TODAY PARLIAMENT DEBATES whether prisoners should be given the right to vote. It will be a futile and wasteful exercise, and, as is normal parliamentary procedure, the issue will be voted upon at the end of the debate; and, like the inevitability of death and taxation, it is certain that the nays will have it.
Now, in any functioning parliament elected by its people, this would spell an end to the whole issue, and the people would continue about their lawful business while perhaps pausing briefly to scratch their heads in puzzlement at how such a proposition could have diverted our political representatives for so long in the first place.
But the piece of theatre we will be witness to today will show the British people just how little their votes matter, and how much of our sovereignty has been given away and continues to be drip- fed to Brussels by politicians from all parties.
For it matters little that our representatives come to a view on anything if such a view runs contrary to laws passed by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), an organisation which our political leaders are signatories to. So it matters little if our MPs vote against and argue the case against votes for prisoners . If we decide to ignore the ECHR and stand by the sovereignty of our parliament, we ourselves will be breaking the law and face a fine of £100 million (or is it Euros).
It does not matter how worthy or not an institution such as the ECHR is. For if it lays claim to the sovereignty of all national lawmaking within the EU (lawmaking which has been signed away, in a kind of Faustian pact), then the right to decide upon what laws should or should not govern our individual nations no longer matter.
David Cameron says he feels sick at the prospect of prisoners getting the vote. But will he set himself against the ECHR and ignore, as he should, any imposed fine, or will he seek compromise?
My guess is, is that he will do nothing to obstruct our eventual incorporation into Europe as a province or canton. Indeed it would be in the interests of the European project if the EU was to give Cameron a victory over the issue votes for prisoners. For would it not prove us sceptics wrong? Would it not advance Cameron’s status as a Europhile to throw him a crumb or two?
A compromise will no doubt surface: and one compromise which has been much vaunted suggests the suffrage should be given only to those with minor misdemeanours of say a four year stay at her majesty’s pleasure – but given the state of prison sentencing in this country, a murderer could so easily be given the vote.
ALL OF OUR POLITICIANS from whatever party they belong, know from their constituents that crime oscillates with immigration as being the two big issues that is of most concern to them. These concerns will be ignored by the MP’s at their peril. This is why all MPs, whether true believers or not, are prepared to veto the voting rights for prisoners. But those among them who, like Ken Clarke, believe wholeheartedly in the European ‘project’ can feel safe in the knowledge that the MP’s wishes will be ignored and we will dutifully obey once more, European law.
For what this issue of votes for prisoners is really about is the gradual and inevitable loss of this nation’s sovereignty by way a foreign legislator. Such a prospect far outshines in importance the single issue of prisoners rights. What this issue represents is the creeping hegemony of Europe and the dissolution of the nation state, resulting in its abandonment to some kind of European super state.
The ability of people to determine their own laws through an elected national parliament is not mere lip-service to the ideal of democracy but the embodiment of that democracy.
National identity is embedded in people. It cannot be judicially vanquished by any foreign court whether signed up to or not by all national elected representatives of the people. The nation state can carry ( in England’s case) hundreds of years of identity. An identity that I hope the people of England can still feel a passion for. If they do, then there is no law that can separate them from that identity.
No politician can sign this away. No agreement to do so between any English government and any foreign entity can take from us our national sovereignty and heritage, Only the people themselves (and only for a generation) can be tempted away from that identity.
No legal structure can legislate, and no government can sign up to an agreement, that effectively disbands a nation’s sovereignty. To do so leaves no obligation upon future generations to obey any such accord.
Should, for instance, Scotland disband its attempt at independence because it challenges the Act of Union? Of course not. It is the Scottish people and only the Scottish people who can determine their own destiny – and it must be the same with England.
Therefore any decision made by any national government to relinquish its sovereignty may have judicial merit, but it cannot override the will of the people. The law, in other words, is not written in stone but in the sands of time.
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