As you know, I have no shame about re-posting my comments on other blogs here. Waste not, want not.
I am a tad ashamed of my comment to this post of Tim Worstall's though. Not the words but the typos. Here's the corrected version. I was replying to an earlier commenter called Alex.
Alex writes, "Or we could just vote against this proposal."
And the next similar proposal. And the next after that, which is also similar but they will assure us is quite different. And the next after that, which comes at a difficult time for the British premier when he wants EU goodwill over some other issue. And the next after that, which is smuggled in as part CCLXVII of something else entirely. And then maybe there's a referendum, and we do vote against it, and so then there's another referendum - only this time round the opposition are right out of money, volunteers and energy, having spent it all campaigning for the last one; while the EU campaign chest is magically refilled by taxpayers' money.
With the EU "voting against it" is not allowed to be final; voting for it is final. I think we need to leave.
Posted by: Natalie Solent | Jun 28, 2006 1:39:56 PM
What was this proposal that all the fuss was about? Oh, only the end of our own laws, our juries and the rights bequeathed to us through 800 years of evolution of the Common Law. Worstall writes:
Indeed, most of those protections were introduced entirely to protect us from that State: something many forget, that the limitations on evidence and trials are not to protect criminals, but to protect the innocent from being proclaimed criminals for political reasons.
Our continental friends have very different legal systems. Very different indeed. No juries, to start with. So if we are to have EU wide criminal law, clearly there will be harmonisation. And it doesn’t take intelligence of the genius level to see that when the UK and Eire are on one side, with our own distinctive systems, and 23 are on the other, with their, which way the harmonisation is going to go.
Now we are to have this without a national veto, now it will be the result of majority voting. That will be the end of it, one of the two great inventions of these Isles. The English language will survive but the Common Law legal system will not.
posted by Natalie at 1:45 PM
