February 07, 2010

The Constitutional Reform Bill

This speech, given by Lord Pearson of Rannoch, in support of the Constitutional Reform Bill, is the single most powerful speech I have read for a very long time.

Readers of my blog know that I loathe statutes. This one is the exception. This is an Act I would gladly endorse.

After months of procrastination, I am nailing my colours to the UKIP mast. This is a leader I can believe in. His passion and his conviction, not to mention his desire to get us out of Europe, should be shared by politicians of all hues. The first step for any party to win my vote is an oath, signed in blood, that we will immediately leave the clusterfuck that is the European Union. This Bill does exactly that. Moreover, it ensures that parliamentarians, even those with sub-normal IQ's like Jim Devine, can never, ever, give away that which does not belong to them.

I don't even care about their other policies. The numpties we elected last time made a right mess of everything. UKIP can only improve it.

This man may even make me proud to be British once more. In order to do that, we need a Britain. Very soon, unless something radical happens, I will be a citizen of the North Atlantic Region. I did not ask, nor give my permission, for anyone to remove my nationality.

Over to Lord Pearson:

"My Lords, it will come as no surprise to noble Lords to learn that I support my noble friend's Bill. Its two most radical proposals are that the United Kingdom should leave the European Union and that the British people should be granted the power to hold binding referendums at national and local level. I submit that without these two essential proposals becoming a reality, the future of this country is beginning to look very worrying indeed. Of course, the political class will not welcome the Bill, as no doubt we will now hear, but the British people are not infinitely patient and they are getting very frustrated and angry with our present political system and those who run it and live off it. For years now they have resented the quantity of interfering legislation which has been forced on them and have seen their politicians as "in it for themselves". I submit that their disdain has been turned into anger by the recent revelations about parliamentary expenses and into fear by our disastrous financial situation, for which they are of course right to blame their leaders."

"I also submit, not for the first time, that the cause of much of the people's frustration is that they have come to see that whatever they do, whatever letters they write to their Members of Parliament, however many of them march our streets in protest against one or other folly visited upon them by Brussels or Westminster, or for whichever party they cast their votes, it makes no difference. They cannot change anything. The tide of unwanted legislation flows on. Their post offices and pubs close, their waste is not collected and their hospitals are too often dirty and incompetent. Too many of their children fail in life because they have not been taught to read. Their police are weighed down with bureaucracy while the crime rate remains at unacceptable levels. Their prisons are overflowing with the mentally ill and the illiterate. The morale of their Armed Forces, which quite simply are the finest in the world, is starting to sap and, perhaps most pernicious of all, their borders have been deliberately dismantled by politicians who loathe their proud history and culture, so their inner cities have been turned into very dangerous places indeed."

"It is not just that people feel that they cannot make a difference or change anything; they cannot. Modern Governments, under our absurd first past the post system, are elected by about 24 per cent of the electorate, or 40 per cent of the 60 per cent who still bother to vote. Now, thanks to our imprisonment in the European Union, those Governments make only a minority of our national law-perhaps as little as 16 per cent of it, if the German Government are to be believed. The majority of our national law is now made in Brussels, with your Lordships' House and Members of the House of Commons, for whom the people are allowed to vote, irrelevant in the process."

"The people have not yet understood that process, by which most of their national law is now made in Brussels and imposed on them here. Their political class, which includes the BBC of course, has done a brilliant job by simply refusing to reveal how the EU's legislative process makes our law. I have said it before in your Lordships' House, and I will go on saying it until the frightening truth reaches our people. EU laws are proposed in secret by the unelected bureaucracy, the European Commission. Those laws are then negotiated, still in secret, in a shadowy body called COREPER, the Committee of Permanent Representatives, consisting of bureaucrats from the nation states. They then go to the Council of Ministers from the nation states, where the UK has some 8 per cent of the votes, and to the European Parliament for final decision. The European Parliament, to which we elect MEPs, cannot propose EU legislation; it can only delay it. Of course, it does not do much of that because it does not want to derail its famous gravy train. Again, all our UK MEPs put together have only some 8 per cent of the votes in a process that now makes most of our law. So the European Parliament is a democratic sham, and was designed to be so by the founders of the project of European integration."

"It is safe to say yet again that our membership of the European Union has removed our democracy; it has taken away the right of the British people to elect and dismiss those who make their laws. Our system of representative parliamentary democracy, for which millions have died over hundreds of years, has been frittered away. It no longer serves the people. That is why the time has come to give power back to the people. They deserve it anyway; it is their power and it belongs to them. Before long their anger will overflow if they do not get it back."


Tip of the beret to newly discovered blog, The Talking Clock.

CR.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pearson is made of good stuff, Captain. Welcome to the UKIP club.

Might I request that you occasionally crosspost to BloogersForUKIP.. If this appeals, please contact admin@bloggers4ukip.org.uk

We need all the help we can get.

Anonymous said...

PS: Captain, can you contact me? faustiesblog@googlemail.com

Witterings from Witney said...

Have linked CR with ack.

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/02/constitutional-reform.html

Captain Ranty said...

Thanks WfW,

I think that more people should read this speech and the words of Lord Willoughby de Broke.

That way they will know that some good men are fighting for their country.

CR.

Captain Ranty said...

Mrs F,

I'd be happy to.

Check your inbox. Email sent.

CR.

TTC said...

Howdy Captain,

The Talking Clock is just taking a minute to thank you for the nod of the beret.

That you share the same sentiment about Lord Pearson's words in particular makes you a thoroughly worthy ally.

Pleased to see you're clued up on libertarian and freeman issues, too. You're a close and deep ally, it seems.

Must dash, The Talking Clock has a load of tourists milling around at our feet wanting to take photos. Sigh!

Stay tickety boo!

The Talking Clock :)

Captain Ranty said...

Thanks TTC.

For clarity, I don't want "small" government, I want almost no government at all. Apart from a few bods in the foreign office for international relations I think everything else can and should be handled by local councils. Devolve power all the way down to me. And you. And your community.

UKIP will get us off to a great start. They will remind us what freedom means. This will pave the way for LPUK.

In ten years we could be normal once again.

What is certain is that we should never ever be in this vulnerable position again.

Let battle commence!

CR.

Witterings from Witney said...

CR.

Forgive me using your comment section but I am unable to comment on The Talking Clock and would ask that perhaps if they read this, they could email me via my blog?

Thanks

Captain Ranty said...

Mi casa es su casa.

Crack on!

CR.

Anonymous said...

Now there`s a man I could follow, pity there aren`t a few more like him

Uncle Marvo said...

Thanks for the Talking Clock reference.

How have I missed this one? Good blog. Only thing is, when I saw your link, I initially misread it as "Talking Cock". Which is my job.

Anyway, blogrolled.

LazyCookPete said...

That was a very moving speech; it certainly pressed all of my Anti-Europe buttons. It's comforting to know that we have at least one human being in the House of Lords. He is right; more and more of us are waking up to the stark reality of the NWO agenda. No wonder Blair et al are trying to do away with the crime of treason.

PaintScots said...

I wish you had a dozen in the House with this man's wisdom....may his influence spread far and exceedingly fast.