Libertas in Britain and their unconventional plan to take the EU by storm…before they tell us precisely what they intend to do with the EU… March 11, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in British Politics, European Politics, European Union, Irish Politics.trackback
They say no plan survives first contact with the enemy, so how very surprising that Libertas UK should put as its nominal head former British Army lieutenant colonel, Robin Matthews, a man who argues that:
“Whatever you do with elected commissioners or an elected commission, they must be accountable to the people. Libertas is seeking such a mandate at the ballot box and that is our first task before we look at exactly ways to reform the commission, president or whatever,”
Fancy that! The plan to win the war comes after the engagement with the people. Quite an innovation in politics. Indeed brilliant in its own way.
Uncertain about voting for eurosceptic… I mean eurocritical… Libertas? Concerned that their approach is too critical, or too sceptical. Leave your worries behind… for all will be revealed after you make the crucial vote. Trust us, the Chairman will see all is right.
And curiously all this is based around a sense that ‘…more democracy is needed at EU level’. What that democracy is to be used for, bar this hugely vague concept of ‘reforming’ ‘whatever’… is entirely open to question.
The Chairman took up this theme, as his is wont.
“Almost 80 per cent of laws that change the daily lives of Britons come from Brussels, and those laws are drafted by unelected, unaccountable civil servants. Brussels does not want to answer to the people of Europe. We want to bring the EU back to its people,” said Mr Ganley, who told reporters he would not fund the campaign with his own money.
Which rather begs some questions… surely accountable or not civil servants locked into a political structure have at least some element of a line to take from their political masters, masters who have the grace to present their aims, good bad or ugly before us at election time… before the vote is taken…
Meanwhile should the selection of a former British Army officer as head of the sister party to Libertas Ireland appear, well, just fractionally contentious in a political context (particularly one who was BA’s spokesmen in Helmand province… yikes) this is standard operating procedure for the Chairman.
In a move that surely, surely he thought twice about before taking he is reported as appointing four – count ‘em, four – defence industry ‘figures’ (as the Irish Times so delicately puts it) to head up his communications company Rivada Networks. By ‘defence industry figures’ we’re talking about:
…a former chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff during the Iraqi invasion, Gen Richard Myers; former chief of the UK defence staff, Lord Charles Guthrie; and two former senior officials in the US department of homeland security, Michael Jackson and George Forseman.
The appointments come hot on the heels of his decision to contest the European elections this year on behalf of Libertas.
The politics of this are remarkable… Myers is better known as ‘the principal military adviser to George Bush for the 2003 invasion of Iraq’. How the Chairman thinks this will play next time out at the elections is quite a mystery. If he wished to burnish his credentials as a good mate of the defence industry he could hardly do better short of driving a tank down O’Connell Street.
But it’s all grist to his mill. Euro-critic who vociferously denies he’s eurosceptic while entering negotiations with profoundly eurosceptic parties. Supposed supporter of the European project who hangs out with the US defence industry. Contradictions? Not to the Chairman.
And how is the British polity responding to this new arrival? Well, in a curiously low key fashion. The Guardian diary section had a short piece on it. But why should that surprise? This is a different world from the heady days leading up to Lisbon I. The news is bad all over, the economy in freefall, the smell of violence in the North. Small party started up in a field with many rivals is almost not news at all. And hardly surprising that they should treat it in a jokey fashion:
Shortly after the launch, Ganley’s party was registered as New Dawn for Europe: Libertas.eu, but it could all be a bit confusing come the June elections. Maybe they should change it. Kilroy Silk tried Veritas to no avail. Civitas is gone, snaffled by a thinktank. Backwards would be Satrebil. Just helping.
Outrageous lese-majeste, I think we can all agree. And no mention at all in the Times newspaper.
But with the might of the US military establishment close behind him who can doubt that the Chairman will have the last laugh… who indeed?
Shortly after the launch, Ganley’s party was registered as New Dawn for Europe: Libertas.eu, but it could all be a bit confusing come the June elections. Maybe they should change it. Kilroy Silk tried Veritas to no avail. Civitas is gone, snaffled by a thinktank. Backwards would be Satrebil. Just helping.
And guess what the story behind the curious formulation “New Dawn for Europe: Libertas” is? Go on. No, really:
A friend of United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage, [Bridget] Rowe registered as the leader of Libertas UK with the United Kingdom Electoral Commission in December 2008, in order to prevent Declan Ganley’s pro-European Libertas from fielding candidates in the UK’s European Parliament elections in 2009 under that name
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridget_Rowe
My God, EWI, she edited the Sunday Mirror? Is that accurate.
Anyhow, New Dawn for Europe? What a bloody awful name. Who came up with that?
And what of the shy and retiring Ganley on what Libertas actually stands for? Last December:
Asked about Libertas’s policies on European defence, Ganley said: “European defence and security issues are very serious. They need to be addressed, I think everybody recognises that. We would be supportive of seeing those addressed in a way that is democratically accountable.”
“Climate change” was something Libertas would want to “actively get involved in, supporting efforts and doing whatever we could to really drive the battle”. He was “not particularly enamoured” with Irish neutrality, but avoided indicating a position on abortion and gay marriage, simply noting that Libertas had not campaigned on those issues during the referendum campaign.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article5338049.ece?token=null&offset=12&page=2
But fear not, for on the 11th of February as the good chairman was being interviewed, he was providing details:
You say Libertas is an anti-Lisbon, yet pro-European party. What are your main policy issues apart from opposition to the Lisbon Treaty?
We’re going to be publishing a detailed policy document in March which will lay out our policies in a very wide range of areas. The issue of democracy is not some small thing – it’s huge, it’s central, it’s pivotal.
That, and this economy: come June, we are facing an economic hurricane across Europe, and people are slowly starting to realise that the very policies and leaders that have got us into this economic mess – which is only going to get worse – are the same leaders who are telling voters that this anti-democratic constitution is something that’s good for them.
Stimulating Europe to be the predominant economic leader in the world, second only to nobody, is not going to come by chucking good money after bad, or flogging the taxpayers until they can’t breathe anymore.
It seems likely that the ‘economic hurricane’ will overshadow all other issues in this year’s European elections. Does Libertas have a specific economic platform?
Very much so. I wouldn’t disagree with you that Lisbon isn’t going to be the only issue, but it is going to be big. People may not be worried about Lisbon right now because they don’t know what its effects are and what’s in it. Only the Irish had a rip-roaring debate on it. The fact is that we exposed the treaty for the abomination that it is.
But besides Lisbon, what is Libertas’s economic platform?
The leaders of Europe failed to recognise that the engine of job creation and growth, of a new European renaissance, is not banks, but the ability to stimulate people to take a bit of risk, to go out and start more small and medium-sized businesses of their own.
We have to create an environment where people are prepared and encouraged to take those risks. That’s where Europe’s economic recovery is going to come from. More medium-sized businesses across Europe will create more new jobs than any other sector in business. It’s where innovation and the true genius of European creativity resides. That’s where we need to shift our policy focus, and that is something you will hear Libertas talking about in the months to come.
http://www.euractiv.com/en/eu-elections/ganley-germany-enormous-potential-libertas/article-179367
Err, ok, maybe not. But, sometime soon, we were promised.
Imagine my very great disappointment to read today that:
Meanwhile, the launch of Libertas’s electoral manifesto, which party founder Declan Ganley told EurActiv “will lay out our policies in a very wide range of areas,” has been postponed from 25 March to an as-yet-unnamed later date. This event was due to take place in Rome.
http://www.euractiv.com/en/eu-elections/libertas-unveils-eclectic-french-candidates-eu-elections/article-180122
My God, EWI, she edited the Sunday Mirror? Is that accurate.
Yes, indeed.
Anyhow, New Dawn for Europe? What a bloody awful name. Who came up with that?
Well, it does rather suit Libertas/Rivada’s rather, um, mysterious policy positions.
Reminds me of the Golden Dawn…
…anyhow, that’s great news for those of us who have considerable faith invested in the Chairman. I’ve no worries, none at all, that when those policies are unveiled they’ll be 100%, top class, excellent. And until then I’m sure everything will go as well for Libertas as it already has.
My God, Bridget “Death” Rowe? I hadn’t heard of her in years. Used to be a staple in Private Eye.
The Golden Dawn, that’s a good one. Actually, I’m reading Gary Lachman’s Politics and the Occult at the minute, but haven’t got onto the GD yet. The stuff on Rosicrucianism is interesting though.
Wethepeople.ie has a very good site that explains Lisbon in the broader context of Technocratic totalitarianism(more centralised government always = less accountability and removal of power from the individual to a technocratic elite).
I am a businessman.I have witnessed chancellor Schollz for example in one of his many rants about how by hook or by crook they will eventually get Ireland to vote yes.He is a parody of Hitler.You tube him.The very precognitive thinkers who drafted our constitution foresaw all of this.Anyway, they want to get their hands on our constitution that badly,and it seems that urgent to them,as any business man with a hugely saught after commodity,I’d hold out for another offer!What’s the hurry?Logique,non?
Addendum: Actually recent rumours in Brussells indicate that they intend to propose a huge job creation program for ireland and this is to be announced two weeks before the Lisbon vote to buy hearths and minds.
Colm,
A couple of points.
(a) Who is Chancellor Schollz?
(b) Wethepeople.ie is a cranks’ website and even cites Wearechange as a source. I think it’s best dismissed.
(c) Calm down. No one is trying to “get their hands on our constitution”. The Lisbon Treaty simply amends how the EU itself functions, and doesn’t even amend it that drastically..
(d) Can you provide some support for your claims about a ‘huge job creation program’, or go into a little more detail about it (from which fund will it be financed, which Council formation is dealing with it etc.). You’ll understand, I’m sure, a little scepticism on my part in relation to your insight into the heart of the EU, given the difficulty in spelling ‘Brussels’ correctly.
Pcha! Colm rejects the Eurocrat spelling of Brussells.
Fools!
Chancellor Schollz…
Well seeing that these are the guys who build an entire conspiracy theory out of the most innocuous material… the charity in the UK becomes the means of ‘destruction of the Irish Health Service’? Feck, I know a few people in the HSE… I think the reasons are closer to home, why am I not surprised?