Roger Helmer MEP

Although we were demonstrating for a Referendum, the occasion bringing together the top brass was a formal signing of the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights.  That’s the one that Keith Vaz said had “no more legal force than the Beano”.  The one that comes in with the Lisbon Treaty/ Constitution.  The one where Gordon Brown has some rickety red lines, which will fall at the first challenge in the ECJ.
 
Predictably, Bill Turncoat Dunn was moved to make one of his rare excursions into regional press, singing the praises of the EU’s new Charter.  But let’s not forget that it was EU “Rights” that enabled convicts to demand pornography in jail, and which prevent Britain from sending home terrorist suspects.
 
We in Britain have a Common Law tradition stretching back centuries.  Our rights are not given us by the state, or by Charters and Conventions.  They are ours because we are born with them.
 
The effect of this Charter will be more judicial activism.  It will mean that the law is decided by unaccountable judges, not by politicians (whom at least we can sack at the next election).  It contains a host of “Rights” that in many cases are self-contradictory.  It will be a field-day for lawyers, but a bad day for the freedoms of English men and women.