101 REASONS FOR LEAVING THE EUROPEAN UNION.

1. The "hush up."
Cabinet papers pre-1970 show the Heath government to have had full knowledge of the EEC being a long-term plan for a unitary European State with its own currency; but the facts were suppressed by this and succeeding governments with the deliberate intention of keeping the nation in the dark.

2. Surrender of sovereignty.
On 14th December 1960 the Lord Chancellor, Lord Kilmuir, Britain's senior legal officer, warned Edward Heath of the implications of signing the Treaty of Rome: "To satisfy the requirements of the treaty, Parliament could enact legislation which would give automatic force of law to any existing or future regulations made by the Community It is clear that the Council of Ministers could eventually make regulations which would be binding on us even against our wishes It is the first step on the road which leads to the federal state I must emphasise that in my view the surrenders of sovereignty involved are serious ones these objections ought to be brought out into the open."

3. The end of Britain.
That the consequences of membership had been realised by some at Westminster about this time is apparent from a speech in 1962 by Hugh Gaitskell, leader of the Labour Party, who, rightly identifying "the desire of those, who created the European Community, for a political federation. That is what they mean, that is what they are after", added that this would bring about "the end of Britain as an independent European State the end of a thousand years of history."

4. The big lie.
Edward Heath's 1971 White Paper on joining the EEC deceived Parliament and people with its false statements that "there is no question of any erosion of essential national sovereignty", and that Britain's sovereignty would somehow be "enlarged by sharing."

5. Ministry of Propaganda.
Between 1970 and 1972 the Heath government directed a secret propaganda offensive, known as the Connaught Breakfasts, in which Cabinet ministers, Foreign Office heads of Department, civil servants, media managers and journalists, in conjunction with the European Movement, carried on a TV, radio and newspaper campaign to swing round strongly opposed public opinion to acceptance of the EEC, public money being used in the process.

6. Unconstitutional.
The 1972 Act which took Britain into the EEC was in breach of the Constitution, in that the government allowed no prior consultation of the electorate by special General Election or Referendum, as is required under the Constitution for Parliamentary measures involving constitutional change, the precedents being those of 1831/2 and 1910.

7. Unconstitutional.
By passing the 1972 European Communities Act, Parliament unconstitutionally attempted to renounce its legal sovereignty, so as to make the British people subject to enactments of outside agencies, and ending its own ability to put into effect the expressed wishes of the electorate.

8. Unconstitutional.
In doing so, it deliberately and wrongfully denied the ultimate sovereignty of the people, of which Parliament is constitutionally both servant and defender, and which at the end of each Parliament's term is returned to its possessors.

9. Unconstitutional.
It is a cornerstone of the Constitution that no Parliament is or can be bound by enactments of its predecessors; but the Act of 1972 unconstitutionally purported (Section 2.4) to be mandatory upon all succeeding Parliaments.

10. Unconstitutional.
The Act of 1972 is unconstitutional in the wider respect that falsehood and deception was employed to secure its enactment, contrary not only to the spirit of the Constitution, but of all legislative procedure whatsoever.

11. The test case.
The Metric Martyrs' appeal against their conviction is based on the fact that the 1985 Imperial Weights & Measures Act, which permits trading in pounds and ounces, constitutionally takes precedence over the earlier Act of 1972 which made us members of the EU; and it is thus a test case not only between British and EU law, but of whether the 1972 Act can have abrogated the Constitution.

12. Indestructible.
Any supposition that the Act in some sense abrogated or annulled the Constitution is untenable, since (apart from the 1972 Act itself being unconstitutional both in its content and process of enactment) the unique unwritten British Constitution is not law, but essentially an honoured understanding and consensus in those who have created and live under it as to the proper conduct of Parliamentary affairs, and thus incapable of being set aside by
legal means.

13. Our twilight hour ?
By subjecting the British people to decrees other than the laws enacted by their own legislature, the Act contravened the undertaking in the Coronation Oath "to govern the peoples of the United Kingdom according to their laws and customs"; the provisions of the Treason Act, 1795, against engaging in actions "tending to the overthrow of the laws, government and happy constitution" of the United Kingdom, and those of the Treason Felony Act of 1848 condemning any who attempt to "deprive or depose our most gracious Lady the Queen from the style, honour or royal name of the imperial crown of the United Kingdom"; and the Privy Counsellor's Oath "To bear faith and allegiance to the Crown and defend its jurisdiction and power against all foreign persons or states."

