Potential threat UKs food security in New EU Rules

There are the beginnings of worries for security and self sufficiency in a number of areas, especially energy security, as recently highlighted over the European dependency and vulnerability to continued supply of gas from Russia.

Now it seems the UK’s food security is threatened by the EU. Another area where the UK no longer retains sovereignty over it’s own laws. They are now dictated by the EU.

Though it never really saw light in the MSM the reason Gordon Brown could not reduce VAT enough to be any practical use was that he was not allowed to reduce it below 15% by EU law.

So how is our food security damaged by the EU? Because they are changing the rules on how pesticides and the like are assessed. They have decided that scientific assessment is no longer a good enough test. Now they want to base it the ‘rigorous’ test of "perceived hazard" instead. What next, consulting astrologers?

Presumably this plays well with the green lobby and will help drive up prices to aid the Organic producers, but it has the potential to seriously threaten many of the UK’s crops and virtually wipe out carrot growing in the UK.

The National Farmer’s union is opposed. Their deputy president Meurig Raymond stated: "The lack of sound science behind the plans is a major concern,"

"We cannot support measures which reduce the tools available to farmers and growers to produce crops and that could ultimately jeopardise future food supply and security."

One of the main problems is that because of the UK’s generally damper climate than Europe certain pesticides are much more useful to combat diseases particularly associated with wet weather like potato blight.

The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs are also concerned. A spokesperson stated: "We believe the proposals could hit crop yields without noticeable benefit for human health.”

"We've done our own impact assessment on the matter but the European Commission has not."

It is feared close to a quarter of produce will be lost in the UK if the plans go through, including the total carrot crop and a 20% reduction in cereal production.

Issue of DNA records of the innocent reaches European Court

Did you wonder why Det Supt Stuart Cundy, who led the murder hunt which led to Mark Dixie's conviction, started going on about a compulsory national DNA database the other day? What his agenda might have been?

Unlike Scotland, where they take their civil liberties a wee bit more seriously, In England and Wales if the police arrest you, even if you have done nothing wrong, like the guy with the MP3 player, they will take your DNA and you will go into New Labour’s National DNA database, never to be removed.

This is unlike the tried and tested system with fingerprints where they only keep them if a person is convicted and people don’t mind giving them for elimination purposes because they know they will be destroyed afterwards.

Now the police’s practices with the DNA database is being challenged in the European Court of human rights as an infringement of an individuals right to privacy and anti-discrimination.

This database is scarily already the largest of it’s kind in the whole world.

If they win then the police will have to remove the DNA records from the system of those who have not been convicted and the system will have to work more like the fingerprint system or the Scottish system.

It is quite probable that a compulsory universal DNA database (that the police appear to be covertly working their way towards already) would indeed probably result in a few extra detections, or earlier detections of crimes.

Then again, so would electronically tagging every citizen, at their own expense, with a mini GPS system, camera and Microphone that relayed the info it recorded to a central database would too.

The question is, is the price paid in the loss of your civil liberties worth the benefits of the illusion of safety. DNA evidence can be spoofed, or compromised, by the savvy criminal and it is not always necessarily as reliable as it is imagined to be by the general public.

If they ever do manage to force a compulsory national DNA database on us by some devious means (Passports? ID Cards?). it will be great for the Authoritarians who want to check our every move.

Then there is the good old mission creep factor. What else would they get up to with the information? - One could do racial profiling in the name of medical research for instance…

One thing is certain - before long every junior civil servant and council worker in the country would have access and you could be sure they could not be trusted not to leave millions of records on a bus somewhere, or just loose them.

Best it is stopped. It comes to something when a UK citizen has to appeal to the European court to protect their civil rights from our own Government.

Tesco willing to work with the UK State (thus logically against it’s customers) on banning 'cheap' alcohol

It is interesting to note that Tesco appear to be cravenly responding to New Labour’s, authoritarian, patrician, health fascist line, that supermarkets are selling alcohol to the proletariat too cheaply.

At first thought one might wonder that some are willing to go along with anything and conjecture they may be hoping for a position of relative authority over the other prisoners in the concentration camp.

