Category Archives: laws

Brexit: The threat from  the Remainers…and how to refute and defeat them

Robert Henderson

The anti-democratic behaviour of the remainers over the EU referendum vote  is not a surprise but the brazenness and crudity of their attempts  is still shocking  and deeply  worrying  because  a majority of those with power and public influence   in the UK – politicians, academics, mediafolk or the hodge podge of those working for think tanks and charities – are remainers at heart.   That applies to the people at the very head of the government for  none of the holders of the four great offices of state  is a sincere Brexiteer.  We have a  PM (Theresa May) , Chancellor (Philip Hammond)  and Home Secretary(Amber Rudd) who are by temperament,  conviction and public statement  Europhiles and a foreign Secretary (Boris Johnson)  who is a slippery careerist liable to change his position back to remainer anytime he thinks it will benefit him.  In addition,  Theresa May is the worst sort of remainer, namely, a cowardly one, whose taste for duplicity was shown during the Referendum  campaign when she  wanted to have her  political cake and eat it by saying she was for remaining in the EU whilst doing precious little campaigning for a remain vote.

It is true that  May has appointed two ministers( David Davies and Liam Fox )who are solid supporters of Brexit to oversee the day-to-day progress of Brexit,  but they   could well turn out to be window dressing to enable May to allay the  suspicions  of those who want Brexit that she is working towards arranging a deal with the EU for the UK  to remain stitched into the fabric of the EU. Once  Article 50 is triggered May could decide to dump them or adopt such an obstructive stance  prompt them to resign.  Once Article 50  goes live that  gives her two years breathing space to subvert the aims of Brexit and provides ample opportunity to claim that concessions  on things such as  free movement  or paying a fee for access to the single market will have to be made.   We already have hints of this in the priming of the media  with stories about how all existing EU immigrants to the UK  – all 3,.6 million of them – will be allowed to stay.

UKip’s immediate purpose

The potential grip the remainers have on the Brexit process means that is essential  for  May and Co  to be  kept under the tightest scrutiny until the  UK is out of  the EU .  That is Ukip’s  immediate purpose.  To this end everything possible should be done to try to  persuade Nigel Farage to stay on until Brexit is secured.

The Government must be pressed whenever it fails to commit itself to these lines in the sand:  no   free movement  or any other restriction by the EU on the UK’s ability to control her borders;    an end to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice over the UK;  no payment by the UK of money to the EU  for any reason and an end to the European Arrest Warrant . In addition, whenever, politicians, especially those on the government side,  try to water down the idea of Brexit through vague and ambiguous wording,  this should be made a matter of public comment and record.   Those who seek to subvert  the will of the British people should be forced to  live in a mental world in which they know that any attempt to deliver less than the Brexit promised by the referendum question will be exposed for what it is, profoundly anti-democratic behaviour which  not so long ago would have been called treason.

Lines in the sand

The idea that lines in the sand make for a weak bargaining position does not stand up. Giving away your hand before negotiating is only weakness if  one side of a negotiation gives up important ground before negotiations begin. . David Cameron did that with his “negotiation” with the EU  before the referendum.  Cameron  not only failed to have any lines in the sand he signalled his weakness by not asking for a radical deal on free movement. The lines in the sand listed above are signs of strength which say this is what we cannot concede. Such a stance would either drive the rest of the EU to decide that the best thing would be to get the UK out of the EU as quickly as possible  by rapidly  agreeing to a reasonable  deal  or prompt  the rest of the EU hierarchy  to show their true colours of being  utterly hostile to the UK . This should force the UK government to see the only way forward is to simply leave and trade under WTO rules as John Redwood amongst others has advocated.

Within  the general  scrutiny there is the  task of rigorously  rebutting the  particular claims of the remainers as to why the referendum should not be accepted.  This can be readily done by sticking to the facts and following the logic of what a referendum implies for Parliament.   Let me demonstrate.

The lie at the heart of the remainers argument

Contrary to what the  remainers are now  claiming voters knew precisely what they were voting for. The clue is in the ballot paper question (which was put forward by the Electoral Commission) :

“Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?”

The ballot question  did not ask should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or seek whether she should seek another status such as that of Norway or Switzerland.  It does not say that there should be another referendum on whatever terms are agreed.  There is no equivocation whatsoever; the choice  was  out or in.   If the UK had  left the EU the day  after the vote and  traded under WTO rules or even simply  declared UDI either behaviour would have been in accord with the referendum question.

In addition, the European Union Referendum Act makes no provision for a second  referendum on the terms of withdrawal.  There is good reason for this, the question on the ballot paper was crystal clear: leave means leave.

The electors did not understand

The idea that those who voted to leave were largely   ignorant and poorly educated white working class  people who did not  know any better is absurd.   I can vouch from my own experience of talking to many people from a workingclass background that they had absolutely no difficulty in understanding what the vote was about, namely, regaining sovereignty, being masters in our own house, controlling our own affairs, saying who should be allowed to come into this country – these are ideas which are, for the politically correct, all too well understood by electors in general.

But  let us for the sake of argument allow that it was  the  less educated  who disproportionately voted for   Leave.  Would that have been a bad thing?  In 1984 Orwell put these words into the head of Winston Smith: “If there is hope it lies with the proles.” The reason for that was the proles had not been seriously infected by the doctrines of  IngSoc, the only political party in Britain in 1984. So it is with the  Britain today. The white working class  has  not been seriously infected with the totalitarian  creed that is political correctness.  They have a deep well of unforced unselfconscious patriotism and readily understand that mass immigration is invasion and that membership of any international political  body results in the theft of sovereignty which allows  a quisling political class to deform democracy.  In reality they were the type of people most suited to vote leave for they were the people who experienced most directly the effects of mass immigration from  Europe, the lowered wages, the creation of a cruel housing shortage, the transformation of the areas in which they lived  caused by large immigrant inflows..

The claim that the referendum vote was narrowly won  

The overall vote on a 73% turnout  was Remain 16,141,241 Leave: 17,410,742. That gave a leave  majority of  1,269,501. In percentage terms 51.90 voted to Leave and 48.1 to stay. England voted by nearly 54% to leave.  It was a decisive if not utterly overwhelming victory.  Had such a result been for remaining you may be sure  the remainers would be calling it a comprehensive result.  Indeed,  had there been a very narrow vote to  remain can anyone doubt from their behaviour since the result  that the remainers would be saying “one vote more is enough? “

On the legal front it should be noted that there is  no stipulation in the  European Union Referendum Act that either  a certain  percentage of all qualified electors or a certain percentage of those voting  must vote to  leave to activate a  Brexit .

The referendum was only advisory

Perhaps the most popular fraudulent claim by remainers  is that the referendum was only  advisory. Nothing in the European Union  Referendum Act states that it is simply advisory. The only arguments  which could be put forward to support the  claim  are (1)  to claim that the absence of a clause placing Parliament under an obligation to act on the result should be taken to mean that it was only advisory or (2) that  Parliament is the final font of authority in the UK and, consequently, any referendum is automatically only advisory unless it is made clear in an Act of Parliament authorising a referendum that Parliament  and the government must act on the result of the referendum. The word Jesuitical comes to mind.

These arguments if taken seriously  would mean that anything which is not specifically  sanctioned or banned in the European Union Referendum Act  can be read into the Act.  This goes against English law in  which things that are not specifically banned or made compulsory are taken to be legal.   In European systems of law what one may legally do has to be stated. It is the difference between negative and positive  law. As the European Union Referendum Act  is English law the absence of a clause stating the referendum was merely advisory  means it is  binding on Parliament  and the government.

It is also true that during the referendum campaign  none of the official  leave and remain campaign groups made any play with the idea that the referendum was only advisory.

The claim that the prerogative should  not be used to trigger Article 50 or sanction  the terms of leaving  the EU

The referendum was a manifesto commitment of the Conservatives in the general election of 2015. Parliament voted for the  European Union  Referendum Act  in 2015 by 316 for and 53 against.

Once the holding of a referendum has been agreed by Parliament  the rules of the game change for Parliament.  Unless provision is made in the Act authorising a referendum for it to be only advisory or  a clause inserted stating that Parliament shall vote on what action should be taken after the outcome of the referendum,   MPs and Lords cannot claim that it is Parliament’s role to vote on the outcome of the referendum .  The holding of a referendum whose outcome is not   just advisory trumps the authority of Parliament because  if  it did not the reason for the referendum would vanish.

There is also amply  precedent for the use of the prerogative by  UK governments  in connection with treaties relating to what is now the EU. The UK’s admission to what was then the European Economic Community in 1973 was done without a referendum through the use of the prerogative by Edward Heath  and every  treaty emanating from what is now the European Union has also not been presented to Parliament for their approval but given legal status by the use of the prerogative.

The position on who makes the decision on the renegotiation terms is also straightforward: it is a treaty matter  and the negotiation of and acceptance of treaties are a  prerogative power. End of story. Parliament does not have to come into it, although either House could pass motions asking the government to take note of whatever those wanting the new relationship with the EU to be less than Brexit .

The practical consequences of  May’ schedule for leaving the EU

If Theresa May’s schedule for leaving the EU is followed the UK will have had 33 months of remaining in the EU subject to all the rules, regulations and obligations which existed on 23rd  June plus any new EU laws passed between the 23Rd June and March 2019.   During those 33 months the UK will be suffering  this:

  1. Be paying its contributions to the EU in full. The net amount (the sum  the UK does not get back from their gross  contribution)  for 33 months would be around £24 billion.   Moreover, the money that is returned to the UK by  the EU in the 33 months (££12 billion approx.)  has to be spent not as the British government decides but as the EU decrees.
  2. Have to allow citizens of the European Economic Area  to continue to  freely enter and work in the UK.   Half a million or even a million new EU immigrants could plausibly come in before the UK formally leaves because of reports suggesting that an amnesty for all EEA citizens will apply at the point where the UK finally leaves.
  3. Be forced to put any new EU directives into law  unless  it is one of the rare instances where a national veto still applies.

4 Be expected to enforce any existing EU laws including things such as the European Arrest Warrant.

  1. Still be liable to be taken before the European Court of Justice.

5 Be unable to make any bilateral trade treaties  or any other form a treaty which conflicts with treaties  made by the EU.

  1. Be paying in work and out of work benefits to many EEA citizens in the UK.
  2. Be funding the children of EEA citizens in the UK through the provision of school places and healthcare.
  3. Be accepting citizens from the EEA for free NHS treatment.
  4. Be funding students from the EEA through subsidized fees and  student loans
  5. Be unable to give preference to UK companies when putting public contracts out  to tender.

The great enemy of  a true Brexit is time.

The remainers can, like Mr Micawber,  wait for something to turn up  and unlike Mr Micawber they  have every reason to believe that something might  indeed save them in the two years provided by Article 50; perhaps another  world depression or simply the UK being economically  destabilised by the uncertainty of the long  delay.  That being so, what   we need is an end to equivocation by those controlling the Brexit process and the fastest possible removal of the UK from the EU.

Could a really  quick exit be achieved legally?  That is debatable purely in  terms of international law. It is true that   The Vienna Convention on Treaties  in  Article  62 allows for the voiding of a treaty in a matter of months if there is a “fundamental change of circumstances” but that does not apply where the change of circumstances has been caused by the country wishing to leave.

