BUSINESS FOR STERLING

" Business for Sterling is the leading campaign for the survival of sterling, and for Britain to stay out of the European Monetary Union. Although non-party political and non anti European, Business for sterling believes the implications of joining the Euro could be harmful to the British Economy, and present the business arguments for Sterling."
Aimed primarily at British businessmen, this site contains much  information on what abolishing the pound would mean for all of us, not just businesses, covering things like interest rates, taxes, inflation, and wages.

NEW EUROPE

"We are a group of people who have always been pro-European and in favour of Britain's constructive membership of the European Union. We are internationalists and come from all political backgrounds. We believe that Britain is better off outside the single currency."   "New Europe is part of NO, the non-party political campaign against the euro."  Includes full text of a debate between Kenneth Clarke and Malcolm Rifkind, articles by Robin Guthrie, Bridget Rosewell, Sir John Coles and other famous figures. Good site with outstanding content. The top site for the implications of the single currency, in my opinion.

Labour Euro-Safeguards Campaign

Chaired by The Rt. Hon Lord Shore of Stepney PC, their mission statement is (extract): "The Labour Euro-Safeguards Campaign is strongly opposed to Stage III and the Single Currency, which will deprive our Labour government of the essential tools of economic management...The case against Stage III and the single currency is not a question of arid economic theory. It is a struggle for the soul of the Labour Party. Join us in the fight."
Membership is invited, regardless of your political party, with a voluntary donation. Some very good articles here.

THE NEW ALLIANCE

"No Euro, says the New Alliance."  Read the page headed  "THE CASE AGAINST EMU - "PENNY WISE, EURO FOOLISH"
How do claims by federalists on the single currency and EMU stand up to scrutiny?"  There are answers here to many of our questions. Not an expensive professional site, but all the better for it. Very useful. Go there.

THE DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT

"The Democracy Movement is a non-party political campaign to Keep the Pound and Stop the European Superstate.
The European Superstate is nearing completion. The British people are already citizens of this state. It has its own anthem, its own flag, and its own currency - the Euro.
In the next four to five years politicians want the new state to have its own passport, a Europe wide police force called EuroPol, a single system of law, a European army, a single tax system and a single social benefits system. All of this is being organised without your consent and much of it without your knowledge."
A major site, with much content. Go there. They recently staged an anti-euro protest march (photo on site).

KEEP THE POUND

   The Conservative Party's campaign to keep the pound. "We have confidence in the ability of Britain to prosper with her own currency."  An online poll that has collected over a million signatures. The Articles/Speeches has some good stuff, such as:  "Trade supremo Stephen Byers yesterday performed an incredible U-turn on the single currency. Mr Byers - the (labour) Cabinet's euro cheerleader - admitted it will be virtually impossible to persuade voters to ditch the Pound because it would jeopardise the economy...(more)".

THE HUMILIATION OF ABOLISHING THE POUND

A well-written article from Keele university with some hard-hitting and alarming facts, such as " The Bank of England will become the British Central Bank and the European Central Bank will take over its legal control. This will mean that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will no longer have his regular meetings with the Governor, and the officials of our Central Bank will be legally bound to take no notice of what our Government advises or our nation needs..."

THE SINGLE EUROPEAN CURRENCY IN
NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

"With Europe on the brink of a great economic experiment, this is the first book to look at the European Union and single currency from the perspective of each of the member states"   Written by the following: - BERNARD H. MOSS is Professor of History associated with the Institute of European Studies in London. With an LL.M. from the London School of Economics, he has expanded his interests to the European Union. JONATHAN MICHIE is Professor of Management and Business Studies, Birkbeck College, University of London. He was previously at the Judge Institute of Management Studies, University of Cambridge, and before that worked in Brussels as an Expert to the European Commission. He has authored or edited more than 15 books, mostly on economic policy. 
I have not read this book, and I would welcome a review from somebody.

THE BRUGES GROUP

"The Bruges Group was set up in February 1989 to campaign for a Europe less subject to centralised control than that emerging in Brussels. Its inspiration was Margaret Thatcher's Bruges speech, in September 1988, in which she remarked that Britain had not rolled back the frontiers of the state in order to have them re-imposed from Brussels. The Bruges Group soon had a major effect on public opinion, and forged links with similarly minded Members of Parliament as well as with similarly minded groups in other countries." This group and its list of regular speakers includes many household names and leaders of British politics and industry. An unparalleled source of accurate information. Attend the meetings if you can.

I set this site up (back in 1997) to help fill you in on the facts of what is happening to us regarding the European Union (EU) and its relation to us as British Citizens.

