A MOTE
IN BRUSSELS
EYE
Ashley Mote
JT ASSOCIATES
Published by
JT Associates
Copyright 2012 Ashley Mote
Authors website
www.ashleymote.co.uk
Ashley Mote has asserted his
right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988 to be identified
as the author of this work.
ISBN-13 978-0-9565123-2-1
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Contents
How It All Started And Immediately Went Wrong
Trouble From All Directions (June July 2004)
Getting Stuck In (July August 2004)
Serious Battles Develop (August September 2004)
Cranking Up The Pressures (September 2004)
Off to the Serious Fraud Office (September December 2004)
Fights in All Directions (January February 2005)
Challenging Travels in Europe (February March 2005)
More Pressure on the EU (April June 2005)
Court Case Dominates Time and Attention (June July 2005)
A Festering Dustbin of Corruption (July October 2005)
Frustration (October December 2005)
Win Some Lose Some (January April 2006)
To the House of Lords (April July 2006)
Questions, Questions... (August December 2006)
Rule of Law Unenforceable (January Easter 2007)
A Travelling Man (April July 2007)
Trial and Tribulations (August December 2007 and beyond)
Business as Usual (January Easter 2008)
Rare Good News Amongst Bad (Easter May 2008)
Juggling Pressures and Priorities (June July 2008)
More Travel and Bitter Arguments (September December 2008)
The Beginning of the End (January March 2009)
The End (April 2009 onwards)
APPENDICES
EUs Proposed New Accounting System
Speeches at Public Meetings
Expert View of the EUs Court of Auditors
Beware the Hidden Power of Regional Government
EUs Money Management or Lack of It
Equitable Life Committee of Enquiry
House of Lords Enquiry into EU Accounts
Exchanges with the BBC
British Government Accused of Malfeasance
Problems with EU Financial Management
Exchanges with OLAF, 2008
European Parliaments Contact Group with Northern Cyprus
Introduction
For the five years between mid-2004 and mid-2009 I sat in the European Parliament as one of ten members elected to represent the south-east of England. Altogether there were nearly 800 of us.
During that time I had a grandstand seat at a spectacle which insults the word democracy.
Occasionally I even took part in what was essentially an elaborate, extravagant charade, designed to give the illusion of democratic accountability. In truth it was nothing of the sort.
Years before my election a lawyer friend of mine had experienced the Brussels bureaucratic machine at first hand. He described it as beyond redemption. He was right. I thought so then, and the next five years did nothing to change my opinion. If anything, my views were amply reinforced.
We Brits should leave the Europeans to govern themselves in this way if that is truly what they want. But it is not for us. Their way of doing things is not ours. Our two mind-sets and legal systems are endlessly in collision. Furthermore, our constitution specifically forbids our allowing foreigners to exercise power in the UK a fundamental breach of the rule of law acquiesced by successive British governments for the last 40 years.
So it was on that contradictory premise that I allowed myself to stand for election to the European Parliament. And when I got there it was to find only that the European Parliament was no more than a fig-leaf. Its purpose was and is to delude the millions of people who live in EU countries into thinking that their best interests are looked after by the people they elected.
The European Parliament is not a real parliament at all. It cannot initiate legislation and it cannot repeal legislation. It has no power to set or control the budget. At best it can comment on, and make amending proposals about, the decisions and proposals presented to it by the unelected European Commission where the real power lies.
In theory the European Parliament can block the appointment of the Commission itself. But that has happened only once in 50 years, although there have been a few individual casualties along the way.
It can also, in theory, block legislation proposed by the Commission. But that happened only once during my five years. Even then, the Commissions response typified their innate cynicism for the EUs feeble version of democracy. They let it be known that well just wait until youve gone. Then well re-introduce the legislation and get it agreed by the next lot.
Of course this domineering and cavalier attitude towards the UK from continental Europe is long-standing. The Romans, Charlemagne, Pope Clement V, Napoleon, Hitlerthey all tried to gain and then exercise power over the Brits. The EU is merely the latest in a long line of potential tyrants.
Curiously, the parallels between the EU and the activities of Pope Clement V at the start of the fourteenth century are instructive. He attempted to enforce his decisions on King Edward II of England over accusations of heresy, devil worship and sodomy against the Knights of the Temple, following their latest disastrous crusade to the Holy Land. They were to be stripped of their assets and condemned.
Aided and abetted by King Philip IV of France, who was essentially seeking to plunder the Templars assets, an increasingly angry and frustrated Pope Clement V finally lost patience and instructed the English King to enforce the Popes decision not to allow the Templars to mount a defence. Claiming the paramount sovereignty established by his predecessors over the whole world, the Pope had already decided on the Templars guilt. Anyone (by implication the King himself) who tried to protect them was just as guilty as they were.
Can we detect embryonic Napoleonic and EU law here, 500 years before the Corsican came to power in France and 650 before the Treaty of Rome? If so, we can also detect the early use of Magna Carta, signed a hundred years before by King John, to protect all Englishmen? King Edward II insisted that the Templars were entitled to a proper trial before a jury. His view prevailed, although it did little for the few surviving Templars in England. At the time, these were events of the highest drama and significance, so much so that they left distant echoes about devil worship in the top echelons of Freemasonry which can still be heard today.
One of the most robust stands taken by the Templars whilst this battle of wills continued was their dire warnings to the Pope and to both Kings of the dangers to Europe from the Muslims. Despite the terrible accusations and the threat to themselves from within Christianity, the Templars knew the dangers of Islam better than anyone, rulers or peasants alike, who had never been near the Holy Land. The Templars understood from direct experience that Islam was predicated on conversion through conquest.
