A letter to Alexander Graf Lambsdorff MEP

Hi Edward,

Nice piece and a clear understanding of the facts. Its a shame that after so many years many of these facts and objections have been forgotten by many of the British People.

I do however take one issue. Surly article 50 by its very nature, means that yet again the British People will not have the final say, no matter whether we have a referendum or just decide one day to leave under article 50 the other EU member states still have the final say.

Surly it is better to just revoke The European Communities Act (1972) and therefore make us no longer a member and no longer subject to anything to do with EU Laws and Regulations. Whilst i agree this will cause all of pain to officials to untangle the UK from this, its pain we will have to bear anyway and at least we wont have to wait for the EU slow train to decide if and when we may actually leave.

Regards, John Marchant

Any contract or agreement in which one party uses misinformation, lies, and/or deceit in order to secure the acceptance of the agreement or contract by the misled party, is null and void.
The people of the UK were deliberately lied to and misled regarding the impact that joining what is currently called the EU, would have on our national sovereignty and our democracy.
Therefore, and by any fair and just assessment, the agreement of the British people to join what was then called the EEC was obtained by means that render that agreement null and void.

Many groups of people find they can live near to others or even next to them but force them to live together and it often causes problems. Conflict in fact! I love living next to German, French and even the Italians but with them? No Thanks. Let’s trade but not trist!

I completely agree with all of the above, comments included. I am currently working my way through ” Europe’s Full Circle,” by Rodney Atkinson after completing “Treason At Maastricht,” by Atkinson and McWhirter. The deceit perpetrated by our Political Leaders since the 60’s is shameful. British Constitutional law has been tested in Court and no government decision can be binding on a future administration, so maastricht, signed in Perpetuity was not legal. Apparently the Judiciary did try to have it declared illegal, but were warned off by the then Speaker of the House. As John Marchant (above) just stated, any Government can move to Revoke The European Communities Act. The Act also failed to enshrine the rule of British law and British Courts and any Government, since 72 could have changed that, but didn’t. I agree also with M R Hutchins that the deceit used to get the British People to vote yes, renders the ECA invalid and the People should demand a Recission of Contract.

Hello John Marchant.

It would be rather nice to think that “with one bound we are free” by repealing the ECA 1972. Funnily enough, in my local paper, The Derby Evening Telegraph, there have been two recent Europhile suggestions that the EU is no big deal because we can always do that ” in the twinkling of an eye” as one letter put it..

Unfortunately this completely overlooks the accumulation of forty years of international agreements to which we are party through our EU membership and on which our continued trade with the wider world now depends. If we simply walked out, all those would lapse.

For instance, the control of air travel is now an EU competence. To achieve this required the renegotiation of some 1500 treaties between EU member stated and other countries plus over 40 ” horizontal agreements” between the EU and the wider world. If we just did as you suggest, we would be outside all those agreements and our planes would be legally grounded until HMG got round to renegotiating all of them plus hundreds more on other matters. It is not just a matter of ” we buy more from them than they do to us”

I was initially as wary of Article 50 as anybody but, having reread it carefully carefully and actually studied the law of treaties with the help of informal legal advice, came to the conclusion that it was less disadvantageous than a chaotic exit. In fact, there is not the slightest requirement to ” ask permission”. Once we have given notice, we are on our way out .,Common sense suggests that some time will be needed to make proper arrangements. It will be a very active negotiation, not a matter of passively waiting for what the EU may offer.

Article 50 recognises our own constitutional requirements as supreme. International law does not allow countries to appeal to this as a justification for unilaterally denouncing a treaty .

I have compiled a few notes on this which I will willingly send you. Please email the website if you would like them.

M.R. Hutchins,

I entirely agree that our successive governments were highly deceitful to us.
Even though many campaigners pointed this out, the British people kept on re-electing them and were, it seems, content for the ” ever closer union” with Europe to continue by successive treaties.

Deeply though I loathe them, there is not the slightest doubt that they are valid in international law. Fortunately there is a readily available exit without the need for the ” battleships In the channel” mentality which Lord Tebbit rightly deplores. Yet there are those, it seems, who yearn for it.

We have to move on from our campaigning years in the wilderness to the real practicalities of that amicable divorce – and that will require intensive negotiation for a proper settlement.

