Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-11-25-Speech-3-021"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20091125.6.3-021"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Mr President, you are all very downbeat this morning. I thought this was going to be a big, proud moment! It has taken you eight and a half years of bullying, of lying, of ignoring democratic referendums. Eight and a half years it has taken you to get this treaty through, and on 1 December you will have it.
Well, at least I have been elected, Sir, unlike her! She has not been elected, and the people do not have the power to remove her.
But just hear the next bit. There is something rather more serious than that. Cathy Ashton was an active member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. In fact, she was the treasurer of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament during a period of time when CND took very large donations and refused to reveal the source. What is known is that these donations were obtained by a man called Will Howard, who was a member of the Communist Party in Great Britain. Will Baroness Ashton deny that, while she was treasurer, she took funds from organisations that were opposed to Western-style capitalism and democracy? That question must be asked.
And are we really happy that somebody who will be in charge of our overseas security policy was an activist a few years ago in an outfit like CND? If we really think that, frankly, we need our bumps felt! I do not think she is a fit and proper person to do this job. She has no experience and she must answer those questions. Did she take money from enemies of the West? That question must be answered.
Well, we have our two pygmies. We will have the bland leading the bland, but I am not celebrating because they will press on with political union and, whilst our leaders may have saved face for the moment for themselves on the international stage, they have all betrayed their national democracies. The European state is here. We are about to get an avalanche of new laws because of this Lisbon Treaty and there is no question in my mind that there has to be a full, free, fair referendum in the United Kingdom to decide whether we stay part of this Union or not. I hope and pray that we vote to leave, but either way the people simply must be asked.
Of course, the architect of all of this, Giscard, wanted, from this constitutional treaty, for the European Union to have a big, global voice, but I am afraid the leaders have suffered from a collective loss of nerve. They have decided that they want their faces to be up on the global stage, not somebody from the European Union, and so we have got appointed a couple of political pygmies.
The Kissinger question of who to call in Europe has not really been answered, has it? I guess the answer can only be Mr Barroso, because he is the only one that anybody in the world has ever heard of and is probably the big winner out of these posts. No wonder, Sir, you look so happy this morning.
And we have a new president of Europe, Herman Van Rompuy. It does not exactly trip off the tongue, does it? I cannot see him stopping the traffic in Beijing or Washington; I doubt anybody in Brussels would even recognise who he is. And yet he is going to be paid a salary that is bigger than Obama’s, which tells you all you need to know about this European political class and how they look after themselves.
But at least he is an elected politician, unlike Baroness Cathy Ashton, who really is the true representation of the modern-day political class. In some ways she is ideal, is she not? She has never had a proper job, and she has never been elected to anything in her life. So I guess she is perfect for this European Union.
She has never been elected to anything and no one knows who she is! Even the Prime Minister was talking about Baroness ‘Ashdown’ as opposed to Ashton. I mean, no one has ever heard of her. She is even less well-known than Herman Van Rompuy! I mean, that takes some doing, does it not?
She has risen without trace. She is part of this post-democratic age. She married well: she married an adviser, friend and supporter of Tony Blair and got put in the House of Lords. When she was in the House of Lords, she was given one big job, and that job was to get the Lisbon Treaty through the House of Lords and to do so pretending that it was entirely different to the EU Constitution. So she is good at keeping a straight face, and she vigorously crushed any attempt in the House of Lords for the British people to have a referendum.
So here she is: never stood for public office, never had a proper job, and here she gets one of the top jobs in the Union. Her appointment is an embarrassment for Britain."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata | |
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples