Loss of veto on Home Affairs and Justice

Bellatrix · 14-09-2006, 06:19 PM

The story was a UKIP one from the beginning.

The give away is the opposition politician who is quoted first.

A story is not just a string of quotations from one person, after all.

Petrina · 17-09-2006, 11:52 PM

My question was ,what are we doing about this ?Who is our spokesman?

Answer came there none .

Bellatrix · 18-09-2006, 03:10 PM

The conversation you had with Clive was quite inclusive of all these points.

Petrina · 18-09-2006, 04:47 PM

The conversation with Clive was a private one .I was delighted to hear that a round robin had gone out to the regions -but I don`t know the details .

Why not inform the members precisely what is being done ?I presumed that you would .

Is it not the business of the Press Office to do so now and then ?

Petrina · 20-09-2006, 05:21 PM

Dear All,

For those of you who don’t take the Telegraph……

Britons could all too soon become slaves of Europe By Simon Heffer

(Filed: 20/09/2006)

We have been lulled into a dangerous sense of complacency towards the evils capable of being inflicted upon us, our country and our way of life by the EU. Our proposed membership of the euro is, it seems, a dead letter. The French and the Dutch buried the EU constitution more than a year ago. However, something that could prove even more poisonous to our liberties than either of those anti-democratic impositions could be about to be foisted on us.

This Friday, in Tampere in Finland, there will be a meeting of EU interior and justice ministers. Up for debate is the matter of introducing qualified majority voting (QMV) on criminal justice matters: or, to put it more plainly, surrendering our veto on these. The potential for damage to our freedoms if this happens is awesome: the end of habeas corpus, a threat to trial by jury and the capability of the EU to interfere in hitherto sovereign matters such as sentencing policy are but three of the consequences should our veto go.

It is unlikely that a decision will be taken on Friday, and as such the Home Office is to be represented at the meeting not by John Reid, the Home Secretary, but by an obscure junior minister, Joan Ryan. However, the present Finnish presidency of the EU wants to have the veto removed, and by the end of its presidency in December. advertisement

It may be thought astonishing, given the imminence of this threat and its dangers, that there has been so little discussion of it by the media or by politicians. It may be abstruse and technical, but the loss of the veto in this crucial area is something to which we can all relate. Matters to do with the machinery of the EU are boring for politicians and unsexy for newspapers or television news, but that did not stop people becoming (quite rightly) excited about the threat of the single currency or the constitution.

We have all been obsessed for weeks with the date of Tony Blair's retirement and the possibility of his being replaced by anyone other than Gordon Brown, so there may not have been room on the political agenda for something that concerns our most fundamental liberties. Above all, the silence from Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition on this vital matter has, as is the case on so many vital matters, been ear-splittingly deafening.

On July 28 – more than seven weeks ago – the chairman of the Freedom Association, the former Tory MP Christopher Gill, wrote to Sir David Normington, the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office. His letter was short and to the point. Mr Gill asked Sir David what the Government's likely response was going to be to an EU memorandum issued in June about "implementing the Hague programme – the way forward": in other words, the Government's view on whether it would submit to the introduction of QMV on justice and home affairs. As of yesterday, Mr Gill had had no reply.

So, for all we know, Miss Ryan will go to Tampere the day after tomorrow and raise no objection, on behalf of 60 million people in this country, to all future laws on criminal justice matters proceeding only in accordance with what has been agreed with a majority of other EU states.

That, as the Freedom Association points out, is not the end of it. The surrender of our veto would be a key stage in the incorporation of corpus juris into our law. This is the continental system of conducting criminal proceedings. Habeas corpus is unknown to it, which means that Britons could face detention not just without trial, but also without charge, for months or possibly years. One Briton, Chris Lees, recently spent 50 weeks in a Spanish jail without being charged with anything.

At present, criminal justice policy is included in what the Eurocrats call "Pillar 3": individual countries retain some of their sovereign rights. The Hague programme would move it to Pillar 1, where it could become a common policy. Asylum, migration and judicial co-operation policies have already moved to Pillar 1: the Finns feel it is logical for justice and home affairs to go with it.

The Commission now wants what it modestly calls a "bridging clause" to overcome difficulties in ensuring that the "community method" is used in matters concerning "freedom, justice and security": and Friday's meeting is about smoothing the way to such an arrangement, and soon.

The real beneficiary of such a change would be the European Court of Justice (ECJ). It already has the power to declare any national law invalid if it conflicts with EU law. If justice and home affairs were moved to within the first pillar, the competence of the ECJ would be widened to take in matters affecting the police and the judiciary, with far-reaching effects. If the ECJ legislates on anything to do with justice and home affairs, it then becomes a community competence.