That is a purely internal matter for the UK. It

Edward Spalton’s article for the Spring 2014 issue of Freedom Today (See below) is very pertinet to some of the comments above:-

Whilst independence campaigners of other parties might prefer to use a different phrase, what they hope for is not far off the “amicable divorce” from the EU, advocated by Nigel Farage. Such a settlement will demand clear thinking, strenuous negotiation and unshakeable political will. Whilst many have a deep-seated loathing for our subjection to the EU, we should remember that it has taken nothing from us which was not freely surrendered by our governments of all colours, officials and parliament.

We should reserve our major suspicions for them and approach the institutions and personnel of the EU with steely objectivity and diplomatic courtesy.
To do that, it may be necessary to create an expert task force or “Department of Disentanglement” separate from the Foreign Office which, for two generations, has been stocked entirely with Europhiles.

The EU is an institution of laws – tens of thousands of them – but it will break even the most supposedly sacrosanct to secure its existence. When the euro was introduced, the treaty specified that no member state could ever be made responsible for the debts of another. Yet as soon as crisis struck, the principle was instantly jettisoned before any legal change had been made. We are dealing with an institution which is primarily one of political will, not law. The laws are invoked only in support of the project . So caution is essential and suspicion of Article 50 quite reasonable.

To achieve a new politically independent trading relationship with the EU countries, there are various considerations surrounding Article 50 .
Firstly, international law does not generally allow the existing or new internal constitutional requirements of contracting states as a valid reason for non performance of a previously agreed treaty. The article does. Secondly, the Article appears to be a lex specialis – an agreed provision of a treaty which therefore takes precedence over general rules such as the Vienna Convention. Thirdly, for an EU document it is remarkably straightforward , specifying a clear procedure, including an obligation to negotiate a future relationship within the not unreasonable period of two years.

It is unrealistic to expect that the member state which has given notice to leave should also be privy to the discussions within the EU institutions on the matter. You cannot expect to sit on both sides of the table at once. You cannot simultaneously be buyer and seller.
We will not be going like Oliver Twist to ask the President of the European Council, “Please Sir, may we have our country back?” and then waiting for two years to see what the EU offers. We must go with a well-prepared negotiating position of highly specific, reasonable requirements and keep the initiative at all times.

In extricating the country from foreign bureaucracy, we do have experience from history. The Acts of Praemunire prohibited English subjects from taking cases to foreign courts, Henry VIII ‘s Act of Supremacy and Act in Restraint of Appeals established beyond a peradventure that “The King’s Majesty hath the chief power in this Realm of England and other his Dominions…. and is not, nor ought to be, subject to any foreign jurisdiction”. It was not mere coincidence that these Acts were repealed or rendered dead letters in the run up to our accession to the EEC.

Acts of Parliament still derive their sovereign force from the prerogative power of the Crown in Parliament, “The Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty”. There should be a comprehensive modern Act with the same effect and intent . Such an Act would be a deterrent against new EU Regulations or requirements being sprung on us during negotiation. It should also provide dissuasive penalties for anyone, particularly British officials, trying to circumvent it – though probably not quite the same ones as Henry VIII ‘ s !

Armed with such a safeguard at home, capable of being invoked if necessary, negotiations could proceed, more or less on an ex gratia basis, but in outward conformity to the Article – working, as it were, with the grain of the treaties. To tear up a treaty as a claimed sovereign right might be popular in the saloon bar but would not impress at the bar of any international tribunal or indeed overseas public opinion.

Like it or not, international trade is now regulated by myriad rules. Whilst many of them come from bodies like the United Nations or the World Trade Organisation, Britain is contracted to them through the EU because we outsourced our negotiating power to it. As businesses have spent huge sums of money to comply with these rules, they rightly need assurance that Britain’s new arrangements with the EU will not cause them any disruption or place British products and services in a position of dubious international acceptability or disadvantage. Our suppliers and international creditors need to have similar assurance that their interests will be respected and their investments safe. Such considerations are essential, if the divorce is to be amicable and the outcome prosperous.

To win any referendum against the inbuilt advantage of the status quo, people have to be convinced that there is an attractive, credible, working alternative which will secure their jobs. There is no doubt of that. Something like the Norway Option has great presentational advantages. It already exists prosperously. It would not be the end point. Just as the EU project moved from the Coal and Steel Community to the Treaty of Rome, so further advances towards fuller independence can be made from that platform. But we have to persuade people to take the first step.

Incompetence or treachery at home is more greatly to be feared than the EU. The Romans remarked that slaves came to love their chains . Our civil servants have become very comfortable in EU servitude and out of the habit of drafting primary legislation. The effects of a botched renegotiation, combined with adverse economic circumstances, could see a future government panicked into crawling back by invoking clause 5 of Article 50. Now that really is to be feared!