The Truth about the EU

Amid the silly soap opera that now passes for British politics, in which we are supposed to care more about hairstyles and mannerisms than about the country, there was one moment last week when a decent man said something important. The brief flash of truth shone out like a gold coin on a dunghill.

The man was Peter Lilley, older and wiser than when he used to sing daft songs to Tory conferences. Mr Lilley looks to me as if, like several others, he is trapped in the Unconservative Party and would blossom like an irrigated desert if only he could escape from it.

Because what he said was important, there have been far too few reports of it. Hansard for Tuesday, June 3, at 3.35pm, will give you the details, if you want them.

But his clear, hard message was that 80 per cent of our laws are now made in Brussels, and Parliament has no power to reject or amend them.

If you wonder why our Post Offices are all closing, it’s thanks to an EU directive. So is the increasingly hated Data Protection Act. So are Home Improvement Packs and fortnightly bin collections.

In 15 years’ time our Parliament will have only two functions left – to raise taxes and declare war – admittedly things that our current politicians are rather keen on.

Mr Lilley’s mischievous suggestion is that MPs’ pay should be cut each time they hand over authority to others. Incredibly, many MPs don’t know what is going on. If they ended up on the wages paid to district councillors – which is all they really are now – they might care more.

His own stark words cannot be improved upon: ‘Few voters, or even members of this house, fully realise how many powers have been, or are about to be, transferred elsewhere. There are three reasons for this. The first is that governments of all persuasions deny that any significant powers are being transferred.

The second is that, once powers have been transferred, Ministers engage in a charade of pretence that they still retain those powers. Even when introducing measures that they are obliged to bring in as a result of an EU directive they behave as though the initiative were their own.

‘Indeed, Ministers often end up nobly accepting responsibility for laws that they actually opposed when they were being negotiated in Brussels.’

So now you know. Not since Dunkirk, 68 years ago, has our national independence been so imperilled. But back then, we could see the danger. Now most of us pretend it isn’t there.

Source: Dailymail.co.uk