But in the end leaving the EU is a political not a legal matter and the fact that the EU have provided a mechanism to depart   in Article 50 shows that flawed as that means of leaving  is,  the EU acknowledges that a member state may leave.  The UK is s not the position that the Confederacy found themselves in in mid 19th century USA where there was no legal route out.

The  matter comes down to this,  do you  honestly believe that the EU would wish to be seriously at odds  with a  country with the sixth  largest economy in the world ,  a massive trade deficit with the EU, a country which  is a permanent  member of the UN Security Council and which  holds major positions on most of the important international organisations such as the IMF.    Moreover,  at the purely  practical level the UK is a partner in cross border European enterprises such as Airbus and  the consortium producing the Eurofighter.

All that being so, surely the odds are  that  if the UK plays sticks to its Brexit guns the EU will, after a good deal of huffing and puffing,  let the UK  go on reasonable terms.    Truth to tell, the real danger comes from those in Britain in positions of power and influence who covertly or overtly wish to sabotage Brexit.

 

After the EU referendum

The battle has been won but not the war

Robert Henderson

The Europhiles threw a great deal at the EU referendum campaign.  There was the shameless   use of government resources especially those of the Treasury to propagandise for the Remain side. The governor of the Bank of England  enthusiastically supported the remain side.  EU panjandrums directed  dire threats  of what the EU would do to  Britain. A gigantic cast of the “great and the good” from finance, trade, industry, the media and politics (drawn from both Britain and abroad ) were daily paraded in front of the public like ancient  oracles forecasting  unalloyed disaster if Britain voted to leave the EU.  Leading Tories in the Remain camp cast aspersions on the character of those supporting Leave –  David Cameron even claimed that voting leave was immoral. Accusations of racism  were routinely levelled  against any leave supporter with a public voice  who addressed  the subject of immigration and the leave voters were labelled as xenophobes, bigots and racists.   Most contemptibly when the Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered   Remain supporters, including  MPs, attempted by implication or direct accusation to link the killing with the Leave side’s position on immigration.  So desperate were  the government  and Remain politicians generally  to ensure a vote to remain  that when the government web site which allowed people to register for a vote crashed two hours before the deadline  for registering,  Parliament did not hesitate to extend the deadline the next day  (by 24 hours not two) in the belief that it would mean many more young voters (who generally favoured remaining in the EU) would vote.

It says much for the strength of character of  the British that they refused to be cowed by this onslaught of propaganda and threats.  The Remain camp started with Project Lie, moved to Project Fear and ended with Project Slander as their accusations of racism became ever more shrill as polling day approached.  None of it worked.  Their  prophecies of doom were so frequent and so overblown that their hysterical warnings  ended up looking like caricatures produced by the Leave  side .  The only thing which stopped the Leave campaign’s momentum was the death of Jo Cox which stopped campaigning for three days just as the polls were consistently  showing increasing support for Leave.  This break in momentum probably cost Leave several percentage points in the final poll as for a few days the polls swung back towards Remain.

There was also a strong tendency for the Remainers  to patronise the leavers by implying or saying directly that only a bigoted blockhead who did not know better could vote to leave.   Nowhere was this mentality  shown  more strongly than over the subject of immigration.  The Remainers’  favoured tactics were simply to ignore the issue or, if forced to address it, to chant the mantras such as  “Immigrants have brought so much to our country” or  “Immigrants do the jobs which Britons won’t do”  or “The shortage of housing, school places and GPs  etc  is not down to immigration but the failure of government to provide the money to build more houses, schools  and GPs etc”.  As immigration was the issue  which troubled voters most  and especially troubled the white working class,  this was madness on the part of the Remain campaign. Clearly nothing has been learnt by the politically correct from Gordon Brown’s abuse of a working class  English pensioner Gillian Duffy  during the 2010  General Election when she complained  about the effects of mass immigration and Brown  was caught describing her as a bigot.

But it was not only the Remainers who wanted to  ignore or explain away the problems mass immigration brings. Many on the Leave side were just as squeamish when it came to immigration.  If it had not been for Nigel Farage having the courage to keep banging the immigration drum in all probability the referendum would have been lost.  The question of regaining sovereignty was a very strong and positive message, but on its own it is doubtful if it would have gained sufficient traction to lead to a win. What made it really  potent was when it was allied to controlling our own borders and stemming immigration.   The least politically sophisticated person could readily understand the message.

The battle but not the war is won

Gratifying as the referendum result is,  it was only  the first battle in the war to recover Britain’s sovereignty.

As things stand we are still subject to EU law until either we leave without an  agreement with the EU or fight our way through the provisions of Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, something which would almost certainly take two years from its activation and which could be extended indefinitely in principle with the agreement of the European Parliament.  It is even conceivable that new members could be enrolled before Britain’s departure who would then have a say in what the terms for Britain would be. That is just one of the drawbacks to using Article 50. There are others which mean that  Article 50 is a poisoned chalice and should be avoided.   Let me quote it in full as it is short:

  1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.
  2. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.
  3. The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.
  4. For the purposes of paragraphs 2 and 3, the member of the European Council or of the Council representing the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it.

A qualified majority shall be defined in accordance with Article 238(3)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

  1. If a State which has withdrawn from the Union asks to rejoin, its request shall be subject to the procedure referred to in Article 49.

Before I get to the practical difficulties of using Article 50 let me stamp on an idea floating within the disgruntled Europhile camp  that Britain could remain in the EU if no agreement was reached on the terms of leaving. This is not so.  Paragraph 3 of the Article runs” The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.”  If there is no agreement and no extension of the negotiating time, Britain would simply leave and EU laws would cease to have effect.

The   drawbacks to using Article 50 are extensive.  To begin with it allows the EU to set the agenda and the pace of the negotiations. Until an agreement is reached or the leaving state simply leaves after two years of fruitless negotiation, Britain would  remain subject to   EU law. This  would mean, amongst other things, that Britain would have to continue to pay the £8  billion odd   to the EU that  they keep and the £6 bn odd  which the EU takes from us and then returns it to Britain with instructions  on how it is to be spent, Britain could not negotiate any treaties with countries outside of the EU and  British businesses would have to continue to implement EU imposed standards in areas such  as the  workplace  for example, the   hours worked. It would logically also mean that Britain was subject to any new EU laws passed during the negotiating period, for example, the EU might push through a transaction tax which would be utterly against Britain’s wishes.  Most importantly Britain would have to continue accept  migrants from the rest of the EU and probably other territories which  have free movement with the EU such as Norway or Switzerland .  Moreover,  the idea that Britain  would be leaving the EU  after two years  could provoke a massive upsurge in EU migration to these shores.

Europhile MPs

The other problem is the nature of Britain’s MPs. Most are Europhiles, as are a majority of the House of Lords. In principle the result of the referendum could be ignored – it is merely advisory not legally binding – by the Europhile majority in Parliament. That should  be politically impossible but there would be ample opportunity for the Europhiles to subvert the wishes of the British public more stealthily  by extending the length of time for  negotiation or by making agreements with the EU which would  stitch Britain back into the EU, for example, making immigration from the EU very easy.

If an agreement  which firmly attaches Britain to the EU once again is concluded one of two things could happen: either Parliament could accept in on a vote or a further referendum be held on the terms of the agreement with all the bullying associated with the EU when the public of a member makes the “wrong” choice the first time around.  The first would be overtly undemocratic and the second covertly undemocratic.

An alternative to an agreement between British politicians and EU politicians would be for  a major  party to campaign at a general election  for Britain to  withdraw from the leaving process and by doing so to remain in the EU. Whether  such a cancellation of Britain’s withdrawal would be legal is debatable, especially if Article 50 is activated because there is no procedure in the Article  for cancelling the article’s activation.  However, legal or not, the rest of the EU might be willing to accept the cancellation because this is really  about politics not law.

None of this is fanciful because there have already been suggestions from MPs, the most prominent being David Lammy of Labour , an ex-cabinet minister, has suggested that the Commons refuse to accept the result of the referendum   and Tim Farron, the leader of the LibDems has committed his party to standing on a platform to get Britain back into the EU.  There is also a petition on the government web site which is already in the millions demanding that the referendum result be deemed invalid (there is some doubt over the authenticity of large numbers of the signatures).

The next general election.

The question of when the next General Election is to be held looms over the post-referendum political world.    It could be soon, although because of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act two thirds of the House of Commons would have to pass a motion permitting an election less than five years after the last General Election. As this Tory government has a working  majority of only sixteen such a motion would need  to be supported by Labour. Whether that would suit Labour at present is extremely  dubious because the present chaos within the Party would almost certainly lose them many seats. But the other parties, including the Tories,  would probably  have many MPs against an early general election because there is a good chance that they could be punished by the voters either because they were for or against being  a member in the EU.  There are also many MPs with small majorities who would not welcome an election  because an MP with a small majority is always vulnerable to defeat. With nearly 4 years of this Parliament to run such MPs might well vote against an early election.  More generally, having run a general election campaign little more than a year ago parties may be short of money to run another.

If  there was sufficient support for an early election there would be  a halfway plausible  reason for having one. As  Cameron has resigned and a new Tory PM  is to be appointed by the Autumn,   a new election could represented as giving the new Tory regime electoral legitimacy.   But   it would be a rather weak argument because there is no  recent precedent for  governments calling a general election when prime ministers  are changed during the course of a Parliament. It did not happen when Gordon Brown took over from Blair, Major  succeeded  Thatcher  or when  Callaghan replaced Wilson. It would also be wholly exceptional for a general election to be called  so early in a Parliament (this one runs until 2020) for the purpose of validating a new PM.   Alternatively, a new General Election might be called because if defections, resignations or death   robbed the   Tory Party of a majority at some time in this Parliament..

But if an early election is not  called it is not inconceivable that the negotiation period could stretch deep into this Parliament or even past the 2020 date prescribed by the Fixed Term Parliaments  Act.  Implausible? Well, the first two years are almost certainly  accounted for if Article 50 is activated and it would not be that difficult to envisage Europhile British politicians colluding with EU politicians to string the matter out in the hope that time would change the political atmosphere in Britain sufficiently  to allow another referendum on whether Britain should leave the EU to be held and won by the Europhile side.

Other possibilities  would be  the election of a government comprised of one or more parties which  stood on a platform of  accepting  a  draft agreement  on offer from the EU  which would effectively  re-make Britain a member of the EU or of Britain withdrawing its application to leave  or  Britain re-applying to join the EU after leaving  it.

Because parties would have campaigned at an election for such policies any of these options could be implemented without a referendum.

What should happen?

Britain should not activate Article 50. Instead the  1972 Communities Act (the Act which gave legal force to  Britain’s membership of what became the EU)  should be repealed .  That would make the British Parliament sovereign again. Just to make sure there is no legal confusion  it would probably be advisable to enact a British sovereignty act to ensure that British judges cannot attempt to subvert Parliament’s intentions.  If  the Europhile majority in Commons refused to do this there would be a most serious constitutional crisis, the sort of crisis over which civil wars  are fought.  I doubt whether the Commons would risk that.  At  best such behaviour might well fracture parties and would sour the relationship between the electors and politicians for a long time.

