European politicians and Australian republicans have something in common. They believe the people must keep on voting until they get it right. So the Irish people are being called to vote again on the Treaty of Lisbon which the Irish people rejected on 12 June 2008 53.4% to 46.6% with a 53.1% turnout. An incident in Prague Castle detailed below bears this out.
This is little more than a disguised version of the European Constitution rejected in 2005 by French and Dutch voters.
This time the devious Dutch and French politicians avoided a vote which they can under their constitutions.
On 12 December 2008, with the encouragement of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the Irish Prime Minister confirmed that a second referendum would be held.
To persuade the Irish, EU leaders agreed Ireland and each member would have one EU Commissioner and there would be guarantees about abortion, taxation and military neutrality.
One of our reader has drawn ACM’s attention to a comment posted on the London Daily Telegraph online version of a story about the attempt by some EU politicians to stand over the Czech President in Prague Castle.
The note reads:
- “I was at a conference here in Washington DC recently with Michael Leigh, Director General of the European Commission's Enlargement Directorate General, and he had absolutely no hesitation in saying that Ireland would have to vote again.
He went on to state that his opinion was that the EU should never again ask for the confidence of the electorates of Europe (and instead simply do what it wants to do).
While he said this, all in the room nodded like he was a sage, oblivious to their own contempt for democracy.
Finally, when asked why the "No" campaign had won, he had the incredible self-delusion to say that it was because the "No" campaign was larger, better funded and supported by the press. There is no chance at all of these people listening to reason.
JD”
The report to which this comment was posted was by Christopher Brooker “Czech leader in shock after EU assault ,” Daily Telegraph 14 December, 2008.
It begins:
“Imagine that a Franco-German MEP, invited to meet the Queen at Buckingham Palace, plonked down in front of her an EU ‘ring of stars’ flag, insisting that she hoist it over the palace alongside the Royal Standard, and then proceeded to address her in a deliberately insulting way. The British people, if news of the incident leaked out, might not be too pleased.
“Something not dissimilar took place at a remarkable recent meeting between the heads of the groups in the European Parliament and Vaclav Klaus, the Czech head of state, in his palace in Hradcany Castle, on a hill overlooking Prague. The aim was to discuss how the Czechs should handle the EU's rotating six-monthly presidency when they take over from France on January 1.”
The behaviour of the Green leader, Daniel Cohen- Bendit was reprehensible. Known as ‘Dany le Rouge’ (Danny the Red) as a leader of the left insurrection in France in 1968, ( Les evenments – the events) Cohen-Bendit has called for countries rejecting referendum on the European Constitution to hold a second. If the people again vote No he wants the country expelled. That is democracy.
Czech leader in shock after EU assault
A bizarre confrontation in Hradcany Castle confirms the inablilty of the Euro-elite to accept anyone else's opinions, writes Christopher Booker. Christopher Booker
10:28AM GMT 14 Dec 2008 Daily Telegraph
Imagine that a Franco-German MEP, invited to meet the Queen at Buckingham Palace, plonked down in front of her an EU "ring of stars" flag, insisting that she hoist it over the palace alongside the Royal Standard, and then proceeded to address her in a deliberately insulting way.
The British people, if news of the incident leaked out, might not be too pleased.
Something not dissimilar took place at a remarkable recent meeting between the heads of the groups in the European Parliament and Vaclav Klaus, the Czech head of state, in his palace in Hradcany Castle, on a hill overlooking Prague.
As his country's prime minister, he applied to join the EU in the days after the fall of Communism in the 1990s. But now Klaus is alone among European leaders in expressing openly Eurosceptic views, not least about the Lisbon Treaty, which the Czech parliament has yet to ratify.
Klaus was an outspoken dissident under the Communist regime, and he has come to regard the EU as dangerously anti-democratic.
But he compounds this sin with highly sceptical views on global warming, on which he recently published a book, Blue Planet in Green Shackles. He likens the extreme environmentalism favoured by the EU to Communism, as a serious threat to democracy, freedom and prosperity.
