Magna Carta, and English Common Law

Magna Carta, the British Constitution and the European Union

Britain’s MPs have betrayed the People over four decades. For years they have given vital powers to the European Union

without consulting the Electorate.

Today Britain no longer controls its own;

Law-making, Trade and Public spending.

In effect, The Queen has become a political prisoner to the European Union.

I submit this is an accurate view of the serious constitutional position that the United Kingdom finds itself in after 40 years of political deception.

In outline –

o There is the question of betrayal in terms of constitutional illegality.

o The two systems of law and government that are in contention over Britain’s membership of the European Union – a factor that has never been faced since Britain joined the (then) EEC in 1973.

o The Supremacy of Parliament –‘The Queen-in-Parliament’, (Monarch, Lords and Commons) has been fatally compromised by our membership of the European Union.

o The monies of the Crown are being drained away to fraud and corruption in the EU.

o This constitutional impasse has resulted in our Westminster Parliament becoming almost impotent. The Queen is subject to alien powers – a political prisoner to the EU – and this in her Diamond Jubilee Year!

For the past 40 years I have been involved in this struggle for the truth over Europe in writing articles and speaking, being involved in 1972 in a bid to seek audience with The Queen about the ratification of the European legislation and in 2003 being part of a legal team going to the High Court in London seeking judicial review on the question of the (then prospective) EU Constitutional Treaty, which was refused on Appeal. I have also known some very brave people during this time, two of whom who were assassinated. They were key people during the 1970s and 1980s when the full thrust towards getting us into the European Project and keeping us there was dominant in Parliament. One was Ross McWhirter of The Guinness Book of Records fame (on November 27 1975). The other was the Rev. Robert Bradford, MP for South Belfast (on November 14 1981). A lot of people other than the IRA would have wanted to see these two men stopped.

Ross McWhirter used to talk about the over-mighty subjects in Government who took the law into their own hands by prerogative power. Of them he said you only have to ask two questions, “by what authority and what date?” The rule of law requires that no executive Act may be performed unless the performer can point to the due authority to do it and Ross appeared before the Court of Appeal on June 30 1972, on the basis that the executive Act of the granting of the Full Powers for the signing of the Treaty of Accession of January 22 1972, to the Treaty of Rome – the physical act of signing the Treaty – were acts which were unlawful.

The famous late Lord Denning, who was Master of the Rolls, said years after Ross was assassinated to his twin brother, the late Norris McWhirter, “your brother pressed us harder than anyone.” More is the pity that we do not have someone of Denning’s calibre in the Judiciary today. Since the beginning of constitutional history when one great nation in particular, i.e. ancient Israel, was first constituted under law circa 1500 BC, there have been two systems of government in contention with each other. The Covenant System which aspires to a higher authority than Man (one does not necessarily have to be religious to accept this) and the Dictatorial System under the Will of the State or the authority of Man.

The Covenant System is our system of government. It originated in Jerusalem and came to Britain via Greece. It gave birth to English Common Law which King Alfred codified in the 9^th century and which law was largely incorporated into Magna Carta 1215 (in force 1297) and our parliamentary system of constitutional government. This is a unique heritage as it has been our gift to the Free World upon which the parliaments in the great Dominions and the republic of the United States of America have been founded. This great company of free democratic nations in the world is basically one people at law – a force for stability in the world.

The Dictatorial System under the Will of the State originated in ancient Babylon and came to Continental Europe via Rome. It gave birth to Roman Civil Law which found expression in dictatorships and revolutions, in particular the French Revolution of 1789. Most of the nations of Continental Europe after World War II had new constitutions and it is the basic dichotomy, or division, between our English Common Law and the European Civil Law that has never been faced in this whole issue of Europe. The Treaty of Rome was designed around the temporary co-operation between France and Germany and Britain is lying on this bed which does not and never will fit, no matter how much deception goes on – of which there has been a very great deal.

Our Constitution is not a codified constitution contained within a single document. It is based on the Common Law established by very especial statutes, which in some cases predate our 700 year-old Parliament and in all cases remain above it in respect of prerogative acts or acts of those in power.

What we have are great Statutes of the Realm upon which our constitutional liberties are founded and which because they have never been repealed remain in force and are in conflict with all European legislation since 1972. Constitutionally there should never be a conflict with existing statutes in force. That is not the position today. Our democratic constitution rules that the sovereignty of parliament is returned to the people intact every five years. This has not been possible since 1972.

Never before in the 700-year-old history of Parliament at Westminster have we signed away to alien bodies the authority to govern us and make binding laws affecting our sovereignty as we have done to the European Union. The ‘project’ in Europe has not been international, but supranational, with the openly admitted agenda in Europe to create a federal United States of Europe.