The House of Lords is more problematical. They could  delay any legislation for around two years before the Parliament Act could  be used to force the legislation through. That would be a very dangerous path to go down for the Lords because it would probably result in their abolition. However, many peers might consider that a price worth paying and quite a few  both inside and outside of the Lords might see it as a solution to the anomaly of an unelected chamber  within the British political system.

Having repealed the 1972 Act and put any other necessary legislation  on the Statute Book, Britain would then be in the position of any other country outside the EU. They would negotiate with the EU on an equal basis without the EU controlling the agenda.  If the EU refuses to play ball Britain should simply trade under the WTO rules and conclude trade treaties as and when they are available and  advantageous to Britain.   Would the EU be obstructive?  I doubt it because  (1)  they have a massive trade surplus with the  Britain, (2) Britain is a partner in many  a pan-Europe enterprise ( for example, Airbus,  the European Space Agency) ,  (3) Britain is a very useful partner to have on the world stage because of her senior position in many international  bodies  (permanent member of the security council,  important member of the IMF, World Bank, Nato, G7, G20), (4) there are many  more  people from the other EU states in Britain  than there are Britons in the other EU countries and (5) the Republic of Ireland would be ruined if any serious protectionist measures aimed at Britain were enacted by the EU.  Most WTO tariffs  are low but where they are more substantial such as those attached to cars (around 10%) the odds are that the EU would rapidly make adjustments to those WTO tariffs  because they export so many cars to the UK.  The idea that nothing can be done quickly in terms of deciding the level of tariffs or their absence is obvious nonsense if  both sides want an agreement.

Britain’s negotiators, whether politicians or public servants, must be willing to play hardball. What is all too often not mentioned when tariffs being imposed by the EU  are discussed is that  Britain can impose reciprocal tariffs which would (1) bring in substantial amounts of tax and (2)  result in more British production going to the domestic British market.  The argument that Britain’s export  trade to the EU represent s  a much larger part of the British GDP than the other  EU states’ exports to the UK and consequently the EU would  not be damaged as much as the UK through a tariff war  does not hold water . This is because British exports to the EU are not spread uniformly throughout  the EU or  throughout individual members states’ economies.  Hence, the impact of  putting up barriers  to British exports would be very damaging to particular industries and areas  of EU member states. Think of the blow it would send to the German motor industry.

The repealing of the 1972 Act and what flows from it would have the great advantage of simplicity and above all speed.  Delay is the enemy of   those who want the wishes of the British people as expressed in the referendum to be honoured and the servant of those who wish to prevent Britain truly leaving the EU.  The longer the delay the more opportunity for fudge  and manipulation  by those with power.   Do not be misled by  politicians like Boris Johnson who led the Leave campaign and who will almost certainly  be at or near  the head of the government . Their embracing of the  Leave campaign  does not mean they will deal honestly with the British who voted to leave because they thought  that Britain would become truly sovereign again and above all be able  to control immigration.

Already there have been  British politicians who supported leaving the EU  who are saying that immigration will not be massively changed. For example,  Daniel Hannon a Conservative MEP and prominent Leave campaigner   told presenter Evan Davis on the BBC’s Newsnight programme: “Frankly, if people watching think that they have voted and there is now going to be zero immigration from the EU, they are going to be disappointed.” and admitted that  the price for remaining in a common market with the EU would be free movement of labour.  Boris Johnson himself has written a piece in the Telegraph saying that access to the single market would be available to the  UK after Brexit. That implies he would accept free movement of Labour for it is doubtful that EU would grant free access without mobility of Labour.

It is also noteworthy that the  line on immigration most pushed by Leave campaigners during the referendum campaign was not that immigration would be reduced dramatically  per se, but that an Australian-style points system would be introduced. If such a system was used  without a cap on numbers coming each year,   immigration could soar. Imagine that 100,000 foreign  nurses  a year meet the criteria for nurses in the UK  and want to come to Britain,  a points-system without restrictions on numbers would potentially allow all  100,000 to come in.

One thing is certain amongst the current political upheaval in Britain, the Europhiles (who can come in Eurosceptic clothing)  will not lie down and accept the verdict of the referendum.  Those who want Britain to be an a sovereign state again must be ever vigilant as to what is being done by politicians both  here in Britain and abroad. There is a real danger of the Leave victory being stolen from us.

 

Molesting justice

Robert Henderson

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Alison Saunders  is to issue new  guidance to  police forces and prosecutors on the treatment of allegations of rape, viz:

Mrs Saunders said: “For too long society has blamed rape victims for confusing the issue of consent – by drinking or dressing provocatively for example – but it is not they who are confused, it is society itself and we must challenge that.

“Consent to sexual activity is not a grey area – in law it is clearly defined and must be given fully and freely.

“It is not a crime to drink, but it is a crime for a rapist to target someone who is no longer capable of consenting to sex though drink.

“These tools take us well beyond the old saying ‘no means no’ – it is now well established that many rape victims freeze rather than fight as a protective and coping mechanism.

“We want police and prosecutors to make sure they ask in every case where consent is the issue – how did the suspect know the complainant was saying yes and doing so freely and knowingly?”

This puts  men in a tremendously vulnerable position,   because rape cases  commonly do not rest on whether intercourse has taken place or not  but whether it was consensual. Consequently,  prosecutions are inevitably tricky, frequently coming down to  one person’s word against another with little if any supporting evidence as to who is telling the truth. To muddy the evidential waters further  the vast majority of rape allegations are made against men who are known to the accuser with a significant  proportion involving someone with whom they have had a sexual relationship before the rape.

What does meaningful consent mean?  

The new guidance means that a man will take his life in his hands if he has intercourse with any woman who has taken because she had taken drink because how on Earth is he to prove the woman was compos mentis when they had sex? . To  legally  give  her consent would a woman have to be stone cold sober, with drink in her  but talking fluently, slurred in her speech but aware of where she was and what she was saying,  inebriated but able to walk unaided  or so drunk that she needed to be helped to walk?   Or would she have to be unconscious?  Then there is the question of change of mood.  A person who has drunk alcohol  may be perfectly coherent but much less inhibited and do things they would not do when sober.  Could anyone who has taken drink be considered fully competent to make the decision to have sex?

The same would apply to drugs. It would all very subjective. There would be no objective point short of someone being unconscious  where it would be possible to  categorically say consent was not meaningfully given. Consequently, any claim short on proven insensibility should not meet the criminal evidential standard of beyond a reasonable doubt.

Apart from the subjectivity attached to the  woman’s condition there is also the question of who would provide evidence that a woman was unable to give meaningful consent.   Often the only witnesses   likely to have seen the woman shortly before she left a bar or a pub with a man are people were less than sober themselves. Take a common example,  a group of men and women go on a pub crawl and  at closing time a couple pair off.  Next day the woman makes a claim of rape and cites the other people on the pub crawl as witness to her drunken state before leaving the pub. The other people may say they thought she was too drunk, pretty drunk or drunk but not staggering drunk. The problem is that those witnesses themselves were most probably drunk  and in no state to rationally  judge another person’s drunkenness or appear as credible witnesses. .

Particularly pernicious is the recent introduction into English courts  of the practice of allowing women alleging rape to simply say  they were too drunk to remember  what happened with this being  taken as evidence of an inability to give consent . It emasculates the defence of any defendant claiming that consent occurred because, intended or not, it is a  most efficient way of avoiding meaningful cross-examination by the defence. What could defence counsel  ask the alleged victim  if she says she has no recollection  of what happened  and sticks to the story?  If the alleged victim  has a past history of sleeping around  defence counsel  might make something of that (although judges have been primed to treat such questioning with hostility),  but they  would not be able to attack the question of whether she had given consent if consent is not dependent on what the alleged victim says but her  physical  state at the time of the alleged rape.

It is also very important to understand that having no recollection of what happened after drink has been taken does not mean that the woman was not capable of saying yes.   It is quite possible for a woman to have given consent  having taken a good deal of drink and yet be unable to remember what  happened  the next day either at all or with any accuracy.   This is common knowledge. Most British adults at some time will have gone out for a heavy drinking session  and woken up the next day unable to remember  what happened the night before. Nonetheless,  when meeting up with the people they were with during the drinking bout they  discover that they were fully  conscious and physically capable during the time spent drinking. They may also have been sober enough to do something complicated such as having  made a  journey home which required them  to catch the correct bus  or  train, get off at the right station and  find their way home , yet have no recollection of doing so.

What goes for alcohol applies to drugs, both in terms of the incapacitating effects and changes in psychological state. However, with drugs the varieties of mood and consciousness alteration is much more varied.

But the dangers for  men go way beyond drink  and drugs. The guidance will also cover  circumstances where “a suspect held a position of power over the potential victim – as a teacher, an employer, a doctor or a fellow gang member” , the woman had mental problems or learning difficulties or the rapist was a husband or partner on whom the woman was financially dependent.  In  all these situations the judgement would, like the question of whether someone is sufficiently incapacitated by drink or drugs , be very subjective.

Why is only the man to be held responsible?

The onus to be responsible  is all on the man.  What about the woman’s responsibility to  take account of the  man’s  intoxication?  If a woman can be deemed to be morally incapable  through drink or drugs of being responsible enough to give consent why should not a  man in the same situation be given the same licence? For example, suppose a woman goes back to a man’s home after an evening’s drinking, could it not reasonably be argued  that the woman was behaving irresponsibly because (1) she must have known that the mere fact that she has gone back to the man’s home signals to the man that sex is on the cards and (2) the woman is going to the man’s home knowing that the man is drunk enough  to have the normal moral brakes off?  Why should the woman effectively be  treated as having no moral dimension in such circumstances?

The coaching of witnesses

Not content with grossly changing the evidential burden for rape,  the DPP has also in practice  relaxed the rules on coaching prosecution witnesses , something which will have a particular value for the prosecution in rape cases because so much rests on the performance of accuser and accused when giving evidence.  The DPP announced the change in this fashion:

‘ Miss Saunders said: “This aims to give prosecutors the confidence to engage with victims and witnesses without fear of any allegations of ‘coaching’ or going too far.

“It’s about telling them what the defence case is likely to be in general terms. But it is not about telling them what their evidence should be.”

Miss Saunders said the guidance was likely to play an important role in rape and other sex cases but also in assault or harassment prosecutions.’

Even giving such general information would amount to the  coaching of witnesses  because they would not come fresh to the witness box, and  human nature being what it is the odds are that if you give people half an inch they will take a mile or at least substantially more than an inch.  Even as things were before this  change  you can bet illicit coaching goes on, especially on the part of defendants and defence witnesses..

Why does this matter?  The coaching of witnesses  in England is considered to be  forbidden, although the legal  position is not entirely clear.  Nonetheless, it is generally accepted that coaching should be avoided. There is an excellent reason for this: the evidence a witness gives is meant to be their honest recollection based on what they experienced.  That can be simply their unaided memory or what they have written down in for example a diary or statement.   If they are rehearsed, as they can be in other jurisdictions such as the USA,  the evidence they give will inevitably be different from what they would give if un-coached. For example, knowing that sexual history of an alleged victim will be  part of the defence will most probably set the  alleged victim thinking of how she can deal with questions about  any embarrassing or compromising behaviour  in her past in a way she  probably would not do if left unaware of what  the defence against her accusations was to be. Coaching  also robs counsel of the element of surprise when cross-examining, a major  weapon in their armoury.