14. A royal commoner.
Allegiance to H.M. the Queen is in effect allegiance to Brussels, since, through the Queen's EU citizenship and accountability in her own courts to superior EU law, Her Majesty has vassal status, and an Oath of Allegiance to her now stands "subject to the Commission's tolerance" so long as she and her nation do not show themselves disloyal to the sovereignty of the European Union.

15. Unconstitutionality.
The chief reason for the Labour government's calling a Referendum in 1975 was the unconstitutionality of the European Communities Act.

16. Bizarre.
A retrospective Referendum upon an Act of Parliament was without precedent in British history, and partook of the nature of inertia salesmanship, especially since accompanied by the dispatching of government literature to every household with the disinformation that the Act had been purely a free trade agreement, and urging a "Yes" vote: a species of official activity also without precedent, and just as questionable.

17. The great divide.
Britain's becoming and remaining a member of the EU, and the methods employed to this end, resulted from the emergence of what Lord Goodhart memorably described as "a political establishment" with purposes disturbingly opposed to the wish of the electorate; his book Full-Hearted Consent (1976) ironically gaining its title from Mr Heath's assurance during the 1970 General Election campaign that, if there were a future possibility of entering the EEC, no government would take their nation into it "without the full-hearted consent of Parliament and people."

18. Vote as EU please.
The political establishment's continuing activities have brought about a situation, new to British politics, in which the widespread public hostility to the EU's increasing encroachments is denied party political expression, the policies of the major parties all being favourable to membership.

19. Polling Days.
In a nationwide MORI opinion poll carried out on behalf of the British Democracy Campaign between 15th - 21st March, 2001, in which 1805 adult respondents were questioned face to face in their homes, 52% of those offering an opinion declared themselves in favour of Britain's leaving the EU now, 71% wanted a Referendum on continued membership, and 75% considered that the British people had not received sufficient information on the implications of our being in the EU.

20. Mobile Goalposts.
Through the deeper irregularity of its plan to proceed by stealth in stages through a series of treaties until the European State was a fait accompli before its populations had come to realise what was
going on, the EU has developed into a concept and institution far other than what was voted on in the 1975 Referendum, and so without democratic validation in this as in other countries.

21. Undemocratic.
The European Union is an unrepresentative and authoritarian institution, by virtue of the fact that the members of the legislative (Council of Ministers) and of its executive (Commission) are not
directly elected by and responsible to the voters of an EU constituency.

22. Non-Accountable.
The EU Council of Ministers is composed of the non-dismissible nominees of the governments of member states, who are thus removed from democratic accountability.

23. Horse-trading.
Britain's voice in the Council is one amongst many; and policy decisions, as the outcome of conflicts of interests and pressures resolved by bargaining, by no means necessarily correspond to Britain's needs and the wishes of its electorate.

24. Cabal.
The Council, more strictly the legislative body, and the Commission, which with its executive role also issues legislative proposals, both meet in secret; and since the fifty or so persons
who compose the two have not been elected to European government functions, and in carrying them out are accountable to no-one, they constitute, not a legislature, but a ruling
oligarchy.

25. Big Brothers.
Though the EU Commissioners are unelected appointees without democratic mandate or accountability, they have power to impose directives and regulations by-passing the legislatures of democratic member states.

26. The parliament: authority.
Whereas the British Cabinet is constitutionally answerable to Parliament in Westminster, where a government defeat on a motion of no confidence involves a Dissolution and General
Election, the European Union's Parliament, so called, is entirely without such control over the Commission, which is effectively the EU Cabinet.

27. The parliament: finance.
From its earliest days to the present, what has confirmed the Westminster Parliament's power has been its direction of finance; but the EU Parliament is without a corresponding capacity.

28. The parliament: legislation.
Unlike all other parliaments in the Western tradition, the EU Parliament is unable to legislate, its function being merely to review and agree measures drawn up by the Commission, and
thereby to have virtually no legislative role.