I am an ordinary British citizen myself, a family man, with my own small business. I am very concerned about the Britain we are handing down so casually to our children, a Britain no longer ruled by its own Monarch and parliament, a Britain that I personally feel has been betrayed and sold-on by its own governments. I find it hard to believe how unaware the British people are of the enormous betrayal that has taken place. Perhaps it takes a lot to rouse us British. Maybe it was like this before the two World Wars - we are slow to act but formidable when we do.

My wife loves France and its people. I feel somewhat the same about Spain. We have many fine friends who are French, Spanish, German, Austrian, Italian and Swiss. They are not the "European Union". The "EU" is the creation of a small number of powerful men who have entirely their own agenda. 

In the months preceding the its signing it was impossible to get a copy of the Maastricht Treaty, the treaty that would create enormous changes to the whole future of our country. Then one solitary man, David Pollard of Oxford, somehow got hold of a copy of the Treaty and published it on floppy disk, which he sent to the national newspapers. Four major newspapers published extracts from the Treaty (known as "The Unseen Treaty), thanks to David. I for my part embarked on a private project to get the text file of the Maastricht Treaty posted on every Bulletin Board (BBS) in the UK, some 200 BBSs. (My phone bill was huge, but this was before the Internet was in public use).

But the Treaty was signed, and we were never consulted.

No government has the right to give away the power of our Parliament to govern our country, to a consortium of foreign nations. Only the British people have the right to do that. There should have been a referendum.

Prime Minister John Major knew that. His ministers knew that. Every MP of whatever Party knew that. A few stood up and said so, loudly. They were "disciplined" by Tory Party whips and Tory Party leaders. Yet they were the ones who put loyalty to the British people before "obedience" to the "Party line". The suppression of this few was in fact a gross national scandal, quickly glossed over by Mr Major and others. (I recommend you read MP Teresa Gorman's book "The Bastards" for the full sordid facts). And of course Mr Major reaped the whirlwind at the next general election, when the British people showed the contempt they had come to feel for him and most of the Conservative Party.

And thus we voted in a Labour Party well organised in matters of obedience to their leader, Tony Blair, whose view of the European Union is that Britain should quickly and with no fuss (notice the deliberate low key that EU matters have been reduced to in the media...) be absorbed into a socialist Europe. And now having returned the Blair government for a second term, we face European Monetary Union - the abolition of the Pound Sterling and the assumption of a "single currency" with all its consequences. 

Some of the people I talk to think this is all about trading with Europe. They have been tricked into believing that there will be grave job losses, and financial strife if we do not abandon the pound sterling and take up the euro. What a con! We have been trading with Europe for thousands of years, with great success ! This is about the silent conquest of our island. This is about being legally ruled by Europe. By a Europe dominated by Germany (and the rulers of the bundesbank - the real creators of the euro). Over the next few weeks we will be inundated with propaganda about how we must vote in the forthcoming referendum for swapping our pound for their euro - or face some horrific consequence. Utter rubbish. Do not be manipulated. FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF.

Some while ago Torquil Dick-Erikson wrote this to me: "Over the years I have tried to get people to look at the LEGAL aspects, with particular reference to the disastrous effects it will have on British individual civil rights like Habeas Corpus and Trial by Independent Jury, which are unknown throughout the continent. Our national LEGAL sovereignty and right to self-government, on which all else obviously hinges, is in the process of being done away with as I write, by Parliament's passing the Amsterdam Treaty (right now it's in the Committee stage). The tragedy is that Members of Parliament are I believe quite unaware of what they are doing, for they have not noticed the legally irreversible barb embedded in the text of Article K2(6)."

We, the British public, should be asked, whether via a referendum, or by some other means: do we wish to be part of Federal Europe, or do we wish to remain as we always have been - in the words of Mr Churchill -

I would like to thank the large number of people who have sent supportive email and valuable contributions - please keep doing it! My thanks especially to the Electronic Telegraph who have so often posted links to this site on their pages.

 Please spread the Web address (URL) of this site to newsgroups, other sites, the media and your friends (and even your MP !) And mail me if you find more content I can include. If you have a useful article to contribute or a relevant we site, please email me. If I have failed to reply to anyone, I apologize. I do get a lot of email.

Please email me your comments and suggestions

I maintain this site to enhance public access to information about the European Union and about the effects of integration into the European Union and adoption of its currency upon the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Reproduction is authorized and encouraged, provided the source is acknowledged, i.e. the URL (Web address) of this site, preferably with a live link provided to this site from your site. Thanks !
Information on this site is not necessarily the responsibility of the site author(s). Whilst my goal is to keep this information timely and accurate, I cannot guarantee either. If errors are brought to my attention, I will try to correct them rapidly.
Some of the documents on this site contain references, or links, to information maintained by other organisations. Please note that whilst I personally vet all links on this site, I do not control and cannot guarantee the relevance, timeliness, truth or accuracy of these outside materials. © M. Phillips, 1997,1998, 1999, 2000, 2001.