The break up of Britain
Our MPs have betrayed us. They have allowed Brussels to engineer the break-up
of Britain to bring about the creation of a Europe of the regions.
Although Brussels may not have directly ordered the creation of regions, it set
up a centralised funding stream that encourages member states to set up their
own regional networks to gain access to massive development grants: a form of
institutionalised bribery.
That is why the regional development agencies and the unelected regional
assemblies all have large offices in the heart of Brussels – and why
every regional development project in Britain prominently displays the European
Union flag.
This is also why England has disappeared from the European Union map of Britain
to be replaced by nine administrative regions whose funds are now largely drawn
directly from Brussels – even though they are paid for by British
taxpayers. How has this happened?
Ironically, the only time the people were consulted about the break-up of
England into regions, they roundly rejected it.
In a referendum on an elected assembly in the North East in November 2004, 78
per cent of the voters said ‘No.’ Despite this emphatic rejection,
the government continues with its system of regional assemblies – only
now they are all unelected!
Treaty of regions
How has this happened? The 2004 referendum in the North East was the brainchild
of John Prescott, then the Deputy Prime Minister. Although he has lost much of
his ministerial empire since then, Prescott likes to claim that the English
regions were his idea, and that he has been ‘working on it for 30
years’.
No
one can doubt that Mr Prescott has been a powerful advocate of the regional
agenda. But the origins of the idea can be traced all the way back to the
Treaty of Rome the preamble to which states: ‘to strengthen the unity of
their economies and ensure their harmonious development by reducing the
differences existing between the various regions and backwardness of the less
favoured regions’.
The treaty clauses are peppered with references to regions. In addition:
- In 1961 the European Commission held its first conference and set up three
committees to look at running regional policy across the EEC.
- Their reports formed the basis of the 1965 First Commission Communication on
Regional Policy. The Commission said that its authority on regions came from
the treaty of Rome and said every country must draw up regional economic
policies.
- The First Community Economic Programme (1966 -1970) emphasised integrating
regional with national policies
- In 1969, a second more substantial statement, the Commission said that all
economic and social policy had to be determined at the European level or the
region and not by nation states…‘if member states were to remain
responsible for regional policy then development of the Community would be
jeopardised’.
But it was not until John Prescott came along that the regions really began to
put down permanent roots in the British landscape.
By this time Britain, under John Major, had signed up to the Maastricht Treaty
which had made explicit the role that regions were to play in the creation of a
country called Europe.
The imposing office block of the Committee of the Regions, set up under
Maastricht, speaks volumes of the Commission’s intention to build a
Europe of the Regions – thus reducing the power and influence of the
constituent nation states.
Regional pedigree
That Prescott was the new government’s most ardent advocate of this plan
came as no surprise to those who had followed the former merchant
seaman’s political career.
Back in 1973, he became a delegate to the Council of Europe, an organisation
known for its desire to break Europe into regions, where he spent two years,
emerging as leader of the British Labour group.
He then joined the European Parliament in 1975 at the height of Labour's
referendum campaign for continued membership of the Common Market and just as
the nascent regional policy was emerging in the EEC, with the launch of the
European Regional Development Fund – the system of financial bribes
mentioned earlier.
So
strong were Prescott’s European credentials that he was reportedly
offered, but declined, the position of EU commissioner.
But there can be no doubt that some 30 years ago Prescott became a convert to
regionalism, persuaded perhaps by his experience at both the both the Council
of Europe and the European Parliament.
Indeed, even before Labour came to power he had established a ‘Regional
Policy Commission’, chaired by Bruce Millan, the former European
Commissioner for Regional Policy.
His Commission recommended that each region have a Regional Development Agency
(RDA) ‘to promote economic development in the region with an accountable
and strategic regional framework’.
Trojan horse
Thus, RDAs found their way into Labour’s election manifesto and, in the
Queen's Speech of 14 May 1997, the newly elected Labour government announced
its intention to create them.
The RDAs themselves were to be Prescott's Trojan horse – embryonic
organisations which would, in the fullness of time, blossom into full-blown
regional governments.
Prescott
found an ally for this scheme in the unlikely form of the Chancellor, Gordon
Brown, who promised that a second term Labour government would create a
‘Britain of nations and regions’ as part of its bid to secure an
economic renaissance outside the prosperous south of England.
Brown suggested a new package of regional policies could be unveiled in the
manifesto, hinting that this might include a commitment to directly elected
regional government. ‘As we develop regional policies that are locally
generated and managed, there has to be local and regional accountability
too’, he told a conference at the University of Manchester Science and
Technology Institute.
Dangerously unbalanced
Having set up the bureaucratic RDAs, Prescott began to agitate for elected
regional assemblies. Here, again, Prescott found an unlikely ally in the form
of the Europhile Peter Mandelson, former Northern Ireland secretary and
suddenly a self-appointed champion of the regions.
Mandelson warned that unless Westminster shed more power to the regions it would
risk a two-tier England that was ‘dangerously unbalanced’.
As so often with the EU’s drive to integration, the Commission had simply
to sow the seeds of division to bring about the break-up of member states:
domestic politicians would do the rest.
So who defines what a region is? Well it isn’t our own Parliament.
Britain without England
The answer is Eurostat, the EU’s statistical service in Luxembourg.
Boundaries drawn up by Eurostat have been used since at least 1961 in Community
legislation. And it’s all done by population. That is why officials now
talk of regions, sub-regions and sub-sub regions – and not of counties
and shires.
In the Brussels’ plan London is region number UKI with two sub regions: an
outer and an inner. Eventually, London will have five sub-sub regions. Brussels
would also like every county council to be abolished. Thus, Devon County
Council is now a sub-sub region of the EU, UKK43, pending its abolition.
Now even this map is under review. Under changes proposed by Germany, people
living in Kent and East Sussex could find themselves not inhabitants of
Britain, but residents of somewhere called the TransManche region.
Their fellow citizens would not be their English-speaking neighbours but the
French-speaking population of northern France.
North of the TransManche would be the North Sea region, taking in all of eastern
England and vast areas of Scandinavia, Germany and the Low Countries.
Western Britain and Ireland would become the Atlantic region, a huge zone that
also takes in parts of France, Spain and Portugal.
Perhaps most bizarre would be the Northern Periphery region, lumping together
the population of north-west Scotland with their very distant cousins in
Norway, Sweden, Finland, Greenland and Iceland.
The masterplan will be put into action when Germany takes over the EU presidency
in January 2007 and tries to revive the rejected EU constitution. German
minister Wolfgang Tiefensee said: “There is the great hope underlying the
goal of a United Europe that we can overcome old borders.”
Our government claims this is not a conspiracy to wipe Britain off the map, but
an official spokeswoman confirmed: ‘This is about a regional policy
directive which involves harmonising mapping across Europe for purposes of
cross-border regional co-operation.
‘Obviously the north of France and the south-east of England have a lot in
common - they share the same piece of water and have similar environmental
needs. It's just common sense to link them for regional EU proposes.’
All this is very undemocratic. But Brussels doesn’t care much for
democracy. When the people Portugal voted ‘no’ to regions in a 1998
referendum, they were ignored and regional development agencies were imposed.
As we have seen, a similar thing happened in the North East of England when the
voters emphatically rejected the idea of an elected regional assembly. Rather
than scrap the whole idea, the government imposed an unelected assembly on the
people.
Well, the time has come to make the politicians listen:
- to force the government to abandon the break-up of Britain
- to demand a referendum on scrapping unelected Brussels’ inspired
assemblies
- to abolish the undemocratic regional development agencies
- and to return the funding of our poorer districts to the people themselves.
We believe that if enough people speak out we can get a referendum on the return
of this and other vital powers from Brussels to Britain.
Join the 87% of people who want a say in getting these powers back – and
demand a referendum. It is time our elected politicians listened to the people
and defended our democratic rights
Footnote
Where percentages have been quoted research was carried out by
Yougov 6th-10th October 2006. 2205 responents were surveyed. Respondents who
refused to answer or didn't have an opinion have been excluded from the
figures.
Related articles
Lyndsay Jenkins book Disappearing Britain for a brilliant
analysis of Europe's role in the break up of Britain. Her website:
Click here
'New EU map makes Kent part of same nation as France' Daily
Telegraph September 2006:
Click here
Go to
The EU Referendum website has a comprehensive examination of
John Prescott's role in the regional agenda:
Click here
Official sites
The Treaty of Rome:
Click here