29. The parliament: veto.
Nor does the Parliament have a final veto over Commission regulations and directives, since, through the procedure euphemistically named "Conciliation", the Commission can at its will override any negative vote.

30. Façade.
The word "Parliament" is thus a misnomer for what is little more than a rubber-stamp or puppet agency; but the democratic election of its members creates the dangerous illusion of democracy being at work, in what is in essence an authoritarian
regime.

31. Inferior Government.
Through its membership of the EU, Britain is being subjected to a species of non-representative, non-democratic, authoritarian government far inferior to that which has prevailed at Westminster until 1973, and having features reminiscent of the dictatorial
systems which flourished on the continent of Europe in the not very distant past.

32. 12-Star Chamber ?
The European Court of Justice, whose members are appointed by the various governments, is the supreme arbiter on EU law, with power to overrule the laws of member states; but being charged under the Treaty of Rome with ensuring that provisions of all the EU treaties, and the principle of "ever closer union", are observed, and in its own words devoted to
"overcoming the resistance of national governments to European integration", it is politically predisposed and active in a manner incompatible with judicial impartiality.

33. Moot Points.
EU treaties and regulations are generally cast in such obscure language that all wishing to be sure where they stand will be forced to go to the European Court of Justice: so that it will
become an absolute source of political authority, and the European State be unassailably dominant over the former nations now its provinces.

34. EU rules OK.
EU law, as conveyed by the treaties, regulations and directives, and decrees and rulings of the European Court, are accepted by British courts as taking precedence over national law, the ECJ having declared that "Every national court must apply Community law in its entirety and must accordingly set aside any provision of national law which may conflict with it, whether prior or subsequent to this Community rule." (ECR 629 at 643, 644).

35. "Tidal Wave."
The result is that British Statute and Common Law are being superseded, and law-making has become primarily the prerogative of the European Union, which has been described by a British judge as "a bold new source of law", and whose legislation, according to Lord Denning, a former Master of the Rolls, is no longer "an incoming tide flowing up the estuaries of England", but "now like a tidal wave bringing down our sea walls and flowing inland over our fields and houses, to the dismay of us all" (quoted in The Times, 1st April 1996).

36. Corpus Juris.
In place of pre-existing laws in the member countries, there will  have been instituted under the European State the Corpus Juris, a body of law largely in accordance with continental legal systems, deriving from three main sources: the Corpus Juris Civilis of the Roman Emperor Justinian, Inquisition law, and the Code Napoléon.

37. Eurostate Prosecutor.
Corpus Juris is to be administered by a European State Prosecutor, and operate through European courts and trans-national police and the courts and police forces of member
states, so combining police and prosecution into one entity.

38. Continental Menu.
Judicial procedure is to be as already in practice on the Continent, the European State Prosecutor having responsibility for investigation, arrest, committal to trial, presentation of the prosecution case in court, judgment and imposition of sentence, trial taking place before an inquisitorial judge and two professional assessors: the State, in effect, both judge and jury.

39. ...Innocent? Prove it!
Also as on the Continent, the concept of presumed innocence will disappear, and it will become the responsibility of the accused to prove his innocence to the court, contrary to the position under British law, where the burden of proof rests with the prosecution, and the accused is innocent unless and until proved guilty.

40. Goodbye, Habeas Corpus.
Corpus Juris will quash the right of Habeas Corpus, instituted in 1215 by Magna Carta (article 39), by which it is granted in perpetuity to all subjects of the monarch that no-one should suffer the loss of liberty without evidence warranting his further detention being established in a court hearing, normally within 48 hours of his arrest.

41. Farewell, Trial by Jury.
Corpus Juris will similarly abolish the right of trial by jury, whose beginnings date from as early as 1166 in the reign of Henry II, through which the question of a person's innocence or guilt is determined by twelve of his peers, not by the judiciary, a practice which, because of a jury's freedom to acquit a person technically guilty under an unjust decree, ensures that laws made by the state are always acceptable to the people, and that governmental pressure upon, or corruption of, the judiciary shall never be able to affect the impartial administration of justice.

