|
Moderator
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Oxonia
Posts: 3,565
|
Now I've upset Idris Francis
I have now upset Idris Francis, one of Ashley Mote's key friends and supporters. The reason is I came back from a night of drinking and dancing and read Ashley Mote's speech urging the EU Parliament to overrule a decision of an English court of law. At the same time I received from IF, as I was on his mailing list, one of AM's other speeches. All those on Idris Francis' mailing list will not be receiving AM's speech trying to challenge our own courts.
IMHO AM has now become a traitor to our cause. I voted for UKIP to try to regain our sovereignty; what was the point if my vote was cast for a man who is trying to desperately hand our sovereignty away?
GL-W attacks UKIP with ease, but allows AM to get away scot free because AM has apparently 'exposed fraud and corruption' - in fact when I worked for AM all of the information was coming from Ries Baeten, who worked for Paul van Buitenen. I still have all of the documents I was given (pending AM paying me the money he owes me).
IF, who has spent a lot of money trying to protect his right not to tell people who was driving his classic car when it was observed speeding, is one of AM's most loyal supporters, which I find touchingly naive.
I no longer care if AM is guilty or not. I do not even know what evidence is going to be called by the DWP. If he is acquitted then fine, but it would have saved us all a lot of embarrassment had he allowed the case to proceed in late 2004.
I have attached the exchange of e-mails between myself and Idris Francis. I make no apologies for the tone, or even the odd typo, because having read yesterday's speech by Ashley Mote I am now convinced that we risk being a lost cause. The EU elections are barely 2 years away and AM is about to ensure that those who oppose us are going to be handed the biggest PR coup in the history of Eurosceptic politics.
Why would anybody vote UKIP in 2009 based on the antics of AM? Since AM gave a written assurance to UKIP that he knew of no pending court proceedings how can we honestly say that any other candidate is not in the same position?
This is a disaster waiting to happen.
Quote:
Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 11:49:43 +0100 (BST)
From: "PAUL WESSON" <p.g.wesson@btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: Fwd: Foreign Drivers on UK roads - EP question by Ashley Mote
To: "Idris Francis" <irfrancis@onetel.com>
Pity, you missed some pearls of wisdom.
Idris Francis <irfrancis@onetel.com> wrote:
I asked you not to contact me again. I am not interested in your views.
I read only the first two lines of your email, and will read nothing whatever of any more, which will be filtered to limbo
Over and out
Idris Francis
At 10:08 12/06/2007, you wrote:
Dear Mr Francis,
I was intemperate last night when I read Ashley's speech. I make no apology. If the case against him is without merit why won't he go before a court and clear his name. It really is very easy. I had charges brought against me and went to court. CPS realised they had screwed up and begged me to accept a binding over, but I demanded they pursue their case since they hadn't interviewed a key witness and had misread what another witness said. The case had no merit and was thrown out. Easy.
I suppose you believe that AM has immunity from prosecution, unlike any other English man in the last few centuries. I believe that he should be prosecuted. As with you, I received AM's assurance of his innocence and a prosecution is the opportunity for him to bring only sufficient evidence to undermine the burden of proof beyond reasonable doubt. He will be before a jury of his peers. He doesn't even have to sway all 12 of them - 3 or 4 would be enough. The onus is on the prosecution. If AM is half of the businessman he claims to be his records will easily undermine the prosecution case and I am surprised that he hasn't provided the investigators with evidence to support his position so that they didn't feel the need to bring charges.
I studied law up to and including the Bar Finals and was called by Gray's Inn in Trinity 1980. I have a real problem with AM's use of the whole immunity process. I was taught constitutional law by the man who wrote one of Pakistan's constitutions and the first Bangla Deshi constitution. I was taught EEC law as was at the Inns of Court. I have read widely on the subject of immunity and agree with the following writer:
“‘The Rule of Law’ in early English common law applied equally to all. Under common law, all persons are equal before the law, and all persons are accountable under the law. A simple, elegant, shrewd idea. Perhaps not perfect, but it expressed the supreme wisdom of holding even those in the highest offices in the land at the mercy of the law, just like everyone else. No-one in Britain is above the law, and that includes the Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor…It is the law that no-one is above it”.
The writer as you know was Ashley Mote at page 81 of 'Vigilance - A Defence of Liberty' - a book that I am sure you have read.
The problem I have is a 'supposed' Eurosceptic for whose party I campaigned and to which I gave my vote is behaving far worse than any Lib Dem or Labour MEP in the same position. The German MEP who seriously injured somebody in a car crash that was his fault, and who did have immunity, waived it at the first opportunity to allow the process to proceed. If AM has immunity, and he has the same lack of immunity that a UK MP has as far as I am concerned, he should have waived it immediately to allow himself the opportunity to clear his name.
The debate on the Internet, and it is far ranging, is not about AM's guilt or otherwise, but why he has sought an immunity that he would have condemned from the roof tops if a Socialist had done the same in the same circumstances? Surely you can see hypocrisy when it stares you in the face?
AM's speech yesterday will cost UKIP and the Eurosceptic movement dear once his court case is laid to rest. The vultures are already circling. AM might be an effective MEP, but Jonathan Aitken and Jeffrey Archer were better known and the papers soon put paid to their cant and hypocrisy. AM will cost 'us' , the whole Eurosceptic movement, millions of votes. Why won't he allow his case to proceed so that we can deal with this and move on.
