Safe Speed Forums

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... book17.xml

Christopher Booker's notebook
(Filed: 17/04/2005)

The biggest issue of all can't be mentioned

The real reason for the collapse of the Rover-Shanghai deal, it turns out, was the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations. These enact EU directives which would have imposed on the Chinese greater obligations towards redundant employees than they could and would accept.

Even the BBC now asks why "Europe" has become the great unmentionable issue in this suffocating election - but it is missing at least half the point. It is true that all parties seem eager to keep the EU out of view (Tory candidates, for instance, were startled last week to be issued with a set of focus-group-tested mantras on this topic and warned not to vary from them by an iota).

The politicians' stock explanation is that discussion of "Europe" should be deferred until the referendum on the European constitution in a year's time. This could prove to be more than just a convenient excuse: with the voters of France and Holland seemingly set to kick the constitution into the long grass, we may find ourselves denied any debate on this issue at all.

There is, however, a more serious respect in which "Europe" has become the black hole in this election. The discussion of many vitally important issues is now avoided because they are in fact no longer the responsibility of our Westminster Parliament. When even the Cabinet Office website admits that half our laws are now made in Brussels, this means that a whole range of policy areas which would once have been at the centre of election debate are off the agenda.

Here are nine key issues which have effectively been excluded from discussion, because the views of British voters are no longer relevant to how they are handled.

[...]

5. Road Safety and Traffic Control

Few issues have become more contentious than speed cameras and congestion charges. Even Labour's manifesto admits they will consider a new system for charging road-users. What no party explains is that Brussels now plans to take control of all "road use policy" across the EU, through its proposed Road Safety Agency, including speed limits. Furthermore, among the declared intentions of its Galileo satellite system is a plan for electronic charging for road use of EU roads, including congestion charges; and satellite-controlled automatic "speed limiters", making it impossible for drivers to break the limit even if they want to.

[...]

These are just some of the issues which will remain undiscussed at this election, reflecting how much of our government has now passed to the new system centred in Brussels, unaccountable to any electorate. This inflicts endless damage, from the chaos over our new "118" system for directory enquiries to the continuing disaster of our fisheries.

But the more the power to run our country is taken out of our politicians' hands, the more reluctant they are to talk about it. This is why debate will continue to centre round the same obsessive little list of issues - schools'n'hos-pitals, crime'n'tax - ignoring that ever greater "European black hole" into which our right to govern ourselves is steadily vanishing.
==========================================

Looks like we've got to work even harder.

Is this the real reason speed cameras haven't come onto the radar in the election campaigns? I'll ring UKIP on the morning. Maybe they have some clout...

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

UKIP have rather shot themselves in the foot over their dealings with Robert Kilroy-Silk, which may end up to the benefit of the Tories.

As there is so much potential for gaffes over Europe, the Tories are entirely sensible to instruct their candidates to toe the party line. It is likely that the present government's Europe policy will come seriously unstuck when we come to the referendum on the European constitution.

_________________
"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Anyone know how easy it is to emigrate to the Isle Of Man?? If the EU are going to interfere with our road safety policy and take it down completely the wrong route then for once I can see it's best not to have anything to with them. Unless of course all motorways become autobahns then I might let them off....

More importantly do we know how much money the UK political parties get in funding from public transport companies and ditto in the EU?

If we get there, the French are looking as if they might sink the constituion before it gets to us.

Simon

Which could be the reason why Tony Blair does not seem in any hurry for us to have a referendum. He realises that vote is likely to go against and that would put him in a difficult position, so if France vote against then he does not have to have a referendum and so saves face.

Paul

I am not particularly sympathetic to the centralisation of many policy issues to EU decision-makers, but on a point of accuracy, the proposed new constitution moves even more power and decision making away from the Commission to the elected European Parliament.

These MEPs are in fact accountable to an electorate: you and me. About 15% of them (proportional to the UK's % of the EU population) are currently from the UK, representing British constituencies and elected by British voters. The EU Parliamentary elections have a very low turnout and pass many people by, but like it or not, those elected MEPs are the ones who make the decisions and the EU laws, so if you don't vote you can't complain if you end up with laws you don't agree with.



Paul Smith, elected MEP? Why not? You could influence things for the good.

_________________
'The normally careful and competent actions of a reasonable person should be considered legal, regardless of the letter of statute'

Rioman, Herts

The European Parliament actually has no power to suggest or introduce any legislation. All it can do is vote on laws decided upon by the European commision. This is an unelected body of "civil servants". As such they are completely unaccountable. The EU is as undemocratic as the old USSR (although it has a more gentle punishment regime), and is run by a poliburo and rubber stamp parliament. I don't object to European partnership per se, but I do object to the unaccountable undmocratic nature of it all.

I'd better stop before I go off on one!

Agree, the EP doesn't have huge powers now, though it does effectively appoint the commissioners and has powers to veto any commissioner or get rid of them. Also, it sets and approves the budget without which nothing is possible.

My point is that this proposed new constitution which everyone is going on about proposes to make the EP virtually all-powerful. This may be academic, as only one member-nation has to vote it down to preserve the status quo, and it looks like the French are going to do that.

Personally I have little time for any of them. They should all be made to work for a living, and leave us alone, so I'm not out of sympathy with your essential thrust.


Look at <http://drcwww.uvt.nl/dbi/instructie/eu/en/T13.htm>

_________________
'The normally careful and competent actions of a reasonable person should be considered legal, regardless of the letter of statute'

Rioman, Herts