The anonymity of alleged rape victims

All of this new distortion of the English judicial system comes  on top  of the  hobbling of it by granting  the alleged victims of sexual offences  anonymity for life whether or not a conviction is obtained.  This amounts to secret justice which is wrong in principle  because how can the public judged that justice is being done. In the case of rape allegations this secrecy could also severely disadvantage a defendant.

The argument is routinely made by the politically correct  that publicising the name of the accused names in rape cases   is useful  because it may persuade other women to come forward to say that an accused has also sexually molested them .  But the same argument applies to making the names of alleged victims of rape public,  because a woman may have a record of making such allegations and publicising her name and that fact she is making an allegation of rape could  persuade  people who  were the subject of false allegations of rape or who simply know someone who has made such claims before to come forward to cast doubt on the veracity of  an accuser.

Why is this happening?

It is because the rate of successful prosecutions is low compared with the number of claims of rape made to the police –  approximately 1,000 successful prosecutions  in the year to June 2014 . Almost inevitably in these politically correct times there is pressure from those with power wealth and influence to treat the low  rate of conviction not as a natural consequence of  the difficult nature of the evidence  –  the man’s word against the woman’s – in most cases,   but as a flaw in the way the police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) handles rape allegations. The fact that we have a woman DPP probably acts as a catalyst for such changes.

Nor is this likely to be the end of alterations to rape allegations. Saunders appeared on the  BBC Radio 4 programme Unreliable Evidence on 27 January 2015. The programme was devoted to the changes to the way rape allegations are treated. The question of false rape allegations came up and there was  a serious discussion amongst the contributors to the programme about changing the charge for such crimes  from perverting the course of justice (a heavyweight law carrying a maximum of life imprisonment) to the much less serious charge of wasting police time. If such a change did take place it would be wholly wrong because a false accusation of rape can blight a man’s life. If anything the sentences such women get are far too lenient because they are so much less than the average rapist gets. There is a good case for saying women convicted for making false accusation should receive the same  sentence the person they have falsely accused would have got if they had been wrongly convicted of rape based on the false evidence.

ADC John Grieve and Greg Dyke’s “Hideously white BBC”

Those following the Stephen Lawrence: the never ending story will have registered the involvement of Assistant Deputy Commissioner John Grieve in the secret recording of  Duwayne Brookes and his lawyer.

I crossed swords with Grieve back in 2001 when he was  Director of the Racial and Violent Crime Task Force of the Metropolitan Police. Greg Dyke,  then the Chairman of the BBC, described the Corporation as “Hideously white” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2001/jan/08/uknews1).  This was a clear incitement to hatred of the white population of Britain by someone in a position of considerable power and influence so I made a complaint to Grieve asking him to investigate Dyke for inciting racial hatred.  He refused to act, even after the now Tory Minister Gerald Howarth intervened asking him why he would not investigate.

In the case of incitement to racial hatred cases the police  operate a double standard: if the complainant is from an ethnic minority they investigate; if the complainant is white they refuse  investigate and often  refuse to even record the complaint.  The police response  to my  complaint against Dyke shows unequivocally  how reluctant the police are  to investigate complaints of racial incitement when  the complaint is made by someone white concerning abuse of that racial group.  Where such a complaint  involves someone considered to be part of the politically correct elite there is no chance whatsoever of it being investigated.

Below  is the correspondence relating to the Dyke complaint:

The fact that the very pc copper Grieve is now under fire for his actions relating to the Lawrence story is a delicious irony.

————————————————————————————–

                                              18 January 2001

Asst Dept. Comm. John Grieve

Racial and Violent Crimes Squad

Metropolitan Police

New Scotland Yard

10 The Broadway

London SWlH 6BG

cc All national newspapers

Gerald Howorth MP

Dear Mr Grieve,

I  ask  you to take investigate  the statement  by  the   BBC   Director  General,  Greg Dyke,  that the  BBC  is  “hideously   white” for inciting racial hatred.

The  statement  is unambiguously racist because  Mr  Dyke  is  making  a statement about a  recognised racial group and   the    use  of  the word “hideously”  is highly  inflammatory.   The         extremely unpleasant nature of it can be seen by substituting    black  or  Asian  for white:  “hideously  black”,  “hideously    Asian”.  Its  effect  can only be  to  incite  racial  hatred   against whites.

The  severity  of  the offence is greatly  magnified  by   Mr    Dyke’s position as the head of our  state funded broadcaster.   I enclose a cutting from the Sunday Telegraph dated 7/1/2001,  to formally substantiate the statement Mr Dyke made.

I  am  sure that the severity of the offence  and  Mr  Dyke’s  position will lead a fervent anti-racist such as yourself  to  take immediate and exemplary action.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

——————————————————————

John G D Grieve CBE QPM BA (Hons) M.Phil

Deputy Assistant Commissioner

Director, Racial & Violent Crime Task Force

Room 936 New Scotland Yard

Broadway LONDON

SWIH 0BG

Telephone: 0171-230-4186

Facsimile: 0171-230-2152

E-Mail: athena.met police@gtnet.gov, uk

Date: 31 January 2001

Dear Mr Henderson

I acknowledge receipt of your letter dated 18th January, 2001  concerning remarks made by Mr Greg Dyke, the Director General   of the  BBC.

When the Racial and Violent Crime Task Force was  established   in 1998 it was given clear terms of reference, which included  that  it   would only be tasked at the direct request  of  an   Assistant   Commissioner   from  within  this   Service.   In   acknowledgement  of the concerns  expressed about race  crime   and to endorse divisions as the focal point of  police-public   interference we established Community Safety  Units in  every  London Borough.

I have not seen or heard the comments you refer to but if you  feel  that  they may constitute a criminal  offence  you  can  report  the   matter  to  your  local  police  for   possible   investigation.

Yours sincerely

Detective Inspector Howard Gosling

Staff   Officer   to  John  G  D  Grieve   Deputy   Assistant    Commissioner

——————————————————————

12 February 2001

Mr John Stevens

Metropolitan Police Commissioner

New Scotland Yard

10 The Broadway

London SWlH 6BG

cc All national newspapers

Gerald Howorth MP

Dear Mr Stevens,

I  enclose a copy of a letter I sent to John Grieve making  a   formal complaint against the BBC Director-General, Greg Dyke,   for his remarks about the BBC being “hideously white”.

A  DI Gosling has replied on behalf of Mr Grieve.  A copy  of   his letter is enclosed. It is the type of letter which brings   the  public service into contempt.

DI Gosling makes himself ridiculous when he says “I have  not   seen or heard the comments you refer to…” Not only would he  have  had to be living in a cave for the past few months  not   to have met them through the general media coverage,  I  sent    a newspaper cutting giving the story and offending words with   my original letter of complaint to John Grieve.

DI Gosling is begging the question when he says that an  Asst   Commissioner must “task”  Grieve’s group before action can be   taken.  The proper procedure when a complaint is made to John   Grieve is for it to be submitted to an Asst Commissioner.  If   it was rejected as inappropriate for action by the RVCTF,  it   should  have been submitted to my nearest police  station  in  accordance with standard police practice.  However,  this  is  manifestly  a  complaint which is suitable for  John  Grieve,   because  it  involves a public figure  with  great  practical influence and the words used were highly inflammatory.

I  ask you to take up the complaint and instruct John  Grieve    to investigate it forthwith.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

——————————————————————

6 March 2001

Mr John Stevens

Metropolitan Police Commissioner

New Scotland Yard

10 The Broadway

London SWlH 6BG

cc All national newspapers

Gerald Howorth MP

Dear Mr Stevens,

I  wrote to you on 12 February concerning an absurd  reply  I  had  received  from  the  Racial  and  Violent  Crimes  Squad    following  a  complaint  I  had made  about  Greg  Dyke,  the   Director  General of the BBC (copy enclosed).  I have had  no   answer from you.  My original letter was sent, as is this, by  recorded delivery,  so please do not waste your time and mine  claiming it was not received.

If you refuse to address this complaint honestly,  it will be   unambiguous   proof that your police force is not  interested  in   applying   the  law  equally.   Dyke’s   comments   were  unambiguously  racist and his position in charge of the  only state broadcaster amplified them greatly.

I suggest you reply by return of post.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

——————————————————————

10-March 2001

Mr John Stevens

Metropolitan Police Commissioner

New Scotland Yard

10 The Broadway

London SWlH 6BG

cc All national newspapers

Gerald Howorth MP

Dear Mr Stevens,

I have Mr Grieve’s letter of 2 March in response to my letter   to you of 12 February. A bald refusal to act will not do.

Anne   Robinson,   a   presenter,    makes   some   obviously    tongue-in-cheek   remarks  about  the  Welsh  on   a   comedy    programme:  result – the matter is referred to the police who  take  it seriously and begin preparing a file for  the  Crown  Prosecution Service.

Greg  Dyke,  the Director-General of the  state  broadcasting   service,  the BBC,  states that his senior management team is   “hideously  white”.  Mr Dyke is (1) the most powerful man  in  British broadcasting  and (2) the  remark  is  unambiguously    racist  in the crudest fashion and feeds the  resentments  of    the minorities in Britain. Yet you  refuse to act. Why?

I repeat what I said in my letter of 6 March,  every time  you    refuse  to apply the law even-handedly,  a nail is knocked  in  the coffin of your credibility and that of your force.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

——————————————————————

                                                                  2 April  2001

Sir John Stevens

Metropolitan Police Commissioner

New Scotland Yard

10 The Broadway

London SWlH 6BG

cc All national newspapers

Gerald Howorth MP

Dear Sir John,

My apologies for missing your ‘K’ in previous letters. I have   had  no reply to my letter (sent by recorded delivery) of  10   March.  A  copy is attached.  Are you refusing to  give  your   reasons  for  failing  to  act  against  Greg  Dyke  for  his   “hideously white” comment?

I would also like answers to these questions:

–  How many of the 100 odd people arrested for “hate  crimes”    by  the Metropolitan Police on 20th  March were a) black  and   b) Asian?

–  How much of the Met’s total budget for the financial  year  ending 5/4/2001 (or any other accounting period you use)  has  been spent on “anti-racist” measures including training?

–  How much of the Met’s total budget for the financial  year  ending 5/4/2001 (or any other accounting period you use)  has  been spent investigating crimes formally classified as racist  by the Met?

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

——————————————————————

GERALD HOWARTH MP

HOUSE OF COMMONS

LONDON SW1A 0AA Direct line: 020 7219 5650

Fax: 020 7219 1198

19th March 2001

Dear Mr Grieve,

Mr Robert Henderson of 156 Levita House,  Chalton Street,  London NWl 1HR,  wrote to the commissioner about Mr Greg Dyke’s remarks  about  theBBC  being  ‘hideously  white’.  I do think the police owe  us  all  an explanation as to why those remarks -quite clearly racial  – warrant no reaction  from yourselves whilst the remarks of Ann Robinson about  the Welsh do.

What is the difference?

