AS I SEE IT: Britain is burying its head in the sand over Europe

The idea that the citizen of any nation has basic rights to freedom from oppression and freedom of speech, among many more, has been with us for centuries. The newly-founded colonies of America rose up against the oppression of the British ruling class that went out of its way to issue dictate after dictate to ensure these colonists were treated like slaves of the ruling classes of Britain.

A War of Independence was fought and won to ensure that (at least in the colonies of America) all people regardless of class and creed had a Bill of Rights that all citizens could relate to and come to the courts of the land if they felt there were being denied.

The people of France also decided theirs were being denied and revolted against it. Unfortunately a dictator came along to spoil that and take the nation to a 25-year war with its neighbours.

We now have a general European-based dictate that has governed all states on how you, the citizen of this EU state, should run your lives and how others should do the same. Unfortunately some of these laws (that, by the way, you, the citizen, never had a say in what they are and how they would affect your daily life) are now showing themselves to be flawed to a point they are in themselves destroying that ideal of rights of the law abiding citizen.

We have seen recently our EU Government issuing a statement on giving convicted prisoners the right to vote. Our local governing body, which is called the British Parliament, has now decided to go against the main ruling body, the State of Europe, about this issue, on the grounds that if you deny any person’s human rights then you should have yours also denied while serving a sentence laid down by law.

Yet in doing so are they (the local governing body of Britain ) not guilty of failing to obey laws of the land we now live in ie. The State of Europe? And in doing so denying the rights of the European British citizen their rights under the State of Europe laws? Or are we, the citizens of Britain, acting like that Ostrich and burying our heads in the sand and denying the fact our rights have now been eroded by this State of Europe?

The basic right of any citizen who lives under a democracy is one of involvement in the process of making laws for that state they live in. To have that fundamental right denied them by any governing body on a basis of laws being made and passed without proper consultation with the citizen is nothing short of dictatorship.

Hiding one’s head in the sand, like we in Britain have done for decades, can only have one outcome – to accept all and shut up and be dictated to by some unknown persons in far away lands. It appears we have decided to do just that.

By Ron Loebell