42. "The test of civilisation."
In a Minute to the Home Secretary of 21st November, 1943, Winston Churchill observed: "The great principles of Habeas Corpus and trial by jury are the supreme protection invented by the British people for ordinary individuals against the State. The power of the executive to cast a man in prison without formulating any charge known to the law for an indefinite period, is in the highest degree odious, and is the foundation for all totalitarian governments. Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy. This is really the test of civilisation."

43. Above the law.
The European State's judicial system involves the introduction of forces of armed police, whether members of Europol or of the paramilitary European border police in process of formation, enjoying diplomatic immunity from arrest, and thus above the law; unlike British police, who, while charged with enforcement of the law, remain ordinary members of the public, themselves subject to the laws they uphold.

44. Clear enough.
The reasons for the European State police's immunity from the law have never been explained, though the parallel with the police forces of authoritarian regimes is manifest.

45. Just a start.
Eurojust, the provisional EU public prosecution agency, which is closely linked to Europol, already has autonomous, non-accountable power to initiate investigations in every state of the European Union, Europol being able to order surveillance of any British person by letters, E-mail or phone tapping, and to acquire upon demand secret intelligence from the British security agencies MI5 and MI6.

46. Affront.
The concepts, provisions and methods of the judicial system of the emerging European State are legally and ethically inferior to the system of British justice admired throughout the world for its humanity and impartiality: and, if ever instituted in Britain, would be a regressive and affronting imposition.

47. EuroArmy.
The future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), founded upon the predominant military power of the United States, which has for more than half a century secured and maintained Europe's peace, is now threatened by the European State's establishing an Army of its own, dubbed the Rapid Reaction Force, upon the pretext that it will facilitate military operations in which NATO does not wish to take part.

48. Pretext.
Since arrangements already exist within NATO for the EU to take military action without NATO\rquote s participation, but using its facilities, assets, transport and intelligence, the reasons for setting up a European Army can only be to confirm the emerging
Statehood of the EU, and lessen the commitment of the United States to Europe's security: so jeopardising NATO's continuing role, and thereby the peace of Europe.

49. Escape of cat.
Helmut Kohl' s statement that "a united Europe without a common defence is, in the long run, not feasible" (Independence, CIB, January 2000, p.1) would seem to apply regarding the first; and that of Jacques Chirac, "The object of a European defence identity is to contain the United States" (cited by Michael Fabricant, MP, House of Commons, 29th March 2000), with respect to the second.

50. Marching Orders.
In specifying that matters affecting peace keeping and peace making are determined by majority vote, the Amsterdam Treaty weakened Britain's control of her armed forces, her veto lapsing once a strategy for deployment is agreed, so that the possibility exists of her committed forces becoming involved in conflicts contrary to her proper interests, or being unable to contribute to her own defence.

51. Critical task.
A stated purpose of the European Army in the "St. Petersburg tasks", as being its use in undefined "critical situations", or, in the French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin's more specific phrase, "to maintain internal security" (9th May 2000), needs to be viewed in the light of the fact that the EU's treaties asserting the primacy of its law offer no mechanism for a member state's withdrawal; of the question how the EU would force its laws on a recalcitrant state; and, particularly, of the history of nations liberating themselves, sometimes by violent means, from artificial conglomerates.

52. Lost in Pool.
The most familiar example of the verbal deception constantly used by the EU's proponents has been the notion of the "sharing" or "pooling" of national sovereignty, despite the fact that, amongst the things incapable of being "pooled" and kept, are an individual's secret, a husband's wife, and a nation's sovereignty, the pooling of sovereignty actually dissolving it, since the nation concerned can thereafter always be outvoted and overruled.

53. Treaties of subjugation.
A recurring plea for the EU is that Britain has never really been independent, but always depended in the past on treaties of alliance with other countries, and so is merely doing as before; but while former treaties have been agreements as to a line of policy for a period, leaving untouched the sovereignty of the participants, the EU treaties involve actual surrender to the EU of constitutional powers and of sovereignty itself, and thus the loss
for ever of Britain's independence.

54. Sovereign Provinces?
The commitment of the signatories of the Treaty of Rome to the creation of an ultimate political union in a European State, to which their electorates would not have consented, was disguised by the Treaty's use of the unspecific and indefinite phrase "ever closer union", which can be variously interpreted, and seems to imply no more than good neighbourliness and friendly co-operation between member states.

