Friday 23 March 2001

Peers Present A Petition at Buckingham Palace

Petitioning Her Majesty to:

"Withhold Royal Assent from The EU Treaty of Nice"

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A petition calling on Her Majesty to withhold the Royal Assent from any Bill attempting to ratify the Treaty of Nice was this afternoon presented at Buckingham Palace. The petition was handed over by four peers - the Duke of Rutland, Viscount Massereene & Ferrard, LordHamilton of Dalzell, and Lord Ashbourne, who initiated the petition and organized it.

In torrential rain at Buckingham Palace it was heartening to see the indomitable spirit of the British. A sizeable crowd had gathered in support of the Peers and mindful of the millions of their forefathers who had risked their lives in two wars to prevent Britain being ruled by a Foreign and alien Continental EUropean power were undaunted by the rain.

The crowds cheered the Peers on their mission to Petition Her Majesty to save Britain once again from Foreign rule.

Aware of the historic importance of the occasion, to the peoples of Britain and British children as yet unborn, the Peers mingled with the crowds after their audience delivering The Petition for some time indifferent to the continuing rain.

The peers were using their rights under Magna Carta, signed by King John at Runnymede in 1215. Under clause 61, four peers, representing 25 others, can petition the monarch for redress of grievances. This is the first time these rights have needed to be exercised for over 300 years.

The Petition document was drawn up by calligraphy on parchment, and signed by 28 of Her Majesty's peers. It was supported by messages from another 60 of Her peers and over 7000 loyal subjects, many of whom signed on behalf of organizations with tens of thousands of members.

In a letter accompanying The Petition, the peers said that they had formed a committee to monitor the present constitutional situation and future developments. It will be available for consultation by Her Majesty and her advisers.

Both the petition and the letter can be accessed immediately on the internet. The web-site is:
www.SilentMajority.co.UK/EUroRealist/OurMonarch

In a statement afterwards, Lord Ashbourne said that several articles in the Treaty of Nice agreed by Tony Blair in December will destroy fundamental British liberties and imperil the rights and freedoms of the people of these United Kingdom.

The European Union is threatening to set up a military force which will place British service personnel under its direct command, restrict the free expression of political opinion, and permit the introduction of an alien system of criminal justice which will abolish the ancient British rights of habeas corpus and trial by jury, and allow onto British soil men-at-arms from other countries with powers of enforcement over Her Majesty's subjects.

These are all issues of major constitutional importance. They directly threaten our rights and our freedoms and destroy the oaths of loyalty to the Crown sworn by Privy Counsellors, British armed forces, and the police.

Such fundamental matters cannot be considered merely the stuff of day-to-day politics. They concern every British subject, and generations yet unborn. Without this petition it is certainly true that The Queen might have found it difficult in today's political climate to raise these issues with Her ministers. With it, Her Majesty has ample constitutional justification and a duty to Her peoples. It is the clear wish of the people.

The rights we have exercised today may not have been used for three hundred years, but only because they were not needed. Well, we need them now. They may be a little dusty, but they are in good order.

Lord Ashbourne was assisted in organizing the petition by SANITY (Subjects Against the Nice TreatY).

(ends)

Notes to Editors:

For further information, call Ashley Mote
Tel: 01 730 894355, or 0836 220223

Peers who gave their hand and authority to The Petition and signed were:
Lord Ashbourne 
Viscount Massereene & Ferrard (as Lord Oriel) 
Lord Sudeley 
Viscount Cowdray 
Viscount Norwich 
Lord Napier & Ettrick 
Earl of Romney 
Earl Kitchener
Lord Napier of Magdala 
Lord Ailsa
Duke of Rutland 
Lord Hamilton of Dalzell
Lord Sandys 
Earl Cathcart
Lord Oaksey 
Lord Milne
Lord Newall 
Lord Barber of Tewkesbury
Lord Dormer 
Viscount Exmouth
Lord Wise 
Earl of Devon
Earl of Cromer 
Earl of Shannon (as Lord Carleton)
Lord Sandford Marquis of Aberdeen (as Earl Aberdeen)
Lord Strathcarron 
Lord Craigmyle
The Countess of Dysart also signed, 
but the Dysart title is Scottish and pre-dates the Union of 1707.

The House of Lords Records Office confirmed in writing as recently as September 2000 that Magna Carta, signed by King John in June 1215, stands to this day. Home Secretary Jack Straw said as much on 1 October 2000, when the Human Rights Act came into force. Halsburys Laws of England says: Magna Carta is as binding upon the Crown today as it was the day it was sealed at Runnymede.