Last September, the ECJ gave the EU powers to set criminal penalties. If we surrender our veto on these matters, EU-set penalties could be imposed on British subjects in Britain, and for breaches of laws that are not crimes or punishable in Britain. Equally, according to some legal opinion, matters that are criminal offences in Britain could be decriminalised by a decision of the EU without any recourse to the will of the British people.

The other horror is that, as EU competence increases, so the ability of member states to propose their own laws for their own people shrinks until it is extinguished. That is the ultimate goal of the ever-closer union: but it entails a stark and anti-democratic removal of sovereignty from this area which impacts directly on our most basic freedoms and liberties.

This power for the EU is even greater than was proposed by the defeated constitution. It means laws being made by QMV at meetings of the Council of Ministers, and forced on Parliament as directives.

Under our constitution, Parliament has always been there to hold the executive in check. Were our veto to be surrendered, it would not even be our executive that would be uncheckable short, effectively, of Parliament deciding we must leave the EU. It would be an executive made up of ministers from all over Europe, for almost none of whom we have, of course, ever voted. It would make a nonsense of the notion of our being a democratic state, and render participation in general elections no more significant than participation in a survey conducted by an opinion pollster.

With the loss of habeas corpus there would be more cases such as that of Mr Lees, with people floundering in jail without charge. There would be no guarantee of our historic right to trial by jury. The way would be open for a Europe-wide police force answerable to no nation and subject to no parliamentary scrutiny.

Indeed, this exists in embryo, since France, Portugal, Italy, Spain and Belgium already supply officers to something called the Euro Gendarmerie Force. This is a military police outfit and answers to the European Commission for its ultimate authority.

It is, in this respect, the way of the future – an entirely undemocratic and largely unaccountable future at that.

Briefings have it that this illiberal plan is essential for the fight against terrorism. Yet, as with identity cards, not a single terrorist is likely to be caught or convicted because of it. It is all about maximising the power of the EU, and hobbling the nations that comprise it. At least, on Friday, we shall finally get an honest answer to the question of whether this Government is happy to destroy our basic liberties in this repulsive cause.

This was sent to a number of us in the South East by David Samuel -Camps who works at the South East Office .
Bravo ! It`s good to see that someone is taking an interest in this matter .

Lots of useful detail in this article by Simon Heffer .Awful pity that with 10 MEPs and a fully staffed Press Office ,all of which who have been put there by Joe Public`s anti EU vote ,we can`t come out with any useful article /document /pamphlet on the topic.
Tragic really,bearing in mind that this is one of the most far-reaching and
worrying power grabs in our history as a nation state .

:cry:

SponPlague · 20-09-2006, 05:46 PM

From UKIP.ORG:

Quote:

What We Would Be Giving Away if the Government Abandons the Veto on Justice and Home Affairs

20-09-2006

UKIP Briefing Note – 19.9.06

At the end of the last Commission in 2004, an evaluation took place which highlighted major obstacles to 'progress'. One of these areas was the requirement for unanimity in the Council on Justice and Home Affairs.

The basic plan is to transfer criminal law and police cooperation from the 3rd pillar of the EU treaties into the 1st pillar. In English: The first or ‘Community’ pillar contains the EU’s core policy areas such as the environment, single market and employment law. The Third pillar covers “Provisions on Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters.” Which was formerly known as the Justice and Home Affairs pillar, before the transfer of policy on asylum, migration and judicial co-operation in civil matters to the Community pillar.

The plan is for a 'bridging clause' which, in the Commission's own words would, 'constitute a solution to overcome these difficulties in applying the 'Community method' to the policies in the area of freedom, justice and security.'
This would abolish the national veto and would massively increase the power of the European Commission and the European Court of Justice, the in-house court, who has as it's aim the supporting of an ever closer union.

The ECJ already has power to declare any national law which is inconsistent with a law of the EU invalid. Moving JHA into the community pillar could potentially widen the scope of the Commission's Competence to almost anything involving police and the judiciary. It means that if the EU legislates on anything to do with JHA it becomes a Community competence. On 13th September 2005 the ECJ gave the EU powers to set criminal penalties for the first time: a combination of these factors could prove explosive.

