Yet again the Government has awarded a major engineering contract to a foreign supplier – in this case to the German conglomerate Siemens when it should have gone to Derbybased train-maker Bombardier. As a direct consequence, over 1,000 jobs have been lost in Derby and the building of railway rolling stock in the area looks set to come to an end after 150 years. This is entirely due to European Union procurement rules and the Government’s failure to stand up for British interests and protect British jobs.
Edward Spalton, national vice-chairman of the crossparty Campaign for an Independent Britain (CIB), comments: “The de-industrialisation of Britain was foreseen as an integral part of the EU project from its earliest days. Time and again, our politicians award major contracts to foreign companies in preference to British ones. We can contrast the deceit and bad faith of Britain’s political class with the devotion to duty of Britain’s navy, army and air force which we so recently celebrated on Armed Forces Day.”
Mr Spalton points out that British soldiers swear an oath to “be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen … and defend her against all enemies”. Over 350 British military personnel have died in the last few years keeping that oath in Afghanistan. Cabinet Ministers also take an oath when they become members of the Privy Council and swear to “bear faith and allegiance to the Queen’s Majesty; and [to] assist and defend all civil and temporal jurisdictions … granted to Her Majesty and annexed to the Crown … against all foreign princes, persons, prelates, states or potentates and generally in all things you will do as a faithful and true servant ought to do to Her Majesty.”
Mr Spalton says: “Ministers who took this oath made the Queen and all of us into subjects of the European Union, bound to obey dictates of its officials whom we did not elect and cannot dismiss. This is the rottenness at the heart of the state which betrayed the workers at Bombardier and many other firms. The soldiers kept their oaths to defend the sovereignty of the Crown, and so of the country, against all comers. Yet the ministers who give them orders in the Queen’s name do not keep theirs.”
Whose side are ministers on?
Writing in the Derby Telegraph, Mr Spalton explains: “British governments have frequently preferred to give large orders to EU companies rather than to British ones. The army’s biggest ever order for lorries went to MAN Fahrzeuge when there were perfectly suitable British suppliers. They also bought an Austrian armoured vehicle, the Pinzgauer Vector, supposedly to provide extra protection for troops who were being needlessly killed in the Snatch Landrover. The Pinzgauer was withdrawn because it was even more dangerous. The driver sat over a front wheel arch, vulnerable to land mines and explosive devices.
“So Bombardier is in a long line of British companies and workers who have been consistently rejected by British governments in the name of ‘EU rules’. We may well ask: Whose side are they on?”
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