Previous Speaker of
the House of Commons-1976-83
supports
our
Ancient Constitution
The following letter was sent to This
England by the late Viscount Tonypandy (Mr George Thomas) Speaker of the
House of Commons
Sir:
Since I retired from the Speaker’s chair in the House of
Commons in 1983, I have strictly adhered to our parliamentary tradition, which
prevents former Speakers from being embroiled in party political controversies.
It is because I am convinced that the question of our
national sovereignty towers above all that I feel free to submit this address to
the electors of Britain.
Our Westminster Parliament is in danger of being denuded
of its responsibilities, and of being supplanted by European assembly controlled
by a hotchpotch of European politicians and bureaucrats, who have no love for
this country. Our national destiny will be subject to foreign control.
In our British heritage a special place of honour is
reserved for Pym and Hampden, who so courageously fought for the rights of our
Parliament against the claims of absolutism by the Crown. Their portraits hang
in pride in Speaker’s House, along with that of Speaker Lenthall who defended
Parliament’s independence when it was challenged by Charles 1
Other parliamentary giants have followed in their wake.
Names such as Palmerston and Pitt, Gladstone, Disraeli, Asquith, Lloyd George,
Churchill, Attlee, and the like, shine in our history as fierce defenders of
self-government by the British people.
They
should be living in this hour, for we need support to protect our national
interests from being subject to foreign control.
No political party in Britain has a mandate
from the electorate to surrender our national sovereignty to foreign hands.
The current slide towards a single European currency
threatens both our economic and our political independence, and thus our
sovereignty. Subterfuge and half-truths have been used to persuade the nation
that neither our sovereignty nor our relationship with the Commonwealth is
endangered.
There appears to be a conspiracy of silence about the fact
that the United Kingdom’s trade and oversees investments are still much greater
with countries outside the European Union than they are with those within the
Union, which is itself increasingly a puppet of a French and German alliance.
It is not too late for us to save our sovereignty
For more than 600 years Speakers of the
House of Commons have fiercely defended the supremacy of the Westminster
Parliament. As one whose privilege it was to follow humbly in the steps of the
mighty Speakers of the past, I call upon our nation to awake, and to demand that
the voice of all our people shall be heard before the next inter-governmental
conference takes irrevocable decisions affecting our sovereignty.
A national Referendum conducted before, and not after,
further decisions are taken is our democratic right.
This is the only sure way to prevent our parliamentary
sovereignty, our judicial system and our Commonwealth relationships from being
grievously undermined.
* *
*
We believe that Lord Tonypandy would support our
cause at this momentous time for our nation when the people will at last have
their say after they have been honestly given the true facts of the dangers to
the Constitution, Freedom and Independence of our Country.
2004
THERE WAS NO REFERENDUM UNTIL
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