Richard North writes of a disturbing instance of law-making via the EU construct - bypassing the national legislature. North refers specifically to a law desired by the British Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, to oblige phone and email records to be kept so that they can be checked in the wake of Islamist terror atrocities and the like.
The rights and wrongs of this specific case are not so much the point as the process by which Clarke is seeking to get his way. An agreement he makes with the other EU ministers today can be made UK law tomorrow, according to North, if Clarke can get the British Parliament to approve the agreement "on the nod" through a single "enabling act" vote. In this way, national politicians can speed up the passing into law of ill thought-through law, often the result of a knee-jerk reaction to a specific event, using the EU system to avoid the normal legislative process and their own electorates.
In other words, it is another example of how the war on terror is being misused to erode liberties many of us thought sacrosanct, and guaranteed us through our national institutions.
Permalink to Richard North's article:EU Referendum
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