55. Double Talk.
The emerging European State is constantly referred to by EU
politicians as "a union of sovereign states"; but the word sovereign, denoting absolute supremacy, dominion or jurisdiction, cannot apply to states which, having yielded up the powers constituting their sovereignty, have thereby become provinces of the institution now possessing their former sovereignty and exercising it over them.

56. Hold on.
The common assertion that "three million British jobs depend on our being in the EU" is deceptive, in that what these jobs depend on is trade; that, Britain being the EU's biggest market, trading arrangements will readily be forthcoming between the EU and an independent Britain; and that, in order to trade with any state, one does not have to join it.

57. Metaphors assorted.
Appeals that Britain must not be left behind, miss the bus, or stand on the sidelines, but get on board, jump into the driving seat, exercise leadership, fight our corner, and be at the heart of Europe, belie the truth that Britain will have greater influence on Europe and in the world outside the European State as an independent nation, than inside it as a province: instances of tails wagging dogs being somewhat rare.

58. Paper victory.
The chief means of securing the emerging European State's dominance has been the torrent of its directives and mandatory regulations, affecting and gradually changing nearly all aspects of Britain's industrial, commercial and national life, which Parliament at Westminster has been powerless to question, and almost as unable to scrutinise, the number being over 30,000 since 1973.

59. Grace and Favour.
Although EU and British government spokesmen have urged that "subsidiarity" will remedy the "democratic deficit" through the decentralization of power, powers once apportioned to the EU, the so-called "acquis communautaire", belong to it for ever and cannot be touched; and any such minor freedoms as its lower structures may be allowed will have been bestowed, not as of right, but as concession from the governing authority.

60. Carve-up.
An important part of the process of consolidating rule from Brussels is the setting up, by unofficial self-appointed "constitutional conventions", and with government encouragement, of artificial EU regions and "parliaments" within Britain, to be funded in some respects by grants from Brussels rather than Westminster, in keeping with the Roman principle of "divide and rule"

61. Take-over.
An informal and highly successful method of extending its authority has been Brussels' creation of regulatory agencies or "networks", using the already existing Civil Service organisations and staffs of member states, but requiring them by mandatory EU regulation to report to the Commission, work according to its guidelines, and constantly apply EU law: so including them in its own bureaucracy with minimum effort and expense, and with no outward sign of their having been taken over.

62. Get them young.
Since the plan is, by necessity, as much concerned with the conquest of minds as with the acquisition of territory, children and college students are receiving special attention through EU school literature, and university professorships under the Commission's Jean Monnet Project (102 by May, 2001) funded by Brussels, which also has the final say in who is appointed to these posts.

63. Hook or crook.
The EU's huge spending on propaganda and "information services" (in 1996 amounting to £200million) funds an extensive range of projects, from ensuring the Swedish "Yes" vote organisers had twenty times the finance of the "No", to producing
one-sided publications (contrary to Section 407 of the 1996 Education Act) like "Partners in Europe" for all schools, or "The Raspberry Ice Cream War" cartoon booklet, "a comic for young people on a peaceful Europe without frontiers", or for younger children the colouring book "Let's Draw Europe Together", with the slogan "Europe, our future" quote and picture of an infant carrying an EU banner and wearing a 12-starred nappy, to awarding grants through the secret Committee of the Soul of Europe organisation to British Churches "which explicitly promote the integration of Europe."

64. Muffled Media.
A disturbing feature in the sphere of communication has been the consistently trivialised and EU-biased treatment of the Europe issue itself in the TV and radio media especially, but also in much of the Press, a situation confirmed with respect to the BBC by an (unreported) independent survey commissioned by Lord Pearson of Rannoch, accounted for by The Spectator (1st July 2000, p.24) as top-down institutional bias, and explicable only in terms of
official and media collusion.

65. Beached at Nice.
Provisions of the Nice Treaty, explained as necessary for EU enlargement, but whose real purpose was to speed integration through extension of qualified majority voting which had already minimised Britain\rquote s veto, meant the further surrender of  British sovereignty in 39 areas, and the lessening of her influence in the Council of Ministers by reduction of her vote there to a mere 8.4%.

66. A game of forfeit.
As a consequence of Nice, Brussels can, amongst other things, sign international treaties binding on Britain without her agreement, take over her seats on international bodies, appoint to positions in the EU persons to whom she might object, make changes in the operation of EU courts increasing their power over her own, and oblige her to provide financial help for member states in economic difficulty; while Britain surrenders the ability
to subsidise its industries, to regulate the water companies, and to decide its own policy on immigration matters, leaving her without effective control over which and how many people are let into the country.

67. Retractable Rights.
Despite earlier denials by the Blair administration, the Charter of so called Fundamental Rights will both become part of EU law and form the basis of a European State constitution; but these "rights", far from being absolute and inalienable as under UK law, are held as being conferred under the Charter, and capable of being withdrawn in the case of any person if this is deemed in the interests of the European State.

68. Dangerous Dissent.
Much the same treatment extends to member states, since, under the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam (article F.1), dissent expressed by a state's political party, or by that state's elected government, and judged to be contrary to the ethos of the EU, can lead to that government's being pilloried, and its electorate deprived of their rights under the Treaty, including voting rights: a procedure which incidentally can render any state's veto inoperative, but which is in principle objectionable as authoritarian and anti-democratic.

69. "But some are more equal...."
To these actual and potential encroachments upon liberty must be added the EU's assumption of powers to take action to marginalize or otherwise suppress political parties, or what it terms religious "sects" (the word on the Continent usually applied to Protestant churches), which might be regarded as coming into conflict with concepts to be upheld under the European State.

70. Absolutism.
Arrangements for the victimisation or suppression by any means of political parties or religious organisations are unknown and alien to the Western democracies, being incompatible with individual liberty and freedom of thought and speech which their
constitutions and parliaments exist to protect and promote.

71. Euro-Arrest.
The EU Arrest Warrant, introduced upon the plea of action against terrorism, covering a wide range of 32 offences most of which have nothing to do with terrorism, and soon to apply to any alleged criminal offence carrying a term of imprisonment of one year or more, is a substantial instalment of Corpus Juris, imposed at the opportune moment following the September 11th terrorist outrage in the United States.

72. Extradition on demand.
The Warrant enables any state of the EU to obtain the automatic extradition for trial under its own judicial system of anyone from other member countries, without the production of evidence, and without any court in that person\rquote s country having power to
intervene.

73. Criminality extended.
Under the Arrest Warrant, offences previously non-existent in British law now become crimes, under the categories of "swindling" and "xenophobia".

74.  "... a doddle".
"Swindling" is so vague a notion that it would be easily possible for any litigant who so wished to frame some sort of charge against almost anyone on the basis of old figures or accounts.

75. Opposite of conglomerophilia ?
Is the term "xenophobia", meaning fear of or aversion from foreigners, to be formally employed, as it already is being colloquially, for the purpose of vilifying those who, believing in their country's independence, are against its integration into the European State, their "crime" of patriotism constituting a new kind of heresy ?

76. Wait and See.
An MP who inquired what the thus-termed offence of xenophobia consisted of received the government reply that its definition would be a matter for the presiding judge at a defendant's trial; a statement which, however absurd in itself, is evidence of a
threatening development.

77. Terrorists galore.
Of equal note is the definition of "terrorism" in the EU legislation as an act of intimidation with the intention of "seriously altering political, economic or social structures", and as the "unlawful seizure or damage to state or government facilities, means of public transport, infrastructure facilities, places of public use and property": a category so broad that those engaged in public protests, demonstrations and civil disobedience could now find themselves charged as "terrorists".

78. Euro-and beyond.
Though repeatedly asked, Mr Blair has refused the reasonable request to publish a statement of the political and constitutional consequences of Britain's joining the euro; and, in his Birmingham speech of 23rd November 2001, summarily dismissed all such considerations with the words, if the economic tests are met, political or constitutional barriers should not prevent us joining": of course, without clarifying what the political and constitutional barriers are.

79. Curtains.
Simply stated, the consequences of our joining the euro would be Britain's inability to conduct monetary policy, the passing of control over taxation and public spending, and thus of our economy as a whole, to the government in Brussels, and, since such control underlies a nation's existence, the end of Britain as an independent nation-state.

80. Masters of our fate.
Britain's joining the euro would involve up to 80% of her wealth reserves (some £22 billion) being transferred, together with control of her economic and fiscal affairs, irrevocably into the hands of a number of unelected bankers in Bonn, who, by the Amsterdam Treaty (Article 108), are not obliged to seek or to take instruction from any outside body concerning their conduct of monetary policy or the establishment of interest rates.

81. A leverage for liberty.
Words of a great Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone, are much to the point: "The finance of any country is ultimately associated with the liberties of the country. It is a powerful leverage by which the English liberty has been gradually acquired. If the House of Commons by any possibility loses the power of the control of the grants of public money, depend upon it, your very liberty will be worth very little in comparison. That powerful leverage has been what is commonly known as the power of the purse - the control of the House of Commons over public expenditure." (1891).

82. Prosperous city.
Responding to claims that the City of London would suffer if Britain stayed outside the euro, David Llascelles, leading member of a City think-tank, pointed out that in the 3½ years since the founder members of the EU locked their currencies together, the City had not only flourished, but won the lion' s share of international business denominated in the euro; and that its future independence would be a major asset at a time when it is increasingly difficult for financial centres to differentiate themselves, and would also protect its link with the US and the rest of the world, which represent 2/3 of its total activity, in comparison with the 1/3 of its dealings with Europe (European Journal, November 2001).

83. Big deal.
The visible economic disadvantages of Britain's EU membership range from the loss of fishing waters (soon to become an EU asset) and damage to fisheries and farming, to the £1,000 penalty upon family budgets through protectionist taxes on food, and the £11 billion per year payment to the EU; but the unseen cumulative effect of the restriction of Britain's advantageous trade with her natural world markets is far more actually and potentially damaging.

84. Gift-horse's mouth.
Although just over half of membership costs are returned in Brussels' grants to the "regions" quote of Britain, the EU dictates how the grants are to be spent, so taking over the formal role of Parliament at Westminster, and using the redistribution of what is British money as the means of its growing dominance.

85. Clouded horizon.
The dangers of membership were demonstrated by the dramatic failure of the ERM attempt to link Britain's currency rate with those of Europe, estimated to have cost around a million jobs and bankrupted 150,000 businesses; but symptoms like the rising unemployment in France and recession in Germany, and the enormous European pensions debt of £10 trillion, which British tax-payers would have to help remedy, are indications of problems in the making.

86. The Eurozone.
A recent issue of the European Central Bank's Monthly Bulletin which points to a continuous decline in production growth in Europe over the last 40 years, and forecasts little if any future growth, prompted Professor Tim Congdon, managing director of Lombard Street Research, to blame "the excessive regulation, high taxes and labour market inflexibility found in the eurozone's members", and warn that, if the British people say "Yes" to the euro, "they will be burying their nation in a region of policy failure and stagnating living standards, which will suffer drastic relative economic decline in the 21st century." (European Journal, December 2001).

87. A pointer.
The fact that the protectionism and costly social programmes favoured by its politicians have significantly hindered economic growth in Europe, while in the same period Britain's avoidance for the most part of such restrictive policies has resulted in what the City terms "eight years of uninterrupted economic growth", is a pointer to the European State's future, and to Britain's true interests.

88. Sale of birthright.
Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, once commented, "A nation which seeks to trade its political independence for economic gain deserves to lose both". If she stays within the emerging European State, and continues to submit to government from Brussels, Britain will lose both her prosperity and her independence.

89. A question.
The waste and incompetence displayed in its 10-year efforts for reconstruction in the Balkans despite the huge sums spent, typified by such things as the non-materialisation through bad management of projects for water supply and removal of chemical waste, and the construction of motorways into Greece when the need is for a local network of roads, must (according to Andreas Oldag, Suddeutsche Zeitung, January 2002) raise the question of how efficient the EU will be in the administration of public affairs.

