stand a candidate against me if I tried to secure this parliamentary seat of North West Durham. A few years later, the BNP's then poster boy, Mark Collett, made the same threat. The first intervention, at least, was in support of the man who regularly, if under a pseudonym, posted comments on here calling me a "mulatto". He is now the Regional Director of the London Labour Party. I tried to tell you.
Secondly, the requirement that all EU legislation, in order to have any effect in this country, be enacted by both Houses of Parliament as if it had originated in one or the other of them. Thirdly, the requirement that British Ministers adopt the show-stopping Empty Chair Policy until such time as the Council of Ministers meets in public and publishes an Official Report akin to Hansard.
Fourthly, the disapplication in the United Kingdom of any ruling of the European Court of Justice or of the European Court of Human Rights unless confirmed by a resolution of the House of Commons, the High Court of Parliament. That would also deal with whatever the problem was supposed to be with the Human Rights Act.
And fifthly, the disapplication in the United Kingdom of anything passed by the European Parliament but not by the majority of those MEPs who had been certified as politically acceptable by one or more seat-taking members of the House of Commons. Thus, we should no longer be subject to the legislative will of Stalinists and Trotskyists, of neo-Fascists and neo-Nazis (such as have now entered government in Austria on condition that there be no British-style referendum on EU membership), of members of Eastern Europe's kleptomaniac nomenklatura, of people who believed the Provisional Army Council to be the sovereign body throughout Ireland, and of Dutch ultra-Calvinists who would not have women candidates.
Or would we? There is now at least one MP who would certify the political acceptability of every Far Left and ultra-Left faction. There is a reason why that MP has not been made so much as a Parliamentary Private Secretary, even under Jeremy Corbyn. Such will never be the lot of, in a crowded field, the most left-wing person ever elected to the House of Commons.
And, again, I tried to tell you that the single biggest internal security threat came from the Far Right. Again, no one doubts that now. Thomas Mair, the murderer of Jo Cox, described himself to the Police as "a political activist", and so he was. No Irish Republican organisation has murdered a Member of Parliament in the present century or in the preceding decade, and the people responsible are now such pillars of the British Establishment that they are entertained at Windsor Castle. No Islamist or Leftist organisation has ever murdered a Member of Parliament. But the Far Right has done so, only last year.
National Fronts come and BNPs go, EDLs come and Britain Firsts go, but certain institutional and organisational manifestations of the Far Right are perennial, hitherto even permanent. Mair's is the Springbok Club, which is run by the people who also run the London Swinton Circle. And that, in turn, was addressed by Liam Fox (born 1961) and by Owen Paterson (born 1956) as recently as 2014. Ah, those old 1980s Tory Boys, in their Hang Mandela T-shirts and all the rest of it. Wherever did they all end up?
In the Thatcher and, to a lesser extent, Major years, there were Ministers who were members of the Western Goals Institute or the Monday Club, which latter had played a key role in securing British accession to the EU. Those crossed over, via such things as the fiercely Eurofederalist League of Saint George, to overt neo-Nazism on the Continent, to the Ku Klux Klan, to apartheid South Africa, to Ian Smith's Rhodesia, to the juntas of Latin America, to Marcos and Suharto, to the Duvaliers, and so on. Nick Griffin's father, Edgar, was a Vice-President of Iain Duncan Smith's Leadership Campaign. He answered what was listed as one of its official telephone numbers (in his house) with the words "British National Party".
If it is not 15 years, then it is not far off, since the Ku Klux Klan went to the trouble of emailing every member of the then Derwentside District Council, from the United States, promising to stand a candidate against me if I tried to secure this parliamentary seat of North West Durham. A few years later, the BNP's then poster boy, Mark Collett, made the same threat. The first intervention, at least, was in support of the man who regularly, if under a pseudonym, posted comments on here calling me a "mulatto". He is now the Regional Director of the London Labour Party. I tried to tell you.
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