Therefore, it is my submission that what has been going on in Government over the past 40 years has been illegal in that it has been contrary to the Constitution of this country. The Judiciary is increasingly compromised by this situation, I believe they know it and have mounting concern, but no one is willing to say that ‘the Queen has no clothes?’ They need to consider again the words of Sir Thomas Fuller, Attorney General of the 18^th century, who said in the very famous words, “Be you never so high, the law is above you.”

The assumption since 1911 and in particular since 1972 is that Parliament can pass any legislation whatsoever. The expectation that the Crown and the Judiciary should accept and implement it to the detriment of the people and their ancient liberties is false. The notion that all Acts made by Parliament are supreme and can contradict our Common Law and Statute Law still in force is a fallacy. It is a maxim of the Common Law that no Parliament can bind its successors. “Acts derogatory to the power of subsequent Parliaments bind not.” (Blackstones Commentaries 14^th Ed p 160; whereas it was established in 1932 that "No Parliament may bind its successors" (Vauxhall Estates v Liverpool Corporation IKB 733).

The position of every Government since we joined, the then Common Market is that we have ‘loaned’ our sovereignty, condoned by the (myopic) view of the judiciary, that implied repeal of our great statutes has taken place in respect of European legislation and that we can take back our sovereignty whenever we want.

I submit this is in effect a cheat, for the European treaties have never included an end clause – they are forever. They are binding future Parliaments and increasingly so day by day. The Queen has been what is termed at law, ‘deceived in her grant’ – or led into an unconstitutional position by her Ministers and advisers.

On March 20 2012, to mark The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the Speaker of the House of Commons addressed Her Majesty in Westminster Hall by saying she was a ‘kaleidoscope Queen of a kaleidoscope country.’ Fragmenting Britain’s sovereignty with the EU is not a pretty kaleidoscopic vision. It is confusion and far worse – it is a betrayal of the Queen’s most solemn Coronation Oath, made before Almighty God in Westminster Abbey (anointed and seated on ‘Jacob’s Pillow’) on June 2 1953, to uphold the ‘laws and customs’ of the Realm. By no stretch of the imagination does this include the laws and customs emanating from Brussels and Strasbourg, supported by hidden financial corruption.

My submission is that it was not possible to ‘loan’ our sovereignty without repealing the great statutes of the Realm, like Magna Carta 1215/1297, which predates Parliament, the Declaration and Bill of Rights 1688-89, when Parliament was suspended (making it null and void to repeal them – especially Clause 61 of Magna Carta). Also the Coronation Oath 1953, which brings to spiritual life the Covenant System, is a constitutionally required statute of the realm. The European legislation since the European Communities Act 1972, when we accepted the Treaty of Rome already in place since March 25, 1957, has acted like a ratchet moving in one direction of ‘ever closer union’ – which has been the key phrase of the European Project.

The people were not told they were joining a political union in 1973. They were deceived by the late Conservative leader Edward Heath when he said before the EEC Referendum of June 5, 1975 that “There is no question of eroding any national sovereignty; there is no blueprint for a federal Europe. There are some in this country who fear that in going into Europe we shall in some way sacrifice independence and sovereignty. These fears, I need hardly say are completely unjustified.” Thirty-seven years later in 2012 we see that this was a lie. Sir Edward Heath admitted as much in 1989 by remarking that ‘the project was always political.’

Anyone who is in their 56^th year has not had an opportunity to vote on whether or not they want their great nation and constitution, with its recognized ‘Mother of Parliaments’ in the Free World, to be merged with the alien system of government on the Continent.

Some 80% of our governmental decisions are now under the direct control of Brussels, and other remaining areas, like our economy, are under the surveillance of the EU. Our constitution has been undermined which is treason (R v Thistlewood 1820 "to destroy the constitution of the country" is an act of treason).

This despite the fact, that for the past 17 years, the accounts in the EU have not been passed for audit. Financial corruption is rife running at £6.3 billion per annum, mainly through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which takes up two-thirds of the annual EU budget and was €140 billion (£117 billion) in 2011. Billions go to racketeering and to the Mafia, which legally cannot be challenged as a fraud on the taxpayer until Parliament repeals or amends the ECA 1972.

The EU costs Britain some £50 million every single day. For 2010, Britain’s combined annual direct and indirect costs of EU membership were £77billion, while our accumulated trade deficit with EU member states since 1973 stands at £438billion. Initial comment has also been made that “hidden away in the 2012 budget statistics was Chancellor Osborne’s admission that the UK now gives the EU £33 billion a year.”

The Prime Minister’s official title is the ‘First Lord of the Treasury’ (still to be seen on the letterplate of 10 Downing Street) and as such he is directly responsible for the continuing loss of many billions of pounds of the Queen’s monies to EU corruption. He and Parliament are accountable to this continuing fraud upon the nation.

We have evidence from the German Justice Ministry that over 80% of German Federal Law forms the basis of EU Directives which number some 30,000 together with over 100,000 EU laws called the Acquis Communautaire which is placing a very heavy cost on all member countries – estimated at 4% of our Gross National Product.

Under the criminal justice system proposed by Brussels, known as Corpus Juris, Britain’s historic freedoms and liberties are to be ended in the name of a new “efficient” Europe. It is no exaggeration to say that, if implemented, the UK – without Habeas Corpus and trial by jury – would in all reality become a police state. One of our late great parliamentarians (Enoch Powell) said he never thought we would give up the authority of our Courts and another (Tony Benn) said what has happened since 1972 is a slow coup d’etat – they were from opposite sides of the political spectrum. With the Treaty of Lisbon, in force since Dec 1, 2009, the coup de grace is not far off. Our country which until World War II had the finest system of freedoms and justice on earth, could, if this process continues, cease to exist in any meaningful way. Short of a collapse with the euro (now very possible) and a general disintegration of the EU (also quite possible), future generations may have to fight their way out of the EU.

In the UK there is a distinct separation of powers between those who make Law (i.e. Parliament) and those who investigate crimes and institute prosecution proceedings (i.e. The Police) those who administer Justice (i.e. the Judiciary and legal profession) and those who decide whether the defendant is guilty or innocent (i.e. lay magistrates and independent juries). Not so with the Continent, where all law enforcement powers – investigation, prosecution, conduct of the trial, verdict and sentencing – are vested in the hands of the same professional brotherhood.

The European Arrest Warrant, since 2004, has resulted in hundreds of British citizens being taken off by instant extradition to be incarcerated in squalid European jails without harmonizing protections across the EU. This is indefensible and a constitutional outrage, being against every safeguard of our hard fought for freedoms over centuries. British citizens, often in trivial cases and in retrospect, are being taken from their home, family, language and legal system to face months or years awaiting trial in a foreign jail without a basic case being tested in a local court. It was brought in without any debate in either House of our once sovereign Westminster Parliament.

It was on the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo (South of Brussels, June 18, 1815), on June 18, 2003, that the House of Lords were to debate an Extradition Bill (GC 287), yet they were made aware that an EU-USA Extradition Agreement/Treaty had already been made, in secret. In fact in the sitting of June 3, 2003, Antonio Vitorino was telling the EU Parliament; “This assessment has been made taking due account of the fact that this is, as the president mentioned, the very first Union agreement in the field of Justice and Home Affairs, and it will be an historical precedent.”

Worse still, something more sinister is in prospect. Under the added article 188R of the Treaty of Lisbon, it is quite clear that Europol /Eurogendarmerie, or foreign troops, can enter Britain fully armed with immunity from prosecution and will have immunity from prosecution in our county. Furthermore, it was confirmed on March 13, 2012, that police across the EU are to be given open access to the UK’s national DNA database. Forces in every member state will be able to check crime scene samples against millions of profiles held in the UK. This could lead to thousands more Britons facing extradition. It is one of 130 EU justice measures which ministers will have to decide whether to

adopt by the end of 2014. The UK DNA database contains five million profiles.

This includes one million of innocent people (though a law due to come into force in 2012 will mean, of those not convicted, only the details of those suspected of serious offences of sex or violence will be retained, for a maximum of five years). The potential for creating one EU police state undoubtedly begins by building an EU-wide DNA database.

The Common Law, built up over centuries, protects the freedom of the individual against coercion by the state whereas the continental system, based upon the Civil Law, or Code Napoleon, is specifically designed to ensure the supremacy of the state over the individual. What hope do we have for the future?

History is definitely on our side. The very wonderful thing about our history is the way we fight the over-mighty subjects – that is the golden thread of British history. During the last three months of 1659 when the country was in a growing state of anger, as the country is today – remembering that the Restoration was in 1660. There was one man who was a leader, General Monk. He was a man of Devon, but there was a quite magic about him. He was oddly enough a general in Cromwell’s army having been a Cavalier rather that a Roundhead.

In those months he received, often in the middle of the night, emissaries from all sorts of people and interests in the country: various leaders of the realm, the mercantile classes, the mayors of various boroughs, guilds (forerunners of trade unions), other military units, the peerage, the Church. All sorts of organizations came to this man and said, “will you shake off the shackles?” And there was a terrific urge to speak out the truth, and nobody mentioned the words “Charles Stuart.”

And yet the nation knew exactly what was wanted and things moved incredibily fast. And I believe there will be a second Restoration in this country, because, it is in the heart and will of the people of this country – the great people of this country – that this should be so. Having looked for a turn of the tide for 40 years, I now begin to see it happening. I believe the new generation of young people will soon take up the Cause to regain their ancient freedoms. If they do not, the consequences could afflict generations of their descendants to come. In Diamond Jubilee Year it is time that Britain experienced a great jubilee release from the yoke of a Rome-centred European bondage.

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Michael A Clark,

April 6, 2012 (Declaration of Arbroath, April 6, 1320)