It is also quite possible that they are just boxing clever by responding to the likes of Professor Julian le Grand, when they know the only route is really even higher punitive taxation.

This is undoubtedly where the government would desperately like to go, but even they clearly realise that, without first demonising alcohol and all those who sell and drink it, this may be a step too far - even for New Labour supporters. That is why they now have their like minded medical glove puppets whipped into doing a chorus line on the subject.

Tesco's executive director for corporate and legal affairs, Lucy Neville-Rolfe, pointed out that it was actually really in the State’s hands as: "We can't put up our prices because people will simply shop elsewhere - it could be commercial suicide - and we (the supermarkets) can't act together to put up prices because that would be against competition law.”, in other words a price fixing cartel and "Supermarkets are not allowed to act together to put up prices because that would be bad for the consumer."

Tesco knows perfectly well the government can’t bypass that - or they would run afoul of the real law of the land in this respect - the EC and the European Court.

It is possible they are betting both ways… any further such pronouncements though - and I will be voting with my feet, on principle.

EU threat to Britons right to trial

I had always been under the impression that, in Britain, an accused person should have their day in court to defend themselves - That we don’t hold trials and convict people in their absence.

I know it is inconvenient and spoils government figures - rather like that old fashioned, un-dynamic, not new or forward looking, idea of ‘innocent until proven guilty’. Rather than the reverse, so beloved of many other (no doubt dynamic and forward thinking) European nations, or the right to remain silent.

So it is a little disturbing to find that there is a meeting of EU Justice ministers planned for next week, where the Attorney General is apparently planning to do a ‘Gordon Brown’ and rubber stamp measures that could change all that boring old fashioned stuff about having your day in court.

Patricia Scotland QC (Baroness Scotland of Asthal, Attorney General) is planning to rubber stamp the extradition of British nationals, who have been convicted in absentia, for imprisonment in European jails.

Also included is a planned hand-over of "a wide range of personal data". Won’t that be so much more effective once the government imposes it’s ID card system on us and they have even more personal data to give away?

So imagine for a moment you have had a fortnights holiday in Spain. Unbeknown to you, you are somehow implicated in an offence. They can’t find you when they get round to wanting to speak to you and you are back in the UK. They can’t immediately trace you. You get convicted in your absence…

The first thing you know is when you are arrested for extradition to start your sentence in a Spanish jail.

Any sane citizen should be concerned that Government ministers are continuing with their bad habit of blithely signing away yet more British rights.

Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis said: "Now there is a real risk that British citizens will be abandoned to face European punishments without trial,"

Rubbish Tax. Coming to a bin near you - As soon as they can get away with it…

It looks like Nu-Lab are going for the same technique in rolling out the rubbish tax as they used to avoid stirring up the sheeple too much with HIPs. Doing it as quietly as possible in stages while putting out as much of a smoke screen as possible.

They are quietly rolling out powers to ‘pilot’ the charges in the Climate Change Bill.

Now, keep in mind folks, we not only already pay handsomely for this service in the form of massively inflated Council Tax that has galloped so far ahead of inflation it’s lapped it, but most of us have already had the service cut back to once a fortnight.

What is the root cause of all this? Why the good old EU. The Government are concerned the UK could face fines of up to £180m a year imposed by the European Commission if it does not cut the amount of waste dumped in landfill.

So this is actually social engineering to force you to ‘recycle’ via the State’s firm grip on tender parts of your wallet, being imposed on you because of EU dictat, with the added benefit of an increased tax crop.

Presumably fly tipping and bonfires will not count. One also wonders if bins with combination locks will be issued, to avoid someone else’s rubbish being secretly slipped into a bin just prior to collection - Some poor suckers are bound to be caught out when the first thin they know about it is when they get a massive bill.

Nu-Lab’s ‘Waste Minister’ (too obvious to use) Joan Ruddock helps emphasise the way the wind is blowing with the comment: "We all know we can't go on putting rubbish in holes in the ground. We need to find new ways and these sorts of schemes and incentives may be part of that,".

So no avoiding it no matter what – there’s good old British democracy in action for you.

Faint signs of a less supine stance from some government MPs on EU Referendum

After being closeted with Angela Merkel, the architect of the sly ‘It’s not really a constitution it’s only a Treaty’ con, Gordon Brown, spine no doubt stiffened by Angela and still wriggling to avoid a referendum at any cost bluffed that:

"The proper way to discuss this is in the House of Commons and the House of Lords."

Of course the last thing he wants is to put it directly to the people.

But it is not a matter for the “House of Commons and the House of Lords” as the mealy mouthed GB attempts to claim. The current Government were elected on the basis that it would be a matter for the electorate decided by referendum. No referendum - No mandate.

Trade union leaders have made it clear they are intending to press for a vote at next month's TUC annual congress, demanding the UK electorate are allowed to vote on the EU treaty, pointing out the obvious - that the new EU reform Treaty is:

"substantially the same as the EU Constitution rejected by the French and Dutch electorates in 2005". and condemning it as a blueprint for a: "centralised government, including an EU president, a Foreign Minister called a High Representative, a diplomatic service and an EU public prosecutor".

It seems that some Nu-Lab MPs may actually have some principles. Having been elected on the promise of putting the former constitution, now a treaty, to the electorate in a referendum some 40 of them, led by Ian Davidson, MP for Glasgow South West, are ready demand the Prime Minister re-open talks on the treaty, or hold a referendum.

There is also a suggestion that they hope to use a rewritten treaty to change EU directive on freedom of movement agreed in 2004, that prevented the murderer Learco Chindamo, being deported.

One does note though that they are not actually demanding a referendum quite yet, only if they don’t get what they want - and they should be demanding one, having all been elected on the promise of putting the former constitution, now a treaty, to the electorate in a referendum it should actually be put to the electorate, if MPs like the form and contents of the treaty, or not.

To paraphrase the State propaganda short on benefits cheats still being aired - No ifs. No Buts.

HIPs Inspectors complain they have been hard done by

It seems that there is much perturbation on the Home Inspector Forum website. Inspectors are attacking the Government for failing to fully implement the scheme. They are bleating that they may face financial ruin if the delay in implementing HIPs (Home Information Packs) continues.

An inspector from Eastbourne, East Sussex, complained that if they could earn their training fees back they would count themselves lucky and get out of the business. Another felt they had wasted £4,000.

All true - and normally most of us would probably have considerable sympathy for anyone who had suffered as a result of State incompetence.

In this case though – sympathy somewhat lacking.

We are all acutely aware that when this EU inspired stupidity was first mooted it looked like it would be a licence to print money for the so-called inspectors and a convienient means for the State to spy on households, for tax raising purposes.

The people who ‘trained’ up to be inspectors clearly did so in that belief - and they must have known they would be milking people selling their homes, thanks to yet more pointless state forced unnatural regulation in the honest lawful exchange of property between individuals.

So to hear these inspectors complain that their parasitic careers may now be still born and that their ‘investment’ in training may have been wasted is not exactly guaranteed to elicit sympathy.

From the point of view of a homeowner it looks more like natural justice.

Let’s hope it puts off any likeminded individuals who might hope to profit from honest citizens by participating in some future state oppression of the populace.

Cilivl Liberty Group has concerns over EU arrest warrants

It seems the European Arrest Warrants (EAW), requiring the arrest and extradition of suspects from one EU country to another may be being abused. Why would we be surprised?

Statewatch, the civil liberties group has obtained a secret (it would be) EU report. Campaigners are concerned that the EAW does not allow refusal, if the offence does not exist under national laws and makes no requirement for a proportionality test.

The Secret report concedes: "The principle of proportionality requires that in each case a comparison be made between the seriousness of the offence and resources to be deployed in the executing state and, in particular, that it involves the deprivation of liberty of an individual."

"The EAW does not include any obligation for a proportionality check either by the issuing or executing member state, nor does it include any grounds for non-recognition related to it,"

It seems fast-track extradition warrants are often being issued for relatively minor offences, demanding the costly extradition of people for offences such as possession of 0.45 grams of cannabis, the theft of two car tyres - and in one instance piglet rustling. Officials are concerned that the warrants are being used "disproportionately" to the seriousness of offences.

The Warrants can even be applied when the offence is not even an offence under the laws of the country the warrant is executed in.