SIR TEDDY TELLS IT AS IT IS Below is an extract, published in Euro Realist, from a speech made by the ex Conservative MP for Rochford and Southend East, Sir Teddy Taylor, when addressing the AGM of the Free Trade League on Monday 8th January. “According to one of my excellent local papers - the Southend Times - there are two issues which are upsetting the people of Southend on Sea at the present time. The first is the influx of people from East Europe. The second is an EU directive which makes it illegal to build a church organ similar to those in most of our Southend churches. In fairness the paper made it clear that it is OK to retain one of the illegal organs and to listen to its music. However, the problem arises if you need to repair the organ or insert any replacement parts. If you do this, you could be arrested and the trustees of the church would be prosecuted. The newspaper this week reported that one of the organists at Durham Cathedral is of the opinion that the European Union had gone stark staring bonkers, and they further explained that in their opinion most people in Southend on Sea would agree with this sentiment. But if we do not like the new Euro organ laws, what on earth can we do about it? If the people feel that immigration from East Europe is a danger to the stability of our society what advice can we offer them? There’s no point in contacting any of our MPs because even if all the Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrat, Scottish and Welsh Nationalists and our friendly Northern Ireland MPs all agreed that our traditional church organs should be repaired and that immigration should be contained and controlled, there’s nothing which they can do about it. And its just as pointless to go to our Euro MPs. They’re just as powerless. The sad fact is that if the European Parliament was to close its doors tomorrow, nobody would really notice apart from the taxi drivers of Strasbourg. Sadly our ability to influence things is just fading away. If we feel that the policy of subsidising the growing of high tar tobacco is wrong, it doesn’t matter. If our taxes are used to subsidise the dumping of this tobacco in the third world, and if we think that this is shocking, our views don’t matter. in the same way we might be very concerned and perplexed about the very high price paid to grow sugar in Europe and about the damage we do to the third world by dumping this sugar at highly subsidised prices in the world market, but our views don’t matter. It’s not just in Britain. The national press advised us the other day that while the people of France had been wildly enthusiastic about the Euro currency, they had now changed their opinion and didn’t like the Euro at all. But what is the point of having changing opinions in Eurodreamland? It’s high time that the British political parties, all of which have shortages of cash and of members, realised that the reason the community, and particularly young people, are switching off from politics is because they regard the whole business as a useless waste of time. For people like ourselves who follow the teachings of a great visionary - Adam Smith - and who believe passionately that free trade would make the world more free and more prosperous, there is a big problem. This problem is that our elected Parliament and our elected government don’t control either trade policy or subsidies. The most we could hope for in our crusade would be that a UK government which shared our views would seek to become a difficult and frustrating member of the EU and would seek to use its powers in decision making to persuade other member states that policies should be changed and adjusted to accommodate more free trade. In fairness the chances of reform coming this way within the EU are very slim unless we can seek to persuade the people that the reforms are necessary and in the public interest. Our basic problem is that our democracy, which has achieved so much for the nation and its people is dying and withering away. We must start the fight back now and let the people realise how dangerous the situation is. Let us make the Free Trade League the champion of democracy and the vehicle which wakes people up to the dangers of the ever increasing threat to our democracy and to our right to decide.”