Yours sincerely,

Gerald Howorth

John G. D. Grieve Esq CBE, QPM,

Deputy Asst Commissioner

Director, Racial and Violent Crime Task Force

Room 936, New Scotland Yard

Broadway, SWIH OBG

GERALD HOWARTH MP

HOUSE OF COMMONS LONDON SW1A 0AA

Direct line: 020 7219 5650

Fax:    020 7219 1198

8th May 2001

Dear Mr Grieve,

Thank  you  for your letter of 26th April about the case raised  by  Mr Robert Henderson of 156 Levita House, Chalton Street, London  NWl 1 HR, about the remarks attributed to the Director General of the BBC.

You  will not be surprised to know that I am well aware of the  demands on  police  time and resources and support the  priority  of   tackling serious  crime.  However,  I  simply put it to  you:  what  would  have happened  had I referred to the music profession as  being   “hideously black”.  Can you not imagine that you would have been faced with  calls for me to be prosecuted and Mr Hague called upon to  expel me from  the Conservative Party?

It is that inequality of treatment which I find so offensive.

Yours sincerely

Gerald Howorth MP

John G. D. Grieve Esq CBE, QPM,

Deputy Asst Commissioner

Director, Racial and Violent Crime Task Force

Room 936, New Scotland Yard

Broadway, SW1H OBG

Emma West’s trial scheduled for the sixth time

Robert Henderson

Emma West was due to stand trial at Croydon Crown Court for  two racially aggravated public order offences  arising from her complaint about  mass immigration and its effects made on a Croydon tram  in November 2011 . The trial has been delayed yet again and she will now (allegedly) stand trial on 10 May.[1]

The authorities are extracting the bodily fluids if they expect the general public to believe there is a legitimate reason for the delay.  The 10 May will be the sixth (yes, that is the sixth) trial date Ms West has been given since she was arrested .  By 10 May she will have been waiting to be tried for just short of eighteen months. The delay  is patently unreasonable.

The latest  excuse  given for the inordinate delay are “legal reasons”.   The only likely reasons are political ones, namely, her trial will challenge to politically correct status quo. This is because unlike virtually everyone else who has been charged with these type of offences she has made it clear she will be pleading NOT GUILTY.   The authorities simply  do not know what to do with her.

There is an added complication. When the previous re-scheduling happened the charges of assault against two police offices during the investigation of her case were also delayed  -they were originally due to be held on 3 March and were re-scheduled for 15 April.[2]

It will be interesting to see if these cases (to be heard in a magistrates’ court) go ahead on the 15 April or are put back yet again.   The authorities may have decided they want these cases to be heard before the racially aggravated public order offences. That could be to her disadvantage not just because it would taint her with  a criminal conviction before her Crown Court trial, but even more  dangerously because a criminal conviction for violence could provide the local social services with grounds for removing or threatening to remove her young son.  That might well be used as a lever to persuade her to plead guilty.  It is all too easy to imagine the cant the social services could come out with: “If you show remorse, Emma,  it may be possible to let you keep your child because it shows willingness to change. But if you stubbornly stick to your  not guilty plea we may have to take your son away from you because you are an unfit mother.”

The other possibility is that if the assault charges  are heard on  15 April and she is found guilty, she might be sent to prison. This would be very unusual for common assault cases, but the fact that the alleged victims are police officers might give the magistrates grounds for doing so. If that happened her son would probably be taken into care.  Whether she would ever get him back is a moot point. This scenario could of course also be used to frighten her in pleading guilty.

Crime, punishment and public confidence in justice

Robert Henderson

The ex-minister Chris Huhne and his erstwhile wife  Vikky Pryce were sentenced to 8 months imprisonment for perverting the course of justice (http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/chris-huhne-and-vicky-pryce-jail-sentences-not-unduly-lenient-8546334.html).  No, hang on, they have really been sentenced to probably two, possibly  three months inside  with perhaps a month or two  with a tag and a curfew. This fudging of reality   is undermining the English justice system.

The fact that  a  headline prison sentence is wildly different from the time actually served  is probably the main  reason why public confidence in the justice system is so weak.  It is not that the public necessarily want  longer sentences. Rather, it is the effect of judges saying, for example, five years when what they probably mean in practice is  two  years  in prison that makes the public think that the criminal is getting away with it.  Much better to say the sentence is two years because then there is no sense in the public mind of any discount on what should have been given.  Nor would the public be confused as to what a sentence actually was, something which is the case now with members of the public very often being unsure of how much time is remitted from the headline sentence.

The objection normally given to the headline sentence being the actual sentence to be served is that there would be no incentive for  prisoners to behave whilst in prison. This objection does not hold water. If prisoners commit a criminal offence whilst in prison they can be tried for that which is a pretty big incentive for most prisoners as they will not be serving long sentences.  Even for long term prisoners  there is a good deal of leverage  for the staff because they hold the threat of the withdrawal of privileges as penalties. It would also be possible to create a new criminal offence of persist refusal to obey orders for prisoners who are the most wilfully disruptive.  There would be nothing novel in the idea of persistent  behaviour being required for a criminal offence.  There is no  absolute requirement on a police officer to take any action if a minor offence is committed, for example, a police officer  will often tell someone to stop disturbing the peace and if they do that is the end of the matter.  Some laws, such as those dealing with harassment require repeat behaviour for an offence to be committed.  There really is no reason to believe  prison staff would be left without enough leverage to ensure good  prisoner  behaviour.

Using the Huhne/Price case as an example,  the judge to be able to say  when giving sentence “You will serve 4 months in prison conditional on your good behaviour whilst there. Any misbehaviour may  result in loss of privileges or in extreme cases a criminal charge resulting in  further time served.”

It is possible that there might be some increase in the length of time prisoners’ served under such a regime, but that is unlikely to be a  massive problem for short term prisoners (the vast majority) because you can put them in  an open prison and most will stay there because it is just not worth  escaping. Open prisons are cheap to create and run: closed prisons are the reverse.

I cannot really see any alternative to prison in terms of convincing the public that crime really does not pay. Polls consistently show the public have contempt for non-custodial sentences and it  is hard fact that fines frequently remain unpaid [1] and community work sentences undone[2] or are ineffective in reducing further offending[3]  .  As things stand the non-prison penalties given out by the English justice system is too complicated and bureaucratic for most people to understand or,  even if they do understand, to have  much credence to as a punishment. Anything other than prison is generally viewed as a soft option.

The way to tackle the general problem of a large prison population  is to reduce crime. This could be done in half a dozen ways.   Removing the mentally ill from prison and treating them as ill rather than criminal would be a good start. Legalising all drugs would reduce the prison population radically (in 2002 the Audit Commission estimated that  half of all crime in England Wales was drug-related  including drug related offences or offences committed to gain money for drugs[4]); ending immigration would cut off another large slice and  deporting immigrants who have committed crime would remove many offenders. Ensuring all children of normal mental function had mastered the three Rs by the time they had left school so they were employable and creating a high wage economy by tightening the labour market would reduce the need and temptation for crime.

 

The Stephen Lawrence killing: Are we in for more legally rickety convictions?

Robert Henderson

It is reported that  Gary Dobson, one of the two men convicted of the murder of  the black teenager Stephen Lawrence,  has dropped his appeal against conviction (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2293994/Gary-Dobson-drops-fight-appeal-conviction-Stephen-Lawrence-murder.html#ixzz2Nhn1xdoO).  However, the dropping of the appeal does not necessarily mean Dobson has admitted the crime.  It is unclear from media reports including the Daily Mail report (see url above) whether he has simply dropped the appeal or has  made a confession. If it is the latter, this raises the possibility that he may turn Queen’s evidence in an attempt by the state to prosecute others for the crime.

It is worth noting that the man convicted with Dobson, David Norris,  has not withdrawn his appeal. This could be a pointer to Dobson simply having dropped his appeal.  Why would Dobson simply drop an appeal if he was innocent? Mental and emotional exhaustion, perhaps, but it could also be because he has been advised that the appeal if unsuccessful could extend his  stay in prison because of the latitude given to the Parole Board over the release or otherwise of life sentence prisoners. This latter consideration could also have a role to play if Dobson has admitted to the crime.

If Dobson  has admitted to the murder why would he do so now when he had denied it for some twenty years,  including at the trial which convicted him in 2011?  (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/stephen-lawrence-gary-dobson-david-norris-and-a-political-trial/).  Almost certainly it would be in the hope that  his judge-recommended minimum sentence (the tariff) of 15 years and 2 months (as he has a life sentence it could be much longer) would be reduced or even that he will get out when the recommended minimum sentence has been served. Indeed,  Dobson would have  good reason to believe that as things stand he will not be released after the minimum sentence has been served,  because when the sentences were handed down there was a good deal of media and political frothing about the length of the minimum sentences handed down to Dobson and his fellow defendant  David Norris,  (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8994957/Stephen-Lawrence-murder-Attorney-General-to-review-sentences.html),  despite the fact  that they were aged  17 and 16 at the time of the killing and were consequently sentenced as juveniles (http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/sentencing_-_mandatory_life_sentences_in_murder_cases/#an07).

There is also another reason.  The English parole system no longer requires as a matter of course an admission of guilt before someone with a life sentence is granted parole : ”It is encouraging that the typology has been embraced by the prison service and the parole board for prisoners maintaining innocence while serving indeterminate sentences (where the prisoner has no release date and does not get out until a parole board decides he or she is no longer a risk to the public). Previously, such prisoners were treated as “deniers” with no account taken of the various reasons for maintaining innocence, nor the fact that some may actually be innocent.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/may/08/innocence-network). However, this is a recent development and only those deemed to have a strong  chance of being innocent are likely to  escape the innocent prisoner’s dilemma of choosing between admitting guilt or not being released when the minimum sentence has been served. Bearing in mind the general atmosphere surrounding the Lawrence case,  it is improbable that Dobson  would have had any real chance of being released  when his minimum sentence was  served if he had not confessed.

If Dobson has admitted the murder and is willing to appear as a witness for the Crown in the prosecution of others he claims were also responsible, it is  far from clear  what weight his evidence could be given.  To begin with there would be the problem that he is a proven liar. In addition he would be vulnerable to questioning about  vested interests in making the admission and of giving evidence  (leniency in the application of his life sentence and possibly the gaining of  privileges within prison).

Then there is the nature of the evidence he could provide. Unless he could do something  dramatic such as reveal where the murder weapon was kept and that  weapon could be found and be shown to have contained the DNA of Lawrence and the DNA or prints of others,  presumably all  Dobson could offer would be his testimony of having been engaged in the murder with others who he has now identified.  Then it would simply be his word – the word of a proven liar – against the word of  others.   That would surely not meet the Crown Prosecution Tests of a better than 50% chance of conviction before they proceed with a prosecution.

Even if a prosecution did go ahead simply with Dobson’s testimony as evidence, there would be grave pitfalls for the prosecution over and above Dobson’s record of lying, assuming that any admission he made was genuine.  The killing took place twenty years ago.  Consequently, there would be every chance that defence lawyers would be able to throw considerable doubt upon anything Dobson said in evidence simply by confusing him under cross examination by catching him out on contradictions, wrong dates and so on.  If Dobson’s admission was not genuine, but just made to try to obtain leniency from the Parole Board the position would become next to impossible for the prosecution because the it is rare indeed to find anyone who can produce and maintain  a coherent and consistent story if it is untrue.  (Inconsistency can be misleading because a too consistent story is suspicious in itself because it suggests fabrication and coaching. However, juries will not generally realise this. All they will see is the contradictions in evidence).

