New Page 1

BRITAIN AND EUROPE

The Culture of Deceit

Christopher Booker

Macmillan and 1961

[The Great Conspiracy]

The moment when our political leaders first took their fateful decision to conceal the real purpose of the European project from the British people was not, in fact, 1970 -but ten years earlier when, in 1960, Harold Mcmillan's Government began discussing the dramatic reversal of national policy which was to lead to our first abortive application to join the [So-called] Common Market.

This we can see from an illuminating book published in 1995 by Lionel Bell, The Throw That failed, based on studying the Cabinet papers which reflected those discussions in the months leading up to our application in the summer of 1961.

What was striking about the documents Bell uncovered was just how frank Macmillan and his colleagues had been in private, even at that early state , over where the Common Market was heading.

They were in little doubt it was intended to be just a first step towards eventual political and economic union

Yet this, they decided, should be kept hidden from the British people, because otherwise it would not be acceptable. The Common Market had to be presented as no more than a trading arrangement.

Even before the TREATY OF ROME had been signed in 1957, the Foreign Office had been briefed to the effect that its original signatories wanted:

" to achieve tighter European integration through the creation of European institutions with supranational powers, beginning in the economic field...the underlying motive of the Six is , however, essentially political". (PRO/FO 371/150360.Bell op.cit.p.1)

In the summer of 1960, when British entry was first being actively discussed behind closed doors, Sir Roderick Barclay, head of the UK delegation to the European Commission in Brussels, sent a despatch to the Foreign Office stressing, in Mr Bell's words:

"That the aim of the Community was not merely harmonisation but the unification of policies in every field of the economic union., i.e. economic policy, social policy, commercial policy, tariff policy and fiscal policy. That this was not just pie in the sky needed to be made clear to the politicians.". (based on PRO/FO 371/150363,Bell p22)

When Edward Heath [A Nazi agent for over 60 years with his death on the 25th June 2005 attended by representatives of British intelligence and of the German secret service in the guise of German diplomats (BND officers), whom MI5 will have been particularly interested in, given the likelihood of their secret Nazi intelligence provenance beneath their diplomatic cover.

Also part of the same spy ring were the traitors Geoffrey Rippon and Roy Jenkins since their activities were discovered by the Master of Balliol College Oxford in the 1940s and details passed to British Intelligence]

Mr Heath, Minister of State for Europe, visited Professor Hallstein, the President of the European Commission in November 1960, his report on the meeting noted how Hallstein had emphasised that joining the Community was not just a matter of adopting a common tariff "which was essential hallmark of any 'State' (and he regarded the EEC as a potential 'State')". It would be necessary, Hallstein insisted, for any new entrant to accept the principle that the EEC was intended to evolve into something much deeper,

"some form of Federal State"

[Remember this was 47 years ago that the TRUTH of the intention of the EEC was known . Today in 2007 sections of the so-called FREE PRESS have indicated that the intentions of the main negotiators were unknown at the time-the above details show that it was amongst the civil servants and many politicians had known of the Treachery they attempted to hide from the General Public.]

-which was what the Commission was working towards.

(PRO/FO371/150369)

Particularly revealing in this context was the reply given in December 1960 by the Lord Chancellor , Lord Kilmuir, to a request from Mr Heath for comments on what would be the constitutional implications of signing the Treaty for Britain's sovereignty.

Kilmuir responded that in several respects the loss of sovereignty would be considerable: by Parliament; by the Crown in terms of treaty-making powers; and by the courts, which to an extent would become

"subordinate"

to the European Court of Justice

(PRO/FO 371/150369,Bell pp.36-9)

On the making of laws, Lord Kilmuir said it was clear that:

"the Council of Ministers would eventually (after the system of qualified majority voting had come into force )make regulations which would be binding on us even against our wishes... it would in theory be possible for Parliament to enact at the outset legislation which would give automatic force of law to any existing or future regulations made by the appropriate organs of the Community. For Parliament to do this would go far beyond the most extensive delegation of powers , even in wartime, that we have ever experienced and I do not think there is any likelihood of this being acceptable to the House of Commons".

