Toby on Tuesday 

‘Brazen lies and false declarations’

 

Last week I wrote about the very best of the very best, those enterprising Yorkshire men and women behind Business for Britain. Creating top-of-the-range products and selling them across the globe, they build employment and prosperity here for the benefit of all. By contrast today I am going to write about the very worst of the very worst, or at least someone who must be a contender for that particular title, namely the late Sir Edward Heath. It was Edward Heath who, as Prime Minister from 1970-74, took Britain into the then European Economic Community. I don’t propose to write about the various police investigations now underway, but instead want to say something about his proven crimes. And of course his greatest proven crime, from which we continue to suffer, was to have given away our sovereignty on the basis of a brazen lie.

In 1970, Lord Kilmuir as Lord Chancellor wrote privately to Edward Heath about the proposed EEC accession. What he said was, “It is clear…that the Council of Ministers could…make regulations which would be binding on us even against our wishes, and which would in fact become for us part of the law of the land. For Parliament to do this would go far beyond the most extensive delegation of powers, even in wartime, that we have experienced and I do not think there is any likelihood of this being acceptable to the House of Commons. We should have therefore to accept a position where Parliament had no more power to repeal its own enactments (in other words that it was no longer a Parliament)… we could only comply with our obligations under the Treaty if Parliament abandoned its right of passing independent judgment on the legislative proposals put before it…In this respect Parliament has in substance, if not in form, abdicated its sovereign position.” Yet in 1972 Edward Heath declared on television that, “There will be no loss of essential national sovereignty.” Kilmuir’s letter, ignored by Edward Heath, only became public many years later. And when in 1990 Edward Heath was asked, again on television, whether he had known that his 1972 declaration had been false, he replied, “Of course, yes!”

As Prime Minister, Edward Heath also started negotiations with Franco’s Spain for the transfer of democratic Gibraltar to a fascist dictatorship, against the express wishes of its people. He offered Spain political and cultural access to Gibraltar to start the process of “persuading” the Gibraltarians to relinquish British sovereignty. Likewise, he had an obsession with the Chinese Communist Party, busy at that time executing thousands of dissidents a year. His defence of Chinese totalitarianism was, “You can’t have a democracy with so many people!” No doubt he had this precedent in mind when planning for a Europe of 500 million people in the “post-democratic age.” I can’t claim to have known Edward Heath myself, but I met him on several occasions, notably when he twice came to speak for me when I was standing as a Conservative candidate. It always puzzled me that he chose to address me as “Tony”. I mentioned this in a light-hearted way to someone who was close to him and he replied, “Oh, when Ted really dislikes someone he always deliberately gets their name wrong!” But what he intended as an insult, I have always taken as a badge of honour for, in a reasonable and balanced world, an insult from Edward Heath can only be seen as the ultimate compliment!

Until next Tuesday!
Toby