If AM is innocent, as he has assured us, he will be able to sing it from the rooftops. The press would have supported him had his trial gone ahead as planned in 2004, but now the qusestion will always be asked - 'Why did AM seek to evade trial for 3 years? Why did Eurosceptics support him when he was destroying every argument that they putt forward?'
Do you really believe that the 'Government' brought charges against AM with no evidence whatsoever just to stop him in his tracks as a MEP? AM knew, during the EU election campaign, that he had been investigated. He knew that the DWP had collected evidence about him from many sources. He was not 'surprised' by the charges. I've done enough law and been involved in enough cases to know that such things take a lot of information gathering and that it is probable that he was investigated over several months and that he was almost certainly interviewed under caution. The number of charges suggest more than a passing civil servant having a pot at someone with no evidence whatsoever. Do you know, or care, how many people are not charged even when the prosecution has enough evidence to put before a jury? No.
I wish you well in future campaigning, but I suspect that you will never understand why a man of honour might be offended by AM's words in the EU Parliament yesterday.
I am yours,
Paul Wesson
Idris Francis <irfrancis@onetel.com> wrote:
Dear Mr. Wesson,
I consider your message, and your choice of words, offensive and I have deleted your address from my circulation list for that reason. Please do not contact me again - but publish and be damned.
I have had the greatest respect for Ashley's abilities since I first met him locally some ten years ago. He has done a truly extraordinary job both before becoming an MEP and since. When I learned, in June 2004, of the charges he faced, and Ashley told me and others that there was no merit in those charges which were yet another example of this most odius of all governments' practice of trying to trash the reputations of those who get in it's way, I decided to take no sides until the issue is decided by the court.
For my part, whatever tactics have been used by those involved, and whatever the eventual outcome, I have been very pleased to see Ashley being such an effective MEP for so long.
Over - and out.
Idris
At 01:00 12/06/2007, you wrote:
Idris,
This is the text of Ashley Mote's speech in the EU Parliament today:
Ashley Mote (ITS ). – Mr President, I must draw the attention of this House to a threat to its integrity. A ruling last week in the British courts held that after granting an application to lift the immunity of a Member who faces specific charges, the European Parliament can be assumed simultaneously and implicitly also to have lifted immunity against any other charges without further examination of the facts. Such a ruling is prima facie contempt of this House. It opens the way for blanket applications from Member States and implies the possibility of applications against any and all Members to be exercised by any future government at its discretion. If unchallenged, this ruling would profoundly undermine the Rules of this House and its procedures. I appreciate that this issue comes to light from a Member whose scepticism of this institution is well known, but I respectfully remind you that I am also an advocate of the rule of law wherever it is to be found.
Today, Mr President, I have sent you, the Secretary-General of Parliament and the Chairman of the Legal Affairs Committee details of the situation, inviting examination of the implications of this ruling.
Ashley Mote is actually asking the EU Parliament to overrule a decision of an English court. AM sees the ruling of one of our judges as a contempt of the EU Parliament.
AM is branded traitor, turncoat and 2 faced **** now and forever. If you contimue to support Ashley Mote then you are branded the same.
Never ever ever send me any more details of speeches by the traitor Ashley Mote. If we meet, never dare to utter his name in my presence. If you do not renounce your continuing support for this treacherous individual then I will post this e-mail and your response, or lack of it, on the democracy forum. By supporting Ashley Mote you support the sovereignty of the EU Parliament over the decisions of an English court.
Justify, if you dare, Ashley Mote's continuing attempts to seek immunity from prosecution in this country by reference to his 'immunity' as a MEP. No man is above the law, apart from Ashley Mote. Your support of Ashley Mote puts in danger the constitutional law that we all rely on.
Do you support the right of an English court to make a decision or do you wish it to be overruled by the EU Parliament?
Whose side are you on - English justice or Ashley Mote? It is no longer possible to pretend that you support both. If you support Ashley Mote then I will release apress release to that effect.
Kind regards, supporter of traitors,
Paul Wesson
Idris Francis <irfrancis@onetel.com> wrote:
Subject: Foreign Drivers on UK roads
Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2007 16:08:02 +0100
My question and the Commission's thoroughly unconvincing answer, following various reports about foreign drivers on UK roads.
WRITTEN QUESTION E-1294/07
by Ashley Mote (ITS)
to the Commission
Subject: Foreign drivers on UK roads
Given the huge numbers of foreign-registered private and commercial vehicles now on the roads of the United Kingdom, does the Commission understand the practical impossibility of enforcing UK traffic laws? Does the Commission appreciate the expensive and complicated process of identifying drivers and owners from other Member States' governments who are not always ready and willing to provide information? Does the Commission realise how low is the prospect of collecting fines for minor infringements in such circumstances?
Does the Commission also understand the growing anger of UK drivers of all classes of vehicles who see foreign drivers 'getting away with it', while UK drivers are obliged to pay their fines and incur penalties on their driving licences?
E-1294/07EN
Answer given by Mr Barrot
on behalf of the Commission
(21.5.2007)
It is a fact that, in spite of some intergovernmental agreements and other forms of co-operation that individual Member States have established between themselves, it can be difficult in certain circumstances to follow up on traffic offences committed by drivers who are residents of another EU country. This situation is unsatisfactory and in order to remedy it, the Commission is considering possible measures including if appropriate a legal instrument aimed at strengthening enforcement of road traffic offences throughout the European Union and ensuring consistent and fair enforcement vis-à-vis all EU citizens who infringe national traffic laws, regardless of the place where the offence is committed and the registration plate of their vehicle.
|
|
12-06-2007, 11:13 AM
Linear Mode