So when Klaus was due to meet the MEPs, one of them decided this was a moment to display the Euro-elite's hostility to him. Daniel Cohn-Bendit, who is German born but lives in France, first came to prominence in Paris in 1968 as a student agitator. He is now leader of the Green MEPs.
Talking loudly in the plane to Prague, he made no secret of his intentions, and brief French journalists on how to get maximum publicity for his planned insults.
I happen to know the splendid room in which the meeting took place, because I sat there myself with President Klaus in 2005, when he had arranged for a history of the EU I had co-authored to be published in Czech.
As Cohn-Bendit was aware, the only flag that flies over the castle is the presidential standard (though the "ring of stars" is much in evidence elsewhere in Prague, flown outside every government ministry).
As described to me by someone present, President Klaus greeted the MEPs with his usual genial courtesy. Whatever his own views, he assured them, his countrymen would conduct their presidency in fully "communautaire" fashion.
Cohn-Bendit then staged his ambush. Brusquely plonking down his EU flag, which he observed sarcastically was so much in evidence around the palace, he warned that the Czechs would be expected to put through the EU's "climate change package" without interference.
"You can believe what you want," he scornfully told the president, "but I don't believe, I know that global warming is a reality."
He added, "my view is based on scientific views and the majority approval of the EU Parliament".
He then moved on to the Lisbon Treaty. "I don't care about your opinions on it," he said. If the Czech Parliament approves the treaty in February, he demanded, "Will you respect the will of the representatives of the people?"
He then reprimanded the president for his recent meeting in Ireland with Declan Ganley, the millionaire leader of the "No" campaign in the Irish referendum, claiming that it was improper for Klaus to have talked to someone whose "finances come from problematic sources".
Visibly taken aback by this onslaught, Klaus observed: "I must say that no one has talked to me in such a style and tone in the past six years. You are not on the barricades in Paris here. I thought that such manners ended for us 19 years ago" (ie when Communism fell).
When Klaus suggested to Hans-Gert Pöttering, the president of the EU Parliament, that perhaps it was time for someone else to take the floor, Pöttering replied that "anyone from the members of the Parliament can ask you what he likes", and invited Cohn-Bendit to continue.
"This is incredible', said Klaus. "I have never experienced anything like this before."
After a further exchange, in which Cohn-Bendit compared Klaus unfavourably with his predecessor, President Havel, he gave way to an Irish MEP, Brian Crowley, who began by saying "all his life my father fought against the British domination [of Ireland]… That is why I dare to say that the Irish wish for the Lisbon Treaty. It was an insult, Mr President, to me and the Irish people what you said during your state visit to Ireland."
Klaus repeated that he had not experienced anything like this for19 years and that it seemed we were no longer living in a democracy, but that it was "post-democracy which rules the EU".
On the EU constitution, Klaus recalled that three countries had voted against it, and that if Mr Crowley wanted to talk about insults to the Irish people, "the biggest insult to the Irish people is not to accept the result of the Irish referendum".
This provoked Crowley to retort angrily, "You will not tell me what the Irish think. As an Irishman, I know it best."
Everntually Pöttering closed the meeting by saying that he wanted to leave the room "in good terms", but it was quite unacceptable to compare himself and his colleagues with the Soviet Union.
Klaus replied that he had not mentioned the Soviet Union: "I only said that I had not experienced such an atmosphere, such a style of debate, in the Czech Republic in the last 19 years."
This bizarre confrontation, which has been recounted and discussed with shock across formerly Communist eastern Europe, confirms the inability of the Euro-elite to accept that anyone holds different views from their own, on Lisbon, global warming or anything else.
As we see from the way our own political parties are run, when it comes to "Europe", the system has no place for opposition.
Everything must be decided by "consensus", directed from the top.
There is only one approved "party line". Apart from a few little powerless dissidents round the edges, the EU is thus in essence a one-party state.
It was a sense of this that powerfully influenced the French, Dutch and Irish people, when they were given the chance, to vote against the constitution which will cement that one-party state into place more firmly than ever.
And it explains why, last week, the European Council told the Irish that they must hold their referendum again, on the understanding that this time they will get it right.
That is the way one-party states behave – as President Klaus, who lived under one for the first 50 years of his life, knows only too well.