English Rights Campaign

to defend the rights and interests of the English nation

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

THE EU

The European Union has poisoned the Celtic Tiger
April 7, 2009 by sjohnson
Filed under National News



FOR THE past twenty years, the Irish Republic has been regarded by many as the Golden Boy of the European Union.

They were the ultimate “good Europeans”, joining the Euro, converting road signs into kilometres, reducing taxes on profits extracted from its people by foreign multinationals and opening its borders to cheap imported labour.

Brussels beamed benignly on the “Celtic Tiger Economy”, lavishing huge handouts, financed by British and German taxpayers, on massive road and other public works projects - motorways joining nowhere to nowhere else but adorned with huge “built with EU Regional Aid Funds” signs, etc.

Immigrants flooded in, not just from Eastern Europe but from Nigeria, Somalia and other parts of the Third World,raising ethnic minorities from under 1% to over 12% of the population. Ireland was bearing the brunt of Europhile globalisation, with soaring drug abuse, rising divorce rates and an increase in crime.

Across once tranquil and lovely coastlines, the vulgar garishly painted holiday homes of Dublin property developers, financial speculators and derivatives traders sprouted like malignant mushrooms. An ancient rich culture and way of life was swamped by Hollywood Coca-colonisation, making Ireland just like everywhere else in the Americanised West, only wetter.

But now the Euro-binge is over and Ireland is waking up to the shattering hangover.

Unemployment has risen to over 12%, the highest for generations. Household debt has reached twice the country’s Gross National Product making it the highest in the developed world. The property sector, which at its peak accounted for 25% of the national economy as opposed to only 10% even in Britain, has collapsed. House prices have fallen by a third in a year.

Foreign multinationals induced to come with tax cuts are deserting like rats leaving a sinking ship. Computer giant Dell is shutting its Raheen laptop plant, near Limerick, because the Poles have made them a better offer. Ten thousand people have been thrown on the dole and the Irish national GDP shrunk by 4% in one hit. Waterford porcelain, which bought up the once proud Potteries name of Wedgwood, has gone bust itself and Poland is now recruiting plumbers and building workers from Ireland!

The country’s third largest bank, Anglo-Irish, which lent an amount equivalent to twice the Irish National debt, has been nationalised. In desperation to halt any further run on their banks the Irish Government unconditionally guaranteed all savers’ deposits in Irish banks. Despite the fact that meeting this guarantee would take two and a half times the total annual output of Ireland!

But it is Ireland’s membership of the Eurozone which is the worst thing about the disaster now hitting Ireland. Because being in the Eurozone means the Irish Government is powerless to do anything effective as the economy collapses around it.

So thoroughly globalised is the Irish economy that it is dependent on selling abroad four-fifths of what it produces. But the strong Euro is pricing those goods out of their markets.

The answer would be to devalue the currency as Britain has done, by a third against the Euro and the dollar in six months. But they can’t, because it’s not their currency and they have no control over it. Nor can the Irish Government, unlike ours, bring down interest rates. Or even print money.

Germany and France run the Eurozone for their own good, regardless of the pain they inflict on Ireland or any of the other lesser Eurozone members.

All the Irish Government can do is make matters worse by cutting public spending and wages and raising taxes, desperately trying to plug a €20 billion hole in the public purse.

Unemployment in estates around Dublin and other larger Irish towns is soaring past 70% and shops are being reduced to selling single cigarettes and teabags.

120,000 people marched through Dublin recently demanding action and the reversing of public sector wage cuts of 10%. But in Ireland, so far the only prominent European country without a significant genuinely nationalist party, there is no-one willing to take the action needed.

Ireland needs to get out of the Euro and out of the European Union. It needs to provide Irish jobs for Irish workers in an economy run by Irish people for Irish people.

But for the moment that can’t happen. It can only stand and watch the other collapsing economies like those of Italy, Greece, Portugal, Spain and the Eastern European members, bring the Eurozone to its knees.

In the meantime, the agony of Ireland is a lesson in what befalls the victims of global free marketeering. If Britain can learn from it and help Ireland recover, then their suffering will not entirely have been in vain.

This article by Steve Johnson appears in the April issue of Freedom which will be on sale this weekend.

Wednesday, April 01, 2009

THE EU

You cannot get much dopier than this:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1166136/I-read-EU-constitution-admits-Europe-Minister-Caroline-Flint.html#

'I have never read the EU constitution', admits Europe Minister Caroline Flint

By Ian Drury
Last updated at 4:24 PM on 31st March 2009

Caroline Flint: Not read the EU treaty


The Government minister responsible for the revived EU constitution made an astonishing gaffe by admitting she had never read it.

Europe Minister Caroline Flint admitted she had only been 'briefed' on parts of a document that surrenders a raft of British powers to Brussels.

Labour has refused to give British voters a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty on the grounds that it is 'substantially' different to the dumped constitution.

But during a Commons debate, Ms Flint confessed she had not read all of the despised charter.

Critics said it was an 'extraordinary admission' to make.

Mark Francois, the Tory Europe spokesman, said: ''It is not every day that someone will admit they haven’t read the most important document for their job.

'Her astonishing admission does leave some questions. How does she know if the Treaty is good for Britain if she hasn’t read it?

'If she had taken the time to read the whole Treaty, as I have, she might then know it means a major transfer of power from Britain to the EU.

'The right thing to do would be to let the British people have the chance to read it and decide for themselves.'

Lorraine Mullally, director of the anti-EU think-tank Open Europe, said: 'This is an unbelievable admission. It is extremely worrying that the minister responsible for promoting the treaty in this country has no idea what it actually says.

'Perhaps this explains why she is against giving the British people the vote on it they were promised – she simply has no idea how important it is.'

She branded Ms Flint a 'hypocrite' for telling Irish voters who threw out the treaty that they had 'misunderstood' it, despite never reading it herself.

Asked by MPs if she had read the elements of the treaty that related to defence, Ms Flint replied: 'I have read some of it but not all of it.'

After an astonished response from politicians, she added: 'I have been briefed on some of it.'

The Government has refused to honour an election pledge to hold a ballot by claiming the treaty - the biggest transfer of sovereign powers to Brussels - was different to the constitution, rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005.

Ministers said they had protected their crucial 'red lines' covering policing and courts, human and social rights, foreign policy and taxes.

Gordon Brown smiles as he signs the Lisbon Treaty

Long read: Gordon Brown smiles as he signs the Lisbon Treaty last year

But their claims were blown out of the water by the Labour-dominated European Scrutiny Select Committee, which carried out a line-by-line study of the documents.

Only four countries have not yet fully ratified the Lisbon Treaty: the Czech Republic, Ireland, Germany and Poland.

Britain rubber-stamped the power-grab by a vote in Parliament, despite more than 90 per cent of people questioned wanting a referendum.

Ireland is holding a second referendum in October after a 'no' vote last year.

The future of the controversial constitution was thrown into further doubt following the collapse of the pro-Brussels Czech government.

It is almost certain to delay Czech ratification of the revived Lisbon Treaty, which can come into force only after it has been approved by all 27 European Union member states.

The Lisbon Treaty treaty comprises of nearly 300 pages, but it is written in complex legal language.