Save Irelands Fish Vote No for Irelands Fish and for a Bank default

national | eu | opinion/analysis Saturday May 19, 2012 18:28 by simple fisherman

As a simple fisherman I was forced to leave England because our fishing industry was destroyed by the European Union and to come to your lovely country to find work. I am hoping to help out on a campaign to save Ireland's Fish and to point out the hard lessons your English brothers learned and which may be of some small assistance to Irish fishermen.

As a simple fisherman I was forced to leave England because our fishing industry was destroyed by the European Union and to come to this country to find work. I am deeply saddened to see that this country's Fishing industry is also in dire straits also as a result of disasterous European Union Fishing policies and overfishing. I have in my possession an excellent pamplet on how the Fishing livelihoodsof ordinary fishermen like me in England were destroyed. Unfortunately I have no way of getting in up on the internet. I do however have a press release from skipper Tom Hay the Chairman of Save Britain's Fish in 2002 which while it is unfortunately not as good as the pamplet it does put forward a couple of the same points and gives a flavour of what caused the demise of the English fishing industry. I hope that it ok to put this up on your site it is non party political and I do not wish to cause any offence. It might give Irish fishermen some useful information in their struggle to Save Irelands Fish. Finally let me wish my Irish brothers solidarity and the best of luck in your campaign for a No Vote for Irelands Fish and for a Bank default. I hope to be of some small assistance in setting up a campaign to save Irelands Fish and if any fishermen or other people of goodwill out there want to help please respond to this post. I hope that the speech below is of some small help in helping to get this debate moving:

Save Britain's Fish

The following speech by Skipper Tom Hay, Chairman of Save Britain's Fish, was delivered at a Fringe Meeting at the Conservative Party Conference in Bournemouth on 9th October 2002. Although reference is made herein to the Conservative Party, Sovereignty would like to make it clear that we do not support any political party. This speech was circulated on the internet on 22 October 2002.

Madame Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I hope you will not mind if in this meeting of "Save Britain's Fish", I range briefly further afield to describe the context within which the impending destruction of our fishing industry is threatened.

Britain's membership of the European Union has done enormous damage to our country, not least in the insidious and continuing emasculation of our Parliament at Westminster. However, the defilement of so many of our Politicians with the stench of continental style corruption may yet be regarded as one of the worst things we have ever imported from the European Union.

Spin doctors as they are called, are to be found in almost every department of Government and Opposition. They are planted in strategic positions, not to tell the truth to the British people, but to deceive and to lie as much as is humanly possible. It is little wonder that the British electorate no longer have faith in their political representatives, since honour very rarely exists in that profession any longer. I have to say of course that there have been some very honourable exceptions, like Christopher Gill, Patrick Nicholls, Ann Winterton, and of course Austin Mitchell whose Fishery Limits Amendments Bill was actually sponsored by Iain Duncan Smith.

This Bill was to provide that the Fishery Limits Act 1976, which granted to the British Nation a 200 mile to median line exclusive fishing zone should have effect, regardless of the provisions of the European Communities Act 1972. Iain Duncan Smith now says it was a mistake on his part to have sponsored that Bill.

As a Conservative I believe in the Nation State of the United Kingdom. I therefore believe unequivocally in the sovereignty of the British Parliament. How can any Conservative believe in the Westminster Parliament being overruled by an unelected dictatorship from Brussels? Those who have such beliefs may masquerade as members of the Conservative Party, but they are disgracefully violating all its most sacred persuasions.

Parliament is the very linchpin of our nation. Without an effective Parliament we will have little to hold us together as a Nation. Instinctively we turn to Parliament and in particular to the House of Commons for redress of grievances which may have become intolerable. It is very important therefore that Parliament rightly represents the British people and is not just an extension of the Executive. This of course depends on the energy and willpower of our representatives there.

Parliament owes not only its legitimacy, but its very existence to the vote of the ordinary citizen, and the members of the House of Commons are merely trustees of the body by which they are elected. Parliament therefore derives its power and authority from us, the electorate of the United Kingdom, so we must assume responsibility for its effectiveness, for our survival as a Nation depends on our having an effective Parliament.

Those who adhere to the heretical concept that has insidiously been propagated in recent times, that democracy is no more than making a cross on a ballot paper every four or five years, after which we must act as if we were a subjugated population and our political representatives become our arrogant conquerors, are striking at the very heart of our historic Constitution created in centuries of struggle of which we today are the custodians, and which it is the duty of every member of Parliament to unflinchingly uphold.

Democracy means that the British people are free, and the free people choose their rulers and the rulers rule according to the wishes of the people. No aspect of Britain's suicidal involvement with the European Union is more flagrant than the treachery which has deliberately brought about such persecution and humiliation of our fishermen, resulting in the threatened but almost certain final demise of the British fishing industry.

The lies and deceit of 1971 which outwitted Parliament were the forerunner to the signing of the "Treaty of Treachery" by Edward Heath and Geoffrey Rippon in 1972. These deliberate deceptions have been perpetuated in Parliament and to the British people for more than a quarter of a century, and continue to this very day.

John Major, you will remember, while still Prime Minister, borrowed a phrase from "Save Britain's Fish", when he stated that no Parliament could bind its successor. You will tell me that this statement had been made years before by great constitutional lawyers like AV Dicey and Sir Ivor Jennings.

Yes you are right, but just previous to John Major saying this, his Fisheries Ministers were untruthfully telling the Fishing Industry that since they were bound by the Treaties, "Save Britain's Fish" was wrong.

The then Prime Minister found out of course that no Treaty ever written is superior to the will of the British people, and to suggest otherwise is utter folly. Politicians can sign as many Treaties as they like, and in this case they have tried every trick in the book to deceive us, by trying to make us believe that the Treaties are for ever.

That is absurd. No Treaty is for ever. The right to repudiate any Treaty is inherent in the essential basis of democracy, and in International law, and at any time a free people can change its mind. In the United Kingdom, any Treaty with the European Union is valueless without a British Act of Parliament incorporating it in domestic law. It therefore follows that if it takes an Act of Parliament to legitimise it, another Act of Parliament, or an amendment to the existing Act can repeal it.

John Major was right at last -- No Parliament can bind its successor, neither can it be bound by its predecessor.

Of course it goes further than this. It means that the Parliament of Westminster cannot grant jurisdiction over the United Kingdom to the European Court except as a temporary measure, pending the decision of a future Parliament which under the British Constitution retains the inalienable right to withdraw that grant of jurisdiction by rescinding the Treaty, at any time of its choosing. Not only that, but since Parliament has no competence to change the central principles of the Constitution of the United Kingdom, there is nothing to prevent Parliament from either repealing the various Acts which define our EU membership, or of simply opting out of any of the provisions contained therein.

The Eurofanatics have an especially virulent hatred of "Save Britain's Fish". I will tell you why! In the course of demonstrating that there is no impediment, either in British or International Law to the restoration of control over our rich fishing grounds to its lawful custodians, we have irrefutably demonstrated the total falsity of those who claim that "So long as we are in the European Union we must obey its laws". As a free people we cannot be bound against our will.

We can take back our fishing grounds, reject any silly Regulation we do not like, or leave altogether, at will. It is untrue that Parliament has surrendered our sovereignty to Brussels. As the philosopher Locke wrote three centuries ago, the power of Parliament is a delegated power from the people, and those who hold it cannot give it away.

There are those in Government, in Opposition, and in the Civil Service who are terrified that the British people should learn, that the people, are irrevocably the real Masters of Britain, and that they are free to do what they will, irrespective of how many ignoble or deluded politicians have signed pieces of paper to the contrary. No wonder they hate "Save Britain's Fish" for demonstrating these legal and constitutional realities.

I tell you that no tears will be shed by any British fisherman on the day that we celebrate the restoration of our pride and dignity as a free people once again.

So, while the power of the British Parliament is awesome, the power of the British people is greater, since it can change the will of Parliament. No government can win a general election in the United Kingdom without keeping its ear tightly attuned to the opinion of the British people. Yet the power of the people is not infinite. Let no one here be in any doubt as to this.

No Referendum to the general vote of the Nation can legitimise the surrender of the rights of future generations. The rights of the unborn under the British Constitution cannot be transferred to any foreign dictatorship.

"Save Britain's Fish" stands four square behind the defence of the British Nation. That should be the first objective of any government elected to power in Westminster. But the present government, supported by all the main political Parties in Opposition, is far more concerned about defending the European Union, than it is with defending our own Nation.

The irrefutable facts presented by "Save Britain's Fish" are too devastating for the leadership of the Conservative Party. These facts expose the fallacy of what the leaders are telling our membership, that the European Union has come to a fork in the road, and that there are two visions for the future.

First they say, there is the vision of much deeper integration and harmonisation with more qualified majority voting and far greater power in Brussels. Then they say there is the vision of a more flexible "Europe", where we are not all bound by the same rules. They are not telling us the truth.

There is no fork in the road, and there is only one prospect other than our resuming the rights and dignities of a free people. The Conservative "vision" will never materialise, because we are being irrevocably driven by legally binding Treaty obligations, with ever accelerating speed towards the full integration of a new Nation called "Europe", the openly declared aim of our "European Partners", the Commission and the "European Parliament".

Thus the issues raised by fishing far transcend the industry, and go right to the heart of the debate on "Europe". Issues such as British sovereignty, the powers of the European Commission and the European Court of Justice, and the overruling of British law by a foreign dictatorship. These are the real issues that confront the British people at the present time. And since Treaty amendments are required on all the major concerns being talked about by senior Shadow Cabinet Ministers, no changes will be forthcoming. "European" Treaties can only be amended by the unanimous consent of Heads of Nations at Inter Governmental Conferences once every four years. The leadership of the Party tell us that they will restore national control of the British fishing industry to the Westminster Parliament. But when asked how they are going to achieve this, there is deafening silence. We can only construe from that silence that even if our leader were sympathetic to our cause, he has no mechanism to deliver.

There are only two ways by which national control can be achieved.
1. Through negotiations with our so called partners in the European Union. I say to you today -- Can we really expect those who have been given such valuable Treaty guarantees to now negotiate their cancellation, and thus surrender their assurance of unfettered access to some of the richest fishing grounds in the world? What is more, since access to the British sector of Community waters is such a tempting attraction for Poland and the Baltic States, do you expect the Commission to give up something so valuable, which will greatly assist them to extend their empire?

And 2. Those of us who have researched this matter exhaustively in conjunction with the most authoritative legal testimony, are convinced that the only possible way of rescuing the British fishing industry, and of achieving what William Hague stated was the unequivocal objective of the Conservative Party, is the restoration of national control by a United Kingdom Act of Parliament over these waters legally under our jurisdiction in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982.

The present Parliament cannot offload its responsibilities on to the Heath administration of 1972, and exempt itself from the blame. Every Member of Parliament today has the right to vote for a new Act of Parliament, or even an amendment to the European Communities Act, which would immediately redress this crime against the British nation, and rectify the undeniable violation of the rights of the British people.

Members of Parliament who are not prepared to vote in this manner are quite clearly perpetuating this pernicious betrayal of their fellow citizens. Sadly Iain Duncan Smith it appears, has joined the ranks of the latter.

Before the Conservative Party can regain the respect of the British people and take hold of the reins of Government once again, or even become a credible Opposition, it will have to perform an act of profound and humble contrition for this monumental outrage against every principle of democracy, of allowing an un-elected foreign dictatorship to govern the very nation to whose destiny the British people had entrusted these disloyal leaders.

Save Britain's Fish lays this challenge, a challenge which has to be answered, at the door of the Conservative Party. "Is the defence of the British Nation your paramount objective, or is it the defence of the European Union?"

There can be no compromise. Either you are for "conserving" the rights of democratic self-government and National independence, which are inseparable, along with the enlightened principle of the Common Law of our country, which originated with the founders of the British nation. Or you are for the humiliation of our once proud people, the inhabitants of the fourth largest and richest economy in the world, with still unequalled trade links all around the globe in spite of Brussels obstructions, unconquered for nearly a thousand years, to a subjugated and obscure province of a "United States of Europe" more than likely dominated by Germany.

If the House of Commons remains as at present, out of step with the British people, their growing disillusionment and contempt for politicians will threaten the very existence of the freedoms won in centuries of struggle, with the enemies of democracy exploiting that discontent.

How can the Conservative Party, which once regarded itself as the custodians of our Constitution, remain silent about the perils which jeopardize everything that past generations have fought and died, to win and to defend. It is the Conservative Party which stands at the crossroads, not the European Union.

Either it joins the battle for our fishing rights, and all the other rights which belong to the British people so foolishly and treacherously betrayed, or it could find itself as nothing more than a forgotten entity in the political wilderness, and perhaps worse, it may lose its identity altogether as it vanishes in shame into the dustbin of history.

"Save Britain's Fish" has produced a pamphlet on the deliberate attempt to destroy the British fishing industry, to make room for the single European Union fleet. It is primarily addressed to the Conservative Party, although sensible people of all Parties, or none, will find much in it with which to agree, especially so if they read it in conjunction with some knowledge of the legally binding demands of the EU Treaties.

It also sets out with great clarity how the European Union system operates in its relentless drive to create a monstrous bureaucratic super state, as is being openly proclaimed by most if not all continental politicians, but deceitfully denied in Britain.

To this end it grinds on towards the graveyard of British fishing, and indeed of the British Nation. I am sure you will all read it with interest, and greatly increase your understanding as a result of doing so.

Thank you Madame Chairman.