90. A refusal.
The EU Court of Auditors, which for many years in succession has heavily criticised the way money is spent, wasted and stolen from the EU budget, has again in 2001 refused to accord its certificate of reliability to the European Commission in view of the high level of mistakes in the budgets for agriculture and the structural funds, which make up some 50% of the total EU budget (Handelsblatt, 13 November 2001).

91. A scandal.
The chronic tendency to corruption in the EU was highlighted by the revelation in 1998 by Paul van Buitenen, a Commission auditor, of massive fraud in some of the biggest Commission projects, involving close friends and family members of Commissioners; but though van Buitenen's disclosure forced the resignation of the entire Commission, almost all had soon reinstated themselves: and two years after Commissioner Neil Kinnock's appointment to eradicate corruption, Die Welt reported that "little or nothing has changed the new Commission is just like the old." (5th April 2000).

92. Independent Britain.
There is more prospect of prosperity and security for this county as a member of the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA), in which Britain and her people would be able to trade world-wide, retain all their historic rights, principles and privileges, and suffer no loss of national independence.

93. A kinship in liberty.
Historically, culturally and politically, Britain has far more in common with the English-speaking peoples of the North Atlantic and Commonwealth countries, who together have imparted to many nations the lesson of liberty, developed the world's oldest system of representative government, been the first to recognise inviolable and fundamental rights, and created judicial systems free from influence or interference by the state.

94. Separate ways.
This profound kinship, and the need to sustain it politically by separateness from Europe, was uppermost in the mind of Winston Churchill when, in his famous Zurich speech in September, 1946, envisioning a future union of the Continental states, he described Great Britain, the British Commonwealth of Nations and "mighty America" as its prospective "friends and sponsors" offering support and help; and observed, "We are with Europe but not of it. We are linked, but not combined. We are interested and associated, but not absorbed."

95. Mind-set matters.
The major European nations, though they have latterly adopted democratic forms, are relatively new to democracy, all having long histories of upheaval, despotism and dictatorship which suggest little likelihood of those libertarian and constitutional attitudes of mind vital to the maintenance of democracy having been subsequently acquired.

96. Government without consent.
While there is common acceptance amongst all the democracies of the ideal, expressed in the Declaration of Independence, of government "deriving its just powers from the consent of  the governed", the manner of the EU's formation and development shows an attempt amongst numbers of prominent politicians, professedly democrats but in reality of other motivation, by subtlety and subterfuge to thrust their peoples under the power of a new authoritarian government without their consent.

97. Sucked into a super-state.
Commenting in The Guardian on the Laeken Summit declaration foreshadowing what it termed a "convention in preparation for EU enlargement", Stephen Glover wrote, "The declaration envisages a constitution that would give European institutions the powers normally associated with the institutions of a sovereign state. The truth is that against the wish of the majority, and without our being consulted, we are inexorably being sucked into this new superstate". (December 23rd 2001).

98. The means and The end.
Apart from anything amiss or unacceptable in its structure and mode of operation, the fact that the EU has been brought into being through means, judged by those involved to have been indispensable, of disingenuousness, misrepresentation and deception, must make the viability of the emerging European State a matter of question and concern.

99. Our beneficent nationhood.
Because of Britain's unique global position, achievement as a nation, and contribution to world history, the statement of William Pitt the Younger in 1805, that "England has saved herself by her exertions and Europe by her example" is an indication of her timeless role, so long as she is not decadent; and if she has become so, the present may be thought the time for the revival of her beneficent nationhood, rather than for it to be extinguished.

100. "Choose whom you will serve."
The accuracy of the estimate in a briefing paper to the Heath Cabinet ("Sovereignty and the European Communities", 1971, FCO 30/1048) that in "three decades" the point might be reached where the Community's development, "and with it the degeneration of the national institutions which could opt for such a policy", would make British withdrawal "impracticable", is confirmed by the EU's plan, announced at Laeken in 2001, for a Constitution in 2004: from which moment the new European State will have the right under
international law of all accredited states to prevent the secession of any of its provinces, Britain having become one.

101. A prophecy for today.
William Shakespeare, the poet and dramatist above all others concerned with Britain's nationhood, saw the possibility of our people, through lack of vision and vigilance, and poor leadership, becoming at some future time their own worst enemies:
This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
But if it first did help to wound itself.
(King John, V. vii.112-14)