Saturday 3 February 2007

This would be a start, anyway

Entirely predictably, the nasty old Communist Party enforcer and archetypal neocon who now disgraces the office of Home Secretary has used the latest "terror plot" noisily foiled by his private militia previously known as the Police (believe in it only when there are convictions, which on past form there is well over a ninety-nine per cent chance that there won't be) as an excuse to revive the concept of internment, no doubt in preparation for the point when people cotton on that the otherwise pointless deployment of yet more British troops to Afghanistan is in fact only so that they can more easily participate in an invasion of Iran.

We need an alternative programme to the otherwise never-ending theft of our liberty. So, with a deep breath, here it is: the restoration of the supremacy of British over EU law, the use of this to restore Britain's historic fishing rights, no EU law to apply in the United Kingdom without having gone through exactly the same parliamentary process as if it were a Bill which had originated in our own Parliament, the adoption of the show-stopping Empty Chair Policy until the Council of Ministers meets in public and publishes an Official Report akin to Hansard, the election of Britain's European Commissioner by the whole electorate from a shortlist of two submitted by a secret ballot of MPs, the disapplication in the United Kingdom of any ruling of the European Court of Justice by resolution of the House of Commons (giving this country the same level of independence as is rightly enjoyed by Germany through her Constitutional Court), and the non-application of any ruling under either the Human Rights Act or the European Convention on Human Rights unless and until ratified by such a resolution, repeal of the Civil Contingencies Act, repeal of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act, restoration of the situation whereby a Bill which runs out of parliamentary time is lost at the end of that session, no identity cards, no control orders, repeal of existing erosions of trial by jury and of the right to silence, repeal of existing reversals of the burden of proof, abolition of majority verdicts (which, by definition, provide for conviction even where there is reasonable doubt), raising of the minimum age for jurors at least to 21, restoration of a minimum property and/or educational qualification for jurors, restoration of the pre-1968 committal powers of the magistracy, abolition of stipendiary magistrates, repeal of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, repeal of the provision for Police confiscation of assets without a conviction, restoration of the pre-1985 prosecution powers of the Police (i.e., abolition of the Crown Prosecution Service), and a return to preventative policing based on foot patrols, with police forces at least no larger than at present, and subject to local democratic accountability (most obviously though Police Authorities, although with the mind by no means closed to the idea of elected sheriffs).

There.

That would be a start, anyway.

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