In May, the British Government stated that they would not reject this. The House of Lords has warned of the 'creeping competence' of the Commission, which this change could bring about. Transferring Justice and Home Affairs issues to the first pillar would mean that all proposals to harmonise criminal law across the EU and matters of police cooperation would:
• Be agreed on by Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) in the Council of Ministers
• Come under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice which has until now had only a very restricted say on third pillar matters
• Gradually confer more power over criminal matters to the EU. Once the EU gains competence in a certain area the member states lose the right to propose new laws in that field of law
• Give the European Commission the sole right to initiate legislation in these matters. By gaining a monopoly over the right to propose laws on criminal justice and police cooperation, the Commission would enjoy greater power than it would have received from the EU Constitution, under which it would have had to share the right to propose new laws.

Decisions currently being made by the Council of Ministers have already turned the British Constitution on its head, by allowing ministers - supposed 'servants' of the people - to dictate to Parliament. Now, even if a British minister votes against a proposal in the Council, he cannot put it out to pasture. Instead, the British Parliament has to enact laws made by foreign ministers, who were not elected by the British public, and which were not supported by the British representative.

The loss of trial by jury would probably be the most visible alteration. Habeas Corpus is an alien concept to the European Justice System – under which evidence is not required before they arrest people and can keep people locked up in prison without charge for weeks, as in the case of Chris Lees, who was locked up in a Spanish jail for 50 weeks with no case ever brought against him.

There already exists a miniature EU police force called the Euro Gendarmerie Force - made up of 5 countries. (Spain, France, Portugal, Italy and Belgium). They are military police who have as a logo the ring of stars with a sword and a flaming grenade inside. They are not controlled by their government - they are a supranational police force who recognise the EU as their authority. For information on this, visit : www.Eurogenfor.org

UK Independence Party

Open Europe

Niall Warry · 20-09-2006, 05:52 PM

It is absolutely typical that UKIP has not done more to warn people about this issue. UKIP's priorities are all wrong too much time spent on things that don't matter and not enough time planning the tactics for such major issues as this. :evil:
Will things improve under Nigel? :?
I hope so, but I having heard reports of the first NEC meeting things haven't started that well. :cry:
However if you are a Nigel crony no doubt everything is going nicely to plan. :roll:

mkpdavies · 20-09-2006, 06:03 PM

God you don't half moan.

Millennium3 · 20-09-2006, 08:10 PM

I would have thought the best route would be through David Davis - more clout!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...20/nveto20.xml

Ministers abandon Britain's EU veto
By Toby Helm and Leo Cendrowicz

(Filed: 20/09/2006)

Ministers were accused last night of planning to abandon Britain's EU veto over sensitive justice and home affairs matters in a move that would see parts of the European constitution introduced "by the back door".

David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said he was "astonished" that such a move was even being considered, after Geoff Hoon, the Europe minister, refused to rule out moving to majority voting in decisions on EU police and judicial co-operation.

In a furious letter to John Reid, the Home Secretary, Mr Davis said: "To surrender the veto would directly contradict the pledge given by the former foreign secretary that 'there is no plan, proposal or intention to slip elements of the constitution through the back door'."

He added: "Retaining the national veto over policing, our courts and our criminal laws is vital to the UK national interest and to the rights of British citizens."

The row blew up ahead of an informal meeting of EU justice and home affairs ministers later this week in the Finnish town of Tampere.

The Finnish presidency wants to launch a discussion on how issues of police and judicial co-operation might in future be taken by majority vote.

In 2003, the government stated in a White Paper that "we will insist that unanimity remains for. . . key areas of criminal procedural law".

But Mr Hoon conceded that one consequence of the Finnish discussion "could be the application of qualified majority voting to some part of EU police and judicial co-operation."

Petrina · 21-09-2006, 11:03 PM

Good so we finally have a briefing note which had to be lifted from Open Europe .

So can we the ordinary members be told what has been organised by way of a campaign to counter the Govt. giving our rights and freedoms away ?

20-09-2006, 06:03 PM	#18 (permalink)
mkpdavies Uber Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Woking Posts: 32,078 Party: Libertarian Party	God you don't half moan. __________________ http://brits4ronpaul.blogspot.com/ http://wokinglibertarians.blogspot.com/ http://lpuk.org My ignore list Labour, Lib Dems

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14-09-2006, 06:19 PM	#11 (permalink)
Bellatrix Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 625	The story was a UKIP one from the beginning. The give away is the opposition politician who is quoted first. A story is not just a string of quotations from one person, after all.

17-09-2006, 11:52 PM	#12 (permalink)
Petrina Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: sussex Posts: 1,064	My question was ,what are we doing about this ?Who is our spokesman? Answer came there none .

18-09-2006, 03:10 PM	#13 (permalink)
Bellatrix Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 625	The conversation you had with Clive was quite inclusive of all these points.

18-09-2006, 04:47 PM	#14 (permalink)
Petrina Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: sussex Posts: 1,064	The conversation with Clive was a private one .I was delighted to hear that a round robin had gone out to the regions -but I don`t know the details . Why not inform the members precisely what is being done ?I presumed that you would . Is it not the business of the Press Office to do so now and then ?

20-09-2006, 05:21 PM	#15 (permalink)
Petrina Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: sussex Posts: 1,064	Dear All, For those of you who don’t take the Telegraph…… Britons could all too soon become slaves of Europe By Simon Heffer (Filed: 20/09/2006) We have been lulled into a dangerous sense of complacency towards the evils capable of being inflicted upon us, our country and our way of life by the EU. Our proposed membership of the euro is, it seems, a dead letter. The French and the Dutch buried the EU constitution more than a year ago. However, something that could prove even more poisonous to our liberties than either of those anti-democratic impositions could be about to be foisted on us. This Friday, in Tampere in Finland, there will be a meeting of EU interior and justice ministers. Up for debate is the matter of introducing qualified majority voting (QMV) on criminal justice matters: or, to put it more plainly, surrendering our veto on these. The potential for damage to our freedoms if this happens is awesome: the end of habeas corpus, a threat to trial by jury and the capability of the EU to interfere in hitherto sovereign matters such as sentencing policy are but three of the consequences should our veto go. It is unlikely that a decision will be taken on Friday, and as such the Home Office is to be represented at the meeting not by John Reid, the Home Secretary, but by an obscure junior minister, Joan Ryan. However, the present Finnish presidency of the EU wants to have the veto removed, and by the end of its presidency in December. advertisement It may be thought astonishing, given the imminence of this threat and its dangers, that there has been so little discussion of it by the media or by politicians. It may be abstruse and technical, but the loss of the veto in this crucial area is something to which we can all relate. Matters to do with the machinery of the EU are boring for politicians and unsexy for newspapers or television news, but that did not stop people becoming (quite rightly) excited about the threat of the single currency or the constitution. We have all been obsessed for weeks with the date of Tony Blair's retirement and the possibility of his being replaced by anyone other than Gordon Brown, so there may not have been room on the political agenda for something that concerns our most fundamental liberties. Above all, the silence from Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition on this vital matter has, as is the case on so many vital matters, been ear-splittingly deafening. On July 28 – more than seven weeks ago – the chairman of the Freedom Association, the former Tory MP Christopher Gill, wrote to Sir David Normington, the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office. His letter was short and to the point. Mr Gill asked Sir David what the Government's likely response was going to be to an EU memorandum issued in June about "implementing the Hague programme – the way forward": in other words, the Government's view on whether it would submit to the introduction of QMV on justice and home affairs. As of yesterday, Mr Gill had had no reply. So, for all we know, Miss Ryan will go to Tampere the day after tomorrow and raise no objection, on behalf of 60 million people in this country, to all future laws on criminal justice matters proceeding only in accordance with what has been agreed with a majority of other EU states. That, as the Freedom Association points out, is not the end of it. The surrender of our veto would be a key stage in the incorporation of corpus juris into our law. This is the continental system of conducting criminal proceedings. Habeas corpus is unknown to it, which means that Britons could face detention not just without trial, but also without charge, for months or possibly years. One Briton, Chris Lees, recently spent 50 weeks in a Spanish jail without being charged with anything. At present, criminal justice policy is included in what the Eurocrats call "Pillar 3": individual countries retain some of their sovereign rights. The Hague programme would move it to Pillar 1, where it could become a common policy. Asylum, migration and judicial co-operation policies have already moved to Pillar 1: the Finns feel it is logical for justice and home affairs to go with it. The Commission now wants what it modestly calls a "bridging clause" to overcome difficulties in ensuring that the "community method" is used in matters concerning "freedom, justice and security": and Friday's meeting is about smoothing the way to such an arrangement, and soon. The real beneficiary of such a change would be the European Court of Justice (ECJ). It already has the power to declare any national law invalid if it conflicts with EU law. If justice and home affairs were moved to within the first pillar, the competence of the ECJ would be widened to take in matters affecting the police and the judiciary, with far-reaching effects. If the ECJ legislates on anything to do with justice and home affairs, it then becomes a community competence. Last September, the ECJ gave the EU powers to set criminal penalties. If we surrender our veto on these matters, EU-set penalties could be imposed on British subjects in Britain, and for breaches of laws that are not crimes or punishable in Britain. Equally, according to some legal opinion, matters that are criminal offences in Britain could be decriminalised by a decision of the EU without any recourse to the will of the British people. The other horror is that, as EU competence increases, so the ability of member states to propose their own laws for their own people shrinks until it is extinguished. That is the ultimate goal of the ever-closer union: but it entails a stark and anti-democratic removal of sovereignty from this area which impacts directly on our most basic freedoms and liberties. This power for the EU is even greater than was proposed by the defeated constitution. It means laws being made by QMV at meetings of the Council of Ministers, and forced on Parliament as directives. Under our constitution, Parliament has always been there to hold the executive in check. Were our veto to be surrendered, it would not even be our executive that would be uncheckable short, effectively, of Parliament deciding we must leave the EU. It would be an executive made up of ministers from all over Europe, for almost none of whom we have, of course, ever voted. It would make a nonsense of the notion of our being a democratic state, and render participation in general elections no more significant than participation in a survey conducted by an opinion pollster. With the loss of habeas corpus there would be more cases such as that of Mr Lees, with people floundering in jail without charge. There would be no guarantee of our historic right to trial by jury. The way would be open for a Europe-wide police force answerable to no nation and subject to no parliamentary scrutiny. Indeed, this exists in embryo, since France, Portugal, Italy, Spain and Belgium already supply officers to something called the Euro Gendarmerie Force. This is a military police outfit and answers to the European Commission for its ultimate authority. It is, in this respect, the way of the future – an entirely undemocratic and largely unaccountable future at that. Briefings have it that this illiberal plan is essential for the fight against terrorism. Yet, as with identity cards, not a single terrorist is likely to be caught or convicted because of it. It is all about maximising the power of the EU, and hobbling the nations that comprise it. At least, on Friday, we shall finally get an honest answer to the question of whether this Government is happy to destroy our basic liberties in this repulsive cause. This was sent to a number of us in the South East by David Samuel -Camps who works at the South East Office . Bravo ! It`s good to see that someone is taking an interest in this matter . Lots of useful detail in this article by Simon Heffer .Awful pity that with 10 MEPs and a fully staffed Press Office ,all of which who have been put there by Joe Public`s anti EU vote ,we can`t come out with any useful article /document /pamphlet on the topic. Tragic really,bearing in mind that this is one of the most far-reaching and worrying power grabs in our history as a nation state . :cry:

20-09-2006, 05:52 PM	#17 (permalink)
Niall Warry Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Somerset Posts: 1,731	It is absolutely typical that UKIP has not done more to warn people about this issue. UKIP's priorities are all wrong too much time spent on things that don't matter and not enough time planning the tactics for such major issues as this. :evil: Will things improve under Nigel? :? I hope so, but I having heard reports of the first NEC meeting things haven't started that well. :cry: However if you are a Nigel crony no doubt everything is going nicely to plan. :roll:

20-09-2006, 08:10 PM	#19 (permalink)
Millennium3 Moderator Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Berkshire Posts: 4,762	I would have thought the best route would be through David Davis - more clout! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...20/nveto20.xml Ministers abandon Britain's EU veto By Toby Helm and Leo Cendrowicz (Filed: 20/09/2006) Ministers were accused last night of planning to abandon Britain's EU veto over sensitive justice and home affairs matters in a move that would see parts of the European constitution introduced "by the back door". David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said he was "astonished" that such a move was even being considered, after Geoff Hoon, the Europe minister, refused to rule out moving to majority voting in decisions on EU police and judicial co-operation. In a furious letter to John Reid, the Home Secretary, Mr Davis said: "To surrender the veto would directly contradict the pledge given by the former foreign secretary that 'there is no plan, proposal or intention to slip elements of the constitution through the back door'." He added: "Retaining the national veto over policing, our courts and our criminal laws is vital to the UK national interest and to the rights of British citizens." The row blew up ahead of an informal meeting of EU justice and home affairs ministers later this week in the Finnish town of Tampere. The Finnish presidency wants to launch a discussion on how issues of police and judicial co-operation might in future be taken by majority vote. In 2003, the government stated in a White Paper that "we will insist that unanimity remains for. . . key areas of criminal procedural law". But Mr Hoon conceded that one consequence of the Finnish discussion "could be the application of qualified majority voting to some part of EU police and judicial co-operation."

21-09-2006, 11:03 PM	#20 (permalink)
Petrina Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: sussex Posts: 1,064	Good so we finally have a briefing note which had to be lifted from Open Europe . So can we the ordinary members be told what has been organised by way of a campaign to counter the Govt. giving our rights and freedoms away ?