Ken

It is my impression that senior UKIP figures fail to support people who make a courageous individual stand. I understand they ignored the brave elderly lady who was refusing to pay some taxes. Presumably because she was not being obedient to the establishment.

a swansong 4 europe

Surely the people are sovereign and from them, parliament is 'lent' power, not the other way around?

Parliamentarians as presently established are the worst form of government 'of the people', since they presume power is for their disposal without consent unless they deem fit to seek consent within a timespan of their choosing.

Power must rest with the populace, and it is they who should naturally decide what exactly power is and who executes it. They - politicans - are after all, simple employees of the masses, and like any must have their the extent of their freewill limited by regular public endorsement or replacement.

Until such a time, we will always be governed by those who think they know and we will always be subject to their abuse of power and the public purse. For example, any politician subject to "financial irregularity" should be suspended automatically and be forced to resign and seek re-election if evidence suggests foulplay. But do they? No, because there is no procedures in place to force them to do so unless Parliament itself decrees otherwise.

Perhaps I am missing something?

Concentrating power into fewer and fewer hands ultimately results in dictatorship.

Petrina

Don`t know if this has already been posted but the judgement is expected/hoped for this Wednesday.Should know by Tuesday PM if this is correct.

Baron von Lotsov

This Wheeler chap will go down in the history books if he pulls this one off. Now it all hinges on the judge not bending to any threats from the powers that be. I suspect Wheeler's case is sound. It's a judicial review he is going for apparently. I read a big fat legal book on judicial review procedures a while back and they do do exactly this kind of thing, even though there is the bill of rights giving parliament supremacy. A judicial review is about an organ of the state making a decision that is unfair in some way and the applicant has suffered some loss where there is no other legal remedy. The scope for these judicial reviews has been steadily increasing since the 80s. I do though think the case is likely to be extremely complicated and far reaching if he wins. It will open the doors for others to do similar sorts of things. The judiciary tend to like judicial reviews since it gives them the power to challenge the government. They can't challenge a law directly but they can help if something is unjust and someone has suffered a loss as a result.

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"A government big enough to supply you with everything you need, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have..."

Aardvark

Judicial review is indeed expanding and is indeed very complex. I have read a couple of the leading books and taken my own applications on 2 occasions. I lost the first one, but only after the other side had conceded so much and the judge had opened the way to a future review so that they dropped their action in any event. The second one I did first on the papers, secondly in person after the papers were rejected and I appealed the decision so that I have taken my own case on the Court of Appeal; that one I lost, but I learnt massively about procedural niceties.

My next JR application was successful and I got a decision quashed. Fortunately I had legal aid and had a very expensive solicitor, whose clerk did all of the work, and Barrister.

I reckon the court will find that the treaty and the constitution are nearly identical, that the referendum as promised should have been called on those grounds, but that the court has no power to quash the decision not to proceed with a referendum as a promise of such a nature is unenforceable at law. I'd like the court to quash the decision, but I don't think that will happen.

What the press make of it will be another matter. It will not help the Labour vote in Henley one iota and I would expect their deposit to be lost.

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When in Woking do as the Wokes do.

"I do not wish to form my opinions by thoughtlessly quoting others; I wish others to support their opinions by sensibly quoting me." Paul Wesson (Aardvark) 13th April 2008

Aardvark

Ken,

Senior UKIP figures have to be careful about publicly supporting certain figures as would any of us in the circumstances. If UKIP want to form a future government then they must not be seen to be taking the part of lawbreakers and nutters as it will come back to bite them.

The sweet little old lady was breaking the law in her refusal to pay the charges that the rest of us have to pay. Her motives might have been laudable, but her non-payment means that other local people, equally hard pressed financially, had to pay the costs of the court case and could have ended up paying for her to avoid taxation.

I don't think Mr Wheeler would have welcomed UKIP support for his stance as it would have detracted from his individual position and could have lost him public sympathy. No matter what we might think, nationally we will be hard pressed to get 2.5% of the vote at the next GE and a person like Mr Wheeler needs the approval of the other 97.5% more than he needs us. If three-quarters of the populace think we should have a referendum then we, with minimal support, could damage that power base by futile attempts to hijack a legal process for our own ends.

The time to make noises is after the decision if the referendum does not happen.

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When in Woking do as the Wokes do.

"I do not wish to form my opinions by thoughtlessly quoting others; I wish others to support their opinions by sensibly quoting me." Paul Wesson (Aardvark) 13th April 2008

cassie

I agree with this assessment, and I suspect that all Wheeler expects to achieve is a judgement that the Government, indeed Parliament [taking account of the Lib Dems' general election commitment] were honour bound to hold a referendum.

There is no way that I can see that the Court here has power to override Parliament. However, courts can have moral force and, ultimately, that can prove to be far more effective than legal force.

Unfortunately, the Press is inextricably mixed up with our Political Class [see Peter Oborne's book on the subject], and it will act mainly driven by expedience . . . which usually boils down to circulation and the income it derives therefrom!


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cassie

This is the kind of message I used to try and get through to certain EDP activists!

Credibility is hard to acquire, but so easy to lose and, once damaged, is even more difficult to rectify!

It is one reason not to have too many unnecessary policies, especially if the party does not expect to be entering No 10 after the next GE! The more unnecessary policies a party has, the more there are to disagree over!

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Baron von Lotsov

Another thing with judicial reviews that I recall is that the court does not overturn the decision as such, it orders the public authority to make the decision again taking into account the issues the applicant has raised that caused the decision to be unfair to him. It gets down to real splitting of hairs when you see the various case law regarding these things. It's all based on case law and this is where it gets so complicated. The case law established certain principles and you build your case by incorporating the principles already established in previous cases.

I think there will be grey areas with this one where new ground is established, either for or against our interests. You see they have to generalise these things and make them work for all future cases as well. Certainly not an easy job, since if you agree to one principle it might be twisted and used to do something really bad in future. However I think this person has the funds to employ the best legal minds and that makes a big difference. If it weren't for that I would not hold out much hope.

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"A government big enough to supply you with everything you need, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have..."

komerad

Wheeler loses EU treaty poll bid




Millionaire tycoon Stuart Wheeler has lost his High Court battle to force a UK referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

BBC NEWS | Politics | Wheeler to appeal on referendum