[Remember this matter was being discussed in December 1960. As you possible already are aware many of the details here are in a number of bulletins amongst the over 1000 we have on our bulletin board but we feel the information is of such importance that it is not to be lost sight of particularly as in 2007 we are so close to losing the very sovereignty that was warned about those 47 years ago ]

As to the subordination of Britain's courts to the European Court of Justice, Lord Kilmuir wrote:

"I must emphasise that in my view the surrenders of sovereignty involved are serious ones, and I think that, as a matter of practical politics, it will not be easy to persuade Parliament or the British public to accept them. I am sure that it would be a great mistake to underestimate the force of the objections to them. But these objections should be brought out into the open [they weren't of course] now because, if we attempt to gloss over them [they did as we know] at this stage, those who are opposed to the whole idea of joining the Community [Tony Benn ,Eric Heffer and a number of other courageous and loyal citizens such as Field Marshall Montgomery - and others in Parliament and the country at large.] will certainly seize on them with more damaging effect later on".

These were pretty direct warnings. And when in the summer of 1961 the Cabinet finally considered whether to apply for entry, Macmillan opened the discussion by pointing out that the first question they needed to consider was that

"if we were to sign the treaty of Rome we should accept its political objectives, and although we should be able to influence the political outcome we did not know what this would be."

(Bell pp.59-62)

Macmillan conceded that a decision to go in would

"raise great presentational difficulties".

On the one hand, it would be important to convince the Six that

"we genuinely supported the objectives of the Treaty",

On the other:

" we should have to satisfy public opinion in this country that the implementation of the objectives of the Treaty would not require unacceptable social and other adjustments. The problems of public relations would be considerable."

Nevertheless the Cabinet ruled in favour. Mr Heath was sent to Brussels to negotiate the terms of British entry. And when in October 10 he made his opening speech to the other member governments, he could not have been more fulsome in expressing Britain's desire

"to become full wholehearted and active members of the European Community in its wider sense, and to go forward with you in building a new Europe." (Bell p.73)

But when , two weeks later , his fellow Cabinet Minister Duncan Sandys followed him to Brussels and made a speech emphasising that the British Government recognised how the Treaty of Rome was NOT JUST AN ECONOMIC AGREEMENT BUT ALSO HAD IMPORTANT "political content" (FO 371/158302)

Heath became alarmed that he might be letting the cat out of the bag. As Bell discovered:

" He set officials urgently to work to check what Ministers had been saying in public and a line developed of arguing that the Treaty contained no political obligations, only implications. The United Kingdom would not regard itself as committed to any particular development or extensions of obligations simply by virtue of EEC membership". (based on M.Camps, Britain and the European Community 1955-63, cited in Bell p.74)

This was to remain the line until , in January 1963, President de Gaulle vetoed Macmillan's attempt to join. Although the Cabinet was well aware that the Common Market was ultimately a political project, involving considerable surrender of sovereignty, and was likely to develop much further in these respects in the future. This was NOT what the British people WERE TO BE TOLD.

All this was to be downplayed in favour of the pretence that the Common Market was little more than its name implied:

A trading arrangement which would be good for Britain's economy. It was a line which was still to be official orthodoxy four decades later.

THE CULTURE OF DECEIT HAD BEEN SOWN.

* * *

[Font Altered-Bolding & Underlining Used-Comments in Brackets]

FEBRUARY/07

*

THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN-IS THE EU COMMISSION LISTENING?

*

Ditch the EU TREATY after IRISH REJECTION

SAY VOTERS

by

Daniel Martin

Political Reporter

[Daily Mail-Wednesday, June 18,2008]

MORE THAN HALF of voters believe Britain should drop the controversial European Treaty in the wake of its rejection in last week's

IRISH REFERENDUM'

The poll comes as the Tories launch a last-ditch bid in the

HOUSE of LORDS

today to delay the

RATIFICATION OF THE TREATY.

And

10,000 people

have signed a

PETITION

on the

DOWNING STREET- WEBSITE

within the past few days

JUNE16-2008

, calling on the

GOVERNMENT

NOT TO RATIFY THE BILL

[WHY DON'T YOU?]

Downing Street website is

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Abandon-Lisbon/

*

JUNE 18-2008