The Treaty of Nice agreed by the British Government in December 2000 includes:

Article 24 which transforms the EU into an independent state with powers to enter into treaties with other states which would then be binding on all member states, subject to agreement determined by qualified majority voting. Article 23 allows the EU to appoint its own representatives in other countries, effectively with ambassadorial status.

Article 191 which assumes for the EU the right to lay down regulations governing political parties at European level [ie: in the EU] and withdraw or prevent the funding of political parties which do not contribute to forming a European awareness. This is a clear restriction of free speech and free political association. It also introduces two particularly abhorrent propositions - taxation without representation and the use of sanctions to suppress public opinion.

Articles 29 and 31 which establish common policing and judicial cooperation (EUroJust). Article 67 allows matters of justice and home affairs to be agreed by QMV. These articles open the door to the imposition of Corpus Juris on the UK (article 31 specifically calls for cross-border policing and prosecution, and the removal of conflicts of jurisdiction), and the deployment of armed EUroPol law enforcement officers on the streets of Britain. These matters were originally dealt with under article 280, which disappeared from the draft of the Nice Treaty at the very last minute.

Article 17 which establishes a common foreign and defence policy for the EU, with its own military force. The House of Commons was told on 11 December 2000, that: The entire chain of command must remain under the political control and strategic direction of the EU. NATO will be kept informed. The Queen is Colonel-in-Chief of 46 regiments of the British army, and every other regiment owes its loyalty directly to The Queen through another member of the Royal Family as its Colonel-in-Chief.

The loss of the UK veto applies to 39 new areas of EU competence, including indirect taxation, the environment, immigration, trade, employment, industrial policy, and regional funding. The EU also has plans for QMV to be expended to other areas not agreed at Nice, and without further treaty negotiations.

Charter of Fundamental Rights - signed at Biarritz, autumn 2000. Article 52 purports to give the EU the power to abolish them at will, effectively making them meaningless. The whole proposition that the state has the right to grant and abolish fundamental human rights [ie: those we inherent at birth and hold in trust for future generations] is not only absurd but also contrary to Magna Carta, 1215, the Declaration of Rights, 1688, and the Bill of Rights 1689.

Clause 61 of Magna Carta was last invoked when the Bishop of Salisbury (Gilbert Burnet) acted on behalf of the barons and bishops of England to invite William of Orange and Mary to come to London in 1688, after King James II had failed to re-establish Roman Catholicism in England, and lost the confidence of the people. His act of abdication was to throw the Great Seal into the Thames and flee the country. There is also some evidence to indicate that clause 61 had previously been used against King James II, which triggered the sequence of events which led to his abdication.

In 1707, Queen Anne withheld the Royal Assent from the Scottish Militia Bill when it became apparent that James Francis Stuart (pretender Prince of Wales, and the Queens half-brother) was planning with Louis XIV of France to invade Scotland from Calais in an attempt to establish a Jacobite sovereign. Were such an invasion to be successful, the Queen feared a Scottish militia might be turned against the monarchy. Thus, parliaments will was denied in the interests of the sovereignty of the nation and the security of the realm.

At an historic meeting of both Houses of Parliament on 20 July 1988, to mark the 300th anniversary of the Declaration of Rights, Her Majesty referred to its entrenchment in statute law as the Bill of Rights, 1689. The Queen said that it was still part of statute law...on which the whole foundation and edifice of our parliamentary democracy rests. The Declaration of Rights spelt out the details:

The said Lords and Commons, being the two Houses of Parliament, should continue to sit and make effectual provision for the settlement of the laws and liberties of this kingdom, so that the same for the future might not be in danger again of being subverted. the particulars aforesaid shall be firmly and strictly holden and observed and all officers and ministers whatsoever shall serve their Majesties and their successors according to the same, in all time to come.

Both Magna Carta and the Declaration of Rights are treaties or contracts between the sovereign and the people. Her Majesty referred to the fact in a speech in New Zealand in 1997. Because they are not statute law they cannot be repealed. Both proclaimed what were taken to be self-evident freedoms which exist by right. Equally, both were based on a concept of permanence.

Winston S. Churchill was confident of the safeguards contained in Magna Carta. Writing in his History of The English Speaking Peoples, he said: and when in subsequent ages the state, swollen with its own authority, has attempted to ride roughshod over the rights and liberties of the subject it is to this doctrine that appeal has again and again been made, and never, as yet, without success.

(notes end)

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Greg@GlanceBack.Demon.co.UK

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