Would all this mean that no one would be convicted simply on Dobson’s testimony? Sadly, no. The trial of Dobson and Norris was severely flawed both because it was impossible for the two defendants to get a fair trial because of the intensive political and media hate campaign directed at the pair for 18 years and because of the feeble new forensic evidence which was the justification for the trial. The full details of that trial can be found at http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/stephen-lawrence-gary-dobson-david-norris-and-a-political-trial/.  Because of the politicisation of this case  it is not unreasonable to suspect a prosecution on Dobson’s evidence alone would be made and convictions gained from a jury simply because of the background to the case. Let us hope that is not the case.

 

Emma West trial scheduled for the fifth time

Robert Henderson

A fifth, yes that’s fifth,  date for the start of Emma West’s trial on criminal charges arising from her complaint about  mass immigration and its effects made on a Croydon tram  in November 2011 has been set  for  9th April (http://www.thisiscroydontoday.co.uk/New-date-trial-alleged-Croydon-tram-racist-Emma/story-18324751-detail/story.html#ixzz2NP2WTqtB). Assuming it actually takes place it will have taken over sixteen  months  since being charged with racially aggravated public order offences. (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/emma-west-immigration-and-the-liberal-totalitarian-state/).

Justice delayed is justice denied. The delay here is unconscionable because her comments on the tram were recorded by a fellow passenger and the only points at issue are (1) whether the recording has been doctored; (2) whether what was said or happened before the recording began have relevance to the context of the remarks, for example, was there any provocation offered to Miss West; (3) whether the remarks were racist or fair comment and (4) the condition of Miss West at the time.  None of this should take such an age to determine.

The  delay is plausibly not down to any practical or legal reason,  but the fact that Miss West has done something very unusual by maintaining a plea of Not Guilty throughout her ordeal, despite being imprisoned for two weeks in the nearest there is to a Category A prison in England for women HMP Bronzefield after being refused bail on the bogus grounds that it was “for her own safety” and having the threat of her child being taken away hanging over her.

The powers-that-be cannot be doing with  people designated as having committed politically correct crimes not coming quietly by pleading guilty and making a Maoist-style public confession of fault . That is especially the case where the accusation is one of racism.  Emma West represents real danger to the authorities because a not guilty plea raises the possibility of that being discussed  in public which the politically correct most dread: the policy of mass immigration of the UK, overtly and covertly practised by ever government since the war, and its effects.  The ridiculous delay has been in all probability simply a cynical ploy to wear Miss West down and get her to plead guilty.

During the time since the original charges, Miss West has been further charged with assaulting two police officers at her home. These charges were due to be heard in a magistrates court  on 3rd March but have been delayed until after her trial on the  racial harassment charges.  Presuming she did not attack them with a deadly weapon or seriously harm them – something suggested by the cases being dealt with in a magistrates court – is it really in the public interest to prosecute her considering the stress she has been placed under by the oppressive action of the state in charging her for what is an illegitimate crime in a free society, her imprisonment, the threat of taking her child away and great the delay?  If this alleged assault merely consisted of, say, Miss West pushing the officers, or resisting when she was  physically held by the officers, a prosecution would be wholly unreasonable in the circumstances.

The authorities may simply have decided they can no longer string things out and have to bring the case to trial or drop the charges.  However things could be rather more sinister.  The delaying of the assault charges could be used as a carrot to get her to plead guilty (you plead guilty and we will drop the charges) or,  if she is found not guilty of the racial harassment charges, a means of punishing her by convicting her of assault which could be a lever for the social services to take her son into care.

If the case is delayed again it will be impossible to offer any plausible  explanation but deliberate interference with justice by those with power and influence.

Courage is the best defence against charges of racism

Robert Henderson

The trial of Emma West on two racially aggravated public order charges which was scheduled for 11 June has been postponed until 16 July to enable further psychiatric reports to be prepared. (http://www.thisiscroydontoday.co.uk/Emma-West-race-rant-trial-moved-July/story-16346869-detail/story.html).

As Miss West was charged over six months ago and has been  brought before courts several times,  it does seem rather strange that psychiatric reports need to be prepared now, especially as it was made clear months ago that she was being treated for depression when the events took place and had taken a double dose of her normal medication on the day of the alleged offences, both of which were of obvious utility as defences or mitigation. If they were going to be used by the defence surely psychiatric reports would have been made long ago. Had Miss West suddenly decided to plead guilty that could explain it, but there is no evidence that she has changed her plea. Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that she  has stood firm on her intention to plead not guilty That would make her a decidedly rare bird amongst those who have found themselves arraigned in Britain on criminal charges merely for expressing non-pc views about mass immigration and its effects in general or for challenging the politically correct elite ideology in a particular instance where they have become embroiled in a dispute with someone who is black, Asian or a white person who claims ethnic minority status. Such a plea would also be a most unwelcome development for those who have brought her to trial.

The British liberal elite relies on fear to drive the enforcement of their totalitarian doctrine of political correctness, of which multiculturalism and “anti-racism” form the central part. The political elite – backed and aided by their auxiliaries in the mainstream media, public service, academia and the ethnic minorities themselves,  with big business tagging along provided the globalist and laissez faire tune is played by the politicians  – create and feed on that fear in various ways. They pass laws which make employers vulnerable to claims of racial and sexual discrimination; make the loss of a job, especially in publicly funded jobs, commonplace for those judged to have committed a politically incorrect “crime!” and criminalise dissent from those in the native British population who repudiate the idea of mass immigration as a good and lament the willful tainting of what was until the 1950s a remarkably homogenous population.

The political elite and their auxiliaries have been very successful to date in controlling dissent both through the creation of fear and the willing collusion of the mainstream media who happily accept the restrictions of Acts such as the Race Relations Act (9176), the 1986 Public Order Act and the Race Relations Amendment Act (2000) whilst proclaiming their belief in free expression. But the trick, like all acts of censorship and propaganda, only works while alternative views are excluded from the public fold.

What every liberal knows in his or her heart of hearts is that the creed they supposedly live by is no more than an aspiration and the reality of the time they live in is that human beings generally do not wish to live according to the dictates of political correctness and, most particularly, are naturally antagonistic to the idea that homo sapiens is just one big happy species without any meaningful innate or ineradicable cultural differentiation.  This means that any breach in the public censorship of politically incorrect ideas represents a potent danger for the British elite. They realize that if the truth is told about both the consequences of  mass immigration and the feelings of the native British towards it, the pack of ideological cards will tumble down, just as it did in the Soviet Union where the discontinuity between the political rhetoric of a communist paradise with equality, bumper harvests and every increasing industrial production contrasted fantastically with the miserable material lives of the Soviet masses and the brutal repression and ever more absurd Marxist-Leninist dogma.  In the case of the liberal regime in Britain, the equivalent absurdities are the liberal’s insistence that mass immigration had been a most wondrous boon bringing huge economic benefits and marvelous cultural enrichment while the large majority of the native population saw, often at first hand, the reality of the “cultural enrichment” as areas were effectively colonized, crime, especially violent crime, committed on an industrial scale by immigrants and their descendants, traditional British freedoms rapidly eroded in the name of multiculturalism and protest against the effects of immigration criminalized.

The elite fear of the public contradiction of the politically correct narrative on race and immigration  may have caused the postponement of Emma West’s trial to either prepare the ground to get her to change her plea to guilty or have her declared unfit to plead, the latter being the ideal result for the authorities because it would allow her to be represented as mad. This would fit beautifully with the liberal idea that only the mentally ill can hold non-pc views.

Until the last few years there have not been many prosecutions for inciting racial hatred or allied crimes. Instead, the British elite have relied on visits by the police to people who have had the temerity to put golliwogs on sale in their shop or make some mildly non-pc comment which has got into the media. It is very rare that charges have been brought, not least because the “crimes” they are supposedly investigating are often difficult to identify under existing laws. But an eagerly complicit British media has made sure that such action by the police is given great publicity.  This has laid the foundation for the general fear now present amongst the native British of voicing or even being associated with someone who voices a politically incorrect opinion, a fear symbolized by the almost inevitable “I’m not a racist” disclaimer when someone ventures to express mild concern about immigration or the behavior of a particular ethnic minority or even, because the “anti-racism” disease has become hideously virulent, a criticism of any person drawn from a pc protected group.

In the past few years more and more cases have ended up in court, two of the most recent being the jailing for 21 weeks of Jacqueline Woodhouse for behavior similar to that of Miss West and the Swansea U student Liam Stacey, who was jailed for 56 days after making comments deemed to be racist on Twitter (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2012/05/31/prison-for-merely-speakingnon-custodial-sentences-for-sustained-physical-attacks/). Both played the liberal game of Maoist-style confession which did them no good at all.

Sadly, very few native Britons in the past forty years have pleaded not guilty when charged with racially based offences. They have allowed themselves to be either intimidated into pleading guilty or on the rare occasions when a not guilty plea has been entered, gone along at their lawyers’ insistence with either a technical defence, for example, claims that they were wrongly charged or the evidence used was inadmissible , or a defence which does not say they had the democratic right to say or write whatever it was they said or wrote, but only challenges the charges on the grounds of what the words meant in the context of the law, for example, in the case of charges under section 5 of the 1986 Public Order Act were the words insulting, viz:

(1)A person is guilty of an offence if he— .

(a)uses towards another person threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or .

(b)distributes or displays to another person any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting, .

with intent to cause that person to believe that immediate unlawful violence will be used against him or another by any person, or to provoke the immediate use of unlawful violence by that person or another, or whereby that person is likely to believe that such violence will be used or it is likely that such violence will be provoked. (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64).

The liberal elite fear anyone who pleads not guilty, even if it is on grounds, such as those just described, which do not challenge  directly the basis of the multicultural fantasy. This is because any contested trial brings into the public fold a dissenting voice and , consequently,  demonstrates  that the law is being used in a way which is incompatible with either a free society or a democracy, because it is inherent in the concepts of both a free society and a democracy that any opinion must be allowed to be argued or by definition the society is neither free nor a democracy.

If someone charged with politically correct “crimes” puts forward a defence that the laws under which they are charged are illegitimate because the laws are tyrannical and destructive of both freedom and democratic participation, the problem for the liberal elite is much amplified because it nakedly reveals their hypocrisy. Whilst happily using and tolerating the use of power appropriate only for a totalitarian state,  the official liberal line is that they are the most wonderfully moral and tolerant people in the world who find any form of discrimination or imposition of values obnoxious. Any person who wished to mount a forthright defence on the grounds of free expression and democratic participation would be  crying that the Emperor had no clothes.

The other very damaging possibility(for liberals) would be if a defendant argued that a failure to apply the law regarding racial incitement, threat, insult and so on equally rendered the law both morally null and legally incomprehensible, because it was literally impossible for any individual to judge what was and what was not illegal.  This would be very simple to do because there are many glaring examples of blacks engaging in racist abuse of whites not being judged to have committed racist crimes – two prime examples can be found in http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2012/05/31/prison-for-merely-speakingnon-custodial-sentences-for-sustained-physical-attacks/.

To these instances of double standards  can be added the vast numbers of incitements to racial hatred against the native white population of Britain by politicians, the mainstream media, academics and ethnic minority spokesmen who insist that Britain is a racist society because its native white population is racist. These not only attract no attention from the police but no condemnation by politicians or the mainstream media. ( I referred Greg Dyke when Director-General of the BBC to Scotland Yard  after he referred to the BBC staff as “hideously white”, a clear incitement to hatred against whites and especially potent because of his public position. Scotland Yard refused to open an investigation).

This brings us back to the question of why Emma West has been referred for psychiatric reports. The authorities have already done their best to intimidate her. After Miss West’s arrest she was held on remand “for her own protection” according to the court in Bronzefield Prison, the nearest to a high security Category A prison in England, a prison which has housed amongst others the mass murderess Rosemary West. They did this despite the facts that  (1) she made no request for protection nor was any firm evidence of serious threats to her safety produced.and (2) she has a three year old son to look after. (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/emma-west-immigration-and-the-liberal-totalitarian-state-part-2/)

Despite these intimidating experiences and the danger that her son may be taken from her by social services, Miss West still appears to want to plead not guilty. If she is resolute in that, her best way of winning her case or, quite possibly ,having the case dropped before it comes to court , is to fight the charges on the  grounds that they are an affront to free expression and democracy.  Miss West should also add the double standards in applying the law to the embarrassment she can cause the liberal elite. If she relies on a defence or mitigation based on her history of depression or the medication she took, it is unlikely to save her from conviction or provide much by way of mitigation because she has pleaded not guilty. There would be every chance she would go to prison and/or lose custody of her son.

What I recommend to Miss West is good advice to anyone who is arrested for a “racial crime”.  Make it clear from the moment you are approached by the police that you will plead not guilty on the grounds that free expression is a necessity in a free society and to engage in the democratic process.  There is a fair chance they will not even caution you, let alone try to bring you to court because the last thing the British political elite want are large numbers of trials with the defendants pointing out that the liberal emperor has no clothes.

Easy to say, difficult to do  I can hear people saying.. That is true. Being brave in such circumstances is deeply difficult, even for those  in political parties which have some public profile and base their politics on politically incorrect ideas of race and immigration.  In 2005 the leader of the BNP Nick Griffin emailed me to ask whether I would appear as a witness in a court case in which he was appearing as a defendant to charges of .  I had never met, spoken to or exchanged emails or letters with the man before his email arrived, nor had any dealings with him after our 2005 exchange of emails.

Griffin contacted me because Tony and Cherie Blair, quite bizarrely, attempted to have me prosecuted, and failed dismally, under the Malicious Communications Act during the 1997 General Election. Those interested in the case can find a summary at http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2010/10/26/when-tony-and-cherie-blair-tried-to-have-me-jailed/. He wanted me to give evidence which showed political tampering with the justice system.  This I agreed to do because Griffin was “the subject of both a  political law and a political prosecution.” . I wrote a detailed note which both laid out what evidence I could bring and my advice about how he could best run his defence.  Griffin accepted this then did precisely what I had warned him against doing, namely, letting his lawyers run a defence which did not defend the principle of free expression. Griffin was found not guilty but that verdict left him with a problem he cannot shake off. By allowing the defence he did, he tacitly accepted the legitimacy of the laws under which he was charged. I include the relevant exchange of emails with Griffin at the end of this article.

If the leader of a political party with enough support to justify the odd media appearance cannot be brave, why should the ordinary person be brave?  If the arguments about the value of free expression do not convince, consider the fate of  those who have been brought before courts in recent times. Jacqueline Woodhouse and Liam Stacey pleaded guilty and made the most abject public apologies. It did not save them.  They were both sent to prison for merely speaking in a country where burglars commonly do not receive a prison sentence  until their third or fourth conviction and violent assaults by blacks on whites receive community service, for example, . http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2070562/Muslim-girl-gang-kicked-Rhea-Page-head-yelling-kill-white-slag-FREED.html#ixzz1flw8TY6p.

Nor will the effects of meekly pleading guilty be over after your court appearance is done and your sentence served.  You will probably lose your job and find it difficult to get another one.  If you are in higher education you will probably be excluded from the university, either temporarily or permanently.  Even if you do complete your course, your job prospects will be blighted because prospective employers will have somewhere in their minds a memory of your trial and the publicity surrounding it. Depending on your social circumstances, you may find yourself socially ostracized if you are middle class or be an object of fear to anyone because you will carry the label “racist” around with you and that will make you seem dangerous to most people regardless of their private views on race and immigration. In short, pleading guilty is never going to be an easy way out.   At worst, if you are going to pick up a criminal record and possibly a prison sentence, you can  keep your self-respect intact by fighting the case on the grounds of freedom of expression and the right to tell the truth about the most profound act of treason, the permitting of mass immigration.

——————————————————————-

My correspondence with Nick Griffin  

To:                      Philip@anywhere.demon.co.uk

Subject:              a crack at Blair?

From:                  BNP Chairman

Date:     19 June 2005 21:24:02

 

Dear Mr Henderson

It occurs to me that there’s just an outside chance that something you have on Blair and his cronies (and/or the BBC) might just be able to be worked in to my defence against Race Act prosecution in Leeds Crown Court later this year.

The problem, of course, is making a connection so that the judge would rule such material relevant and admissable, but if you have anything that you think could possibly fit the bill, and which you would like to see given a very public airing in full view of the national media, then please drop me an email at your convenience.

Yours sincerely

 

Nick Griffin

British National Party

————————————————————-

To:                      BNP Chairman

Subject:              Re: a crack at Blair?

From:                  Robert Henderson <philip@anywhere.demon.co.uk>

Date:     21 June 2005 13:45:35

OK. Just answer me one question for the moment. Do you want to frighten Blair and co into dropping the prosecution or do you positively want the case to go ahead so you can use it as a political platform? I

don’t care which it is but I would need to know before we go any further.

RH

———————————————–

To:                      Robert Henderson <philip@anywhere.demon.co.uk>

Subject:              Re: a crack at Blair?

From:                  BNP Chairman

Date:                   21 June 2005 15:58:02

Option a) would be marginally better because then we can always get a bite of cherry b) at a later date by going head-to-head with their proposed Islamophile ‘law’.

N

—————————————————————-

To:                      BNP Chairman

Subject:              Suggested action you should take

From:                  Robert Henderson <philip@anywhere.demon.co.uk>

Date:     04 July 2005 17:11:57

 

Dear Mr Griffin,

I have had a good think about your request. In principle I am willing to help you and those being prosecuted with you. I do this simply because you are the subject of both a political law and a political prosecution. However, I must insist on one thing: that you all are entirely honest with me.

You say you ideally wish to frighten Blair and co out of the prosecution. What I am going to suggest will both serve that purpose and also provide a good skeleton for your defence if you get to court.

Your tactics

 

I suggest the following:

1. Call the Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith

Calling Goldsmith would be legitimate simply because he is both a politician and the man who took the decision to prosecute. You should argue that there is no proper separation of powers and consequently no fair judicial process. The Human Rights Act provides for a fair judicial process. There should be grounds to challenge the prosecutions on those grounds alone, i.e., that the judicial process is unfair.

More particularly, you can argue that he should be called as witness on the grounds that the prosecution has been undertaken for political not judicial reasons and without any consideration of the public interest.

There is public evidence that Goldsmith does allow his politics to colour his legal judgement. He changed his mind over the advice he gave to Blair on the legality of theinvading Iraq. On 7th March 2003 Goldsmith was doubtful about the legality of the war without a second UN resolution – his opinion has now been published. By 17th March 2003 he was telling Blair there was no problem without a second resolution. Goldsmith has never explained satisfactorily why he changed his mind in the space of ten days.

You should also argue (1) that the law itself is incompatible with democracy and (2) that there is a great public interest in not prosecuting, because the people being prosecuted represent a political party which is both acting within the democratic rules and has significant electoral support. You should further argue that the Human Rights Act protects both freedom of speech and democratic political activity.

2. Call Blair as a witness. The justification for this would be the collusion by Blair and Goldsmith over the Iraq advice and Goldsmith’s change of opinion. If you get permission to call Goldsmith it would be difficult for the court to refuse the calling of Blair.

3. Challenge what is meant by racially inciting. Get them to define it. Introduce examples of racial incitement by ethnic minorities. The Koran is a particularly good source of embarrassing quotes – I send you a selection by separate email.

4. Accumulate examples of ethnic abuse of whites which has not been prosecuted. If you know of whites who have made complaints to the police of racial incitement by blacks or Asians against whites which the police have failed to investigate or the attorney-general failed to prosecute, introduce these into evidence to show that Goldsmith or his predecessors are not even handed. I send you examples of complaints I have made which have not been investigated let alone prosecuted.

Calling people as witnesses

If you call someone as a witness you cannot cross-examine them. This puts considerable restrictions on what can be asked and the manner of the questioning (although a decent barrister should be able to get most of what he wants out of a witness even under those circumstances). Where a witness is reluctant – and the likes of Blair and Goldsmith would do everything they can to avoid being called – you can make application to the court for them to be treated as a hostile witness. If granted, this allows them to be cross-examined in all but name. Even allowing for the political pressure on the court, I doubt if any judge would fail to rule that they were hostile witnesses.

Your legal representation

Those labeled as racists generally have a problem with legal representation, both in getting it at all and in the nature of the representation when it is found. Barristers in particular have a habit of distancing them from their clients with words along the line of “My client is a vile racist but that does not mean he is guilty”. Consequently, it is vital that you give written instructions to both your solicitor and counsel forbidding such behaviour and laying out clearly how you want your defence conducted.

Remember, you instruct your lawyers, not they you. Once they have accepted your instructions they are bound to obey them r resign from the case. However, the courts look very unfavourably on counsel resign in criminal cases, so once you have got your instructions accepted there is a good chance they will be followed.

Lawyers generally will kick up about a client who wishes his  instructions to be followed – they are often the most arrogant of people who take the view that the conduct of the  case has damn all to do with the client. But you must face them down on this.

Representing yourself

In extremis, i.e., no one will take your instructions,  represent yourself. I would normally be very loth to  suggest this because there is a great deal of truth in the legal maxim that a man who has himself for a client has a fool for a client, but as it is a political trial it could be your best course of action.

If you do take this course, you should prepare yourself by producing schedules of questions. These should be primary and supplementary questions in this fashion:

Primary Question: Lord Goldsmith, did you discuss the case  with any member of the Labour Party before making your  decision to prosecute?

Secondary questions.

If Goldsmith answers YES ask: Which member or members did  you discuss it with?

If Goldsmith answers NO ask: Did you discuss the case with  any member of the Labour Party after making your decision to  prosecute?

In short, your schedules must anticipate as far as is possible the responses a witness will make.

Questions to witnesses should be “closed” wherever possible,  i.e., the questions should permit only a yes or no answer.

There are some questions which must be asked which will not allow a yes or no, for example, in the demonstration  questions above there would obviously come a point where you  would be forced to ask a question along the lines of “What  did you say to X”. If Goldsmith admitted that he had spoken  with a Labour Party member before he decided to prosecute,  you would probably need to ask such a question, although if  you are cross examining you could keep suggesting scenarios  to the witness, e.g., “Did you say Y to X?”.

My involvement with the Blairs

I am assuming that you have familiarised yourself with the  detailed case from my website.

I can say as a matter of objective fact that Blair is at the  least very wary of me. There is first the amazing fact that  Blair and his wife were willing to get involved in a criminal  prosecution involving me during the six most important weeks  of Blair’s life – the 1997 election campaign. The killer fact  for them is that they did not go to the police when I sent  them the letters but only after I circulated to the media the  letters and the replies I had received from their offices.

Second, is the remarkably experience I have had with the  police since 1997. I made various formal complaints against  the Blairs and the Mirror in 1997 and several since  due to  various attempts in internet  newsgroups  to incite  violence against me.  against me.

Normally such complaints would be dealt with by a detective  sergeant. To date I have dealt with a Det Chief Supt (head  of the Met’s Dept of Professional Standards, a very powerful copper indeed), a Scotland Yard Det Supt and two Det Chief  Inspectors. All came to my home when I requested it. That such senior officers have been assigned to my complaints  shows that the police and Blair are colluding when it comes  to dealing with me.

Consequently, if the authorities think you will be putting  me in the witness box, they will probably chicken out.

The best public document relating to me to wave at them is  the EDM put down by Sir Richard Body, viz:

On 10 November 1999, Sir Richard Body MP, put down this  Early Day Motion in the House of Commons:

That this House regrets that the Right honourable  Member for Sedgefield [Tony Blair] attempted to persuade the Metropolitan Police to bring criminal  charges against Robert Henderson, concerning the Right honourable Member’s complaints to the police  of an offence against the person, malicious letters and racial insult arising from letters  Robert Henderson had written to the Right  Honourable Member complaining about various  instances of publicly-reported racism involving the  Labour Party; and that, after the Crown Prosecution Service rejected the complaints of the Right  honourable Member and the Right honourable Member  failed to take any civil action against Robert  Henderson, Special Branch were employed to spy upon  Robert Henderson, notwithstanding that Robert  Henderson had been officially cleared of any  illegal action.

Yours sincerely,

 

 

Robert Henderson 4 7 2005

——————————————————————

To:                      Robert Henderson <philip@anywhere.demon.co.uk>

Subject:              Re: Suggested action you should take

From:                  BNP Chairman

Date:                   05 July 2005 13:31:35

Of course. Thanks – though I usually tell lawyers that I think Will Shakespeare had the best idea about how to deal with them, and generally they take it well as they know deep down that they’re parasites.

N

The utilitarian case for the monarchy

Robert Henderson

The utilitarian case for the monarchy is not about pageantry, deference  or the vulgar belief that it is worth keeping because it acts as a tourist magnet. It is not about the cost of the monarchy compared with a president. It is not about whether the individual members of the Royal family are worthy beings or if its very  existence is an insult to ideas of politically correct equality. The utilitarian case is purely political: our monarchy underpins Parliamentary government.

In resisting the abuse of the many by the few, Britain begins with the great advantages of a parliamentary system and an in practice non-executive head of state chosen by a means utterly outside political manipulation short of the outright  criminality of murder,  blackmail,  illicit threats and bribery, namely birth. These provide a massive barricade against a Prime Minister who would be a despot. He cannot act without the support of an elected parliamentary majority. His cabinet in practice must be overwhelmingly drawn from elected politicians. He may change his cabinet but he cannot do so without regard to a cabinet member’s status and popularity within the party on whose support he depends.

Most importantly, the prime minister (or any other politician) cannot become head of  state.  This is of central importance, because whether the powers of a president be executive or ceremonial, the mere   existence of the office of president provides an avenue for those who would subvert parliamentary control of the  executive. The example of De Gaulle in France
in the early years of the Fifth Republic demonstrates how easily a President’s powers may be extended by the overtly democratic means of a referendum against the wishes of a Parliament.  As things stand, a would be British dictator would have to do one of two things. The constitutionally legitimate path would  require him to first persuade Parliament to
adopt the idea  of an executive  presidential system and  then win the  backing of the electorate for a change to a presidential  system either through a referendum or an electoral mandate.  His illegitimate path would consist of either a referendum  put to the country against the wishes of Parliament or an outright coup backed by the military and police.

This is not to say that a prime minister equipped with a large majority cannot have a great deal of freedom  and personal power.  Both Thatcher and Blair achieved this. But however big their majority or great their personal authority they could not routinely make policy without some regard to the wishes of their ministers, backbenchers and the electorate. Whatever dark thoughts Thatcher may have had about  mass immigration or membership of the EU, she was in practice hamstrung in doing anything about it  by the opposition of powerful ministers  such as Nigel Lawson and Geoffrey Howe.  Tony Blair’s desire to severely reduce the welfare state was thwarted over many years by his Chancellor Gordon Brown.   To those leashes on their dictatorial desires can be added the fact that both Thatcher and Blair left office before they wanted to as a result of dissent amongst their parliamentary parties.   Had either been an elected president  operating outside parliament,  neither would have been removed before the end of their term of office.

A parliamentary system such as that of Britain has other restraints on abuses of power. First-past-the-post elections based on constituencies means that  MPs are not solely beholden to their party elite s as is the case with a party list system, and general elections, at least  since 1945, have normally produced a single party with a majority in the House of Commons.
This latter fact  means that the vast majority of modern British government have not been able to fail to honour their manifestos on the grounds that they  were part of a coalition.

If a demand for a president arose in  Britain  there would be an opportunity for those pressing for such a change to seek an executive president  with the executive removed from Parliament on the grounds that it was “more democratic” and provided a check on the power of the executive. . Anyone who thinks this is a good idea should look at the American experience where the powers of the president are constrained by a division of powers outlined in a written constitution administered by a supreme court. The President appoints his cabinet subject only to the agreement of the Senate, the President’s nominees being normally accepted.  Supreme Court judges are also nominated by serving presidents and vetted by the Senate.  These nominations   meet more Senate opposition, but most of those nominated are passed and if one is rejected, the President still gets to nominate an alternative.  That means a president  will broadly speaking get a judge into the court who is sympathetic to the president’s political views. As Supreme Court judges are elected for life,  a president
who is able to get even two new judges onto the court may affect its political bias for decades.

Even if a supposedly non-executive president was adopted with the executive remaining in Parliament,   the relationship between the prime minster  and head of state would be different. If the president was elected, there would be a second font of democratic authority regardless of the president’s powers. This would mean that there would be a constant temptation for a powerful politician to get themselves or a stooge elected to the presidency and then use their control  of Parliament to increase the president’s powers. If the president was simply appointed by politicians  a prime minster with a large majority could either take the presidency themselves and use his parliamentary control to increase his powers or place a stooge in as president, use Parliament to increase the presidential powers then control the stooge.

None of this is to pretend that the British system of government is perfect for the executive  has  found many ways of thwarting proper parliamentary oversight and control . The way it does this is fivefold (1) the entanglement  of  Britain in treaties, most devastatingly those related to the EU,  which remove sovereign power from not only Parliament but Britain; (2)  the increasing grip of party elites on the selection of candidates for Westminster seats, something of particular importance with the rise of the career politician who has never done
a job outside of politics; (3) an ever swelling use of secondary legislation, particularly statutory instruments,  which provide  much less opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny than primary legislation; (4)  the increasing appointment  of peers as ministers and non-politicians as “Tsars” for particular policy areas and   (5) the use of the Royal Prerogative by prime ministers.

There are ready cures for these ills. Treaties could be repudiated to regain sovereignty; the power of selection of Parliamentary candidates invested  solely  in local constituency parties would greatly reduce the power of  party elites;  a requirement that a Parliamentary candidate should have ten years  work experience unconnected with politics before being able to stand for Parliament would end the career politician; withdrawal from the EU would greatly reduce the amount of secondary legislation and increased time to scrutinise what was left and the use of peers and non-politicians banned.

That leaves the Royal Prerogative which represents  a particularly danger to democratic control because the powers exercisable under it are large. This is because of the long, organic
development of the relationship between Parliament and the Crown, the powers and rights of the Crown are little circumscribed by law, although most, and all the important ones, are now invested in practice in the office of PM. The dissolution or proroguing of Parliament and the calling of elections are by the prerogative. The PM and his ministers are appointed by
the Crown.  In principle, the monarch could appoint a Government in which none of its members sat in Parliament. No Bill can become a law without the monarch’s signature. Treaties and the making of war and peace can and are made without the assent of Parliament. All foreign relations are in principle within the monarch’s remit.  Justice is the monarch’s. The Monarch can do no wrong. Many senior state appointments such as appointments to the higher judiciary and bishoprics are one by the prerogative.  The monarch is head of the armed forces. There is prerogative power which allows the Crown to expropriate or requisition private property (with proper compensation) in time of war or apprehension of war. The Crown has limited powers of legislation under the prerogative, principally as respects the civil service and UK dependent territories.  This legislation is made by  Orders in Council, ordinance, letters patent and royal warrant. A ragbag of other rights such as treasure trove  and bona vacantia (the reversion to the Crown of property where there is no inheritor) and arcane rights such as the monarch’s right to (most) swans also exists.

The simplest thing would be  to cancel all prerogative rights which have a serious political dimension. This would reduce greatly the power of the PM and consequently  pass power to Parliament.  Such powers as are left to the monarch  should be laid down clearly in law. That would do a great deal to increase the power of Parliament and the ordinary member.
However,  more could be done without producing a situation which would leave a Parliament with an executive unable to act.  I would ban the whipping of MPs,  restrict the size of government to reduce the government “payroll vote” ( modern governments draw in more than 100 MPs) and make  the justice system truly independent by removing the political officers – Lord Chancellor, Attorney-General and Solicitor-General  – from the process of justice.

The banning of whips would not mean a government with a working  majority was constantly defeated because most party members will vote for their party programme. Governments would have to get used to accepting the odd defeat on even important policies as a fact of life not a cause to call a motion of confidence.  The reduction of the “payroll vote” would lead
to more independent minded backbenchers who would see  being a backbencher as an honourable and worthwhile end it itself.  The removal of the politicians from the process of justice is necessary to observe natural justice.

Two other things would be s desirable as a check on the executive: a written constitution designed not to promote a political agenda but to protect democratic control and prevent governments from undertaking anti-democratic policies or reckless behaviour which self-evidently will be damaging to the country.  If there is a Supreme Court to administer it, judges should be selected for a fixed period of five years and chosen by a free vote of the Commons. Alternatively, the administration could be done by a reformed second chamber (see below).

The second thing is electoral reform.  To address the problem of parties with even  less than 40% of the popular vote ending up with large majorities,  for the Commons  I would suggest double member constituencies  with each elector having a single vote. The two candidates  receiving the most votes in each constituency  would be  elected. This would probably  both reduce the size of majorities whilst giving any elector a choice of two MPs to go to rather than one.

As for the Lords, if you want a house which will not engage in a democratic mandate war with the Commons or simply replicate the party dominance of the Commons, I suggest selecting a house by lot from all those who put themselves forward to serve a single term of ten years, sufficient time for them to become proficient as a revising chamber.