Conference Preparations
Following meetings on absentee ballots at the American
Enterprise Institute and the USAID 1st July 2003 conference
on Iraq (our proposals in regard to Iraq can be viewed
on
www.sortition.org.uk)
Dr Nilsen invited Rebecca Vigil-Giron, the President of
the US National Association of State Secretaries, to a
conference on international electoral standards in
London. She accepted the invitation and enquiries were
made at both Labour and Conservative Party conferences
in 2004, and subsequently among embassies in London.
Positive responses were received from politicians and
diplomats from seventeen nations. It was decided to hold
the conference in London on 1st April 2005. However
difficulties arose in regard to security and the
conference was postponed.
As enquiries to British Foreign Office staff eventually
established after some delay and mixed messages, despite
diplomatic interest in the conference, since the CDRSB is
an NGO it would not be able to use secure government venue
facilities. We could not therefore provide conference
security commensurate with the high state of alert against
terrorism in London prior to the 2005 General Election.
Unlike citizens in the Swiss and American republican
democracies British subjects have been deprived of the
right to bear arms for purposes of self defence granted
them in perpetuity by the English Bill of Rights. There is
a perceptible linkage between abrogation of this Right and
more general difficulties of democratic development
discussed at the conference. Abrogation of both the right
to a secret ballot and to armed self defence by the Left
has accelerated since the 'collapse' of communism
throughout the United States and Europe, but more
especially in the European Union, which has effectively
abolished the right to armed self defence and is now intent
on such measures even in Switzerland.
Violations of these Rights in the UK are not premised on
sound legal foundations. The 1872 Ballot Act granted the
right to a secret ballot but the 2000 Representation of the
People Act effectively repeals it, in an underhand way, as
George Cunningham has made clear. Measures curtailing the
right to armed self defence are even more suspect, as is
apparent from any vaguely impartial reading of the 1689
Act. As will be shown, conservative and radical positions
have been inverted in regard to such rights, as if one side
had swapped coats with the other. The relation between
faction, totalitarianism and conference security will
therefore be reported on in some detail here.
Questions of impartiality have been raised in regard to the
role of security services which have a bearing on the high
state of alert then in place in London. In the United
States, as Democratic Senator Zel Miller made clear at the
2004 Republican Party conference, his party adopted
partisan positions against the President in time of war
which were without precedent. Similarly partisan
differences developed in Britain. The 2005 British General
Election was the first one to take place in which the
Leader of the Opposition publicly condemned the Prime
Minister as a liar, and refused to withdraw this
allegation. Factional strife in regard to intelligence
matters have been the main source of this polarisation. On
12th October 2003 British Leader of the Opposition Iain
Duncan Smith, according to the British Mail on Sunday,
accused John Scarlett, then chairman of the Joint
Intelligence Committee, of being a 'lying shit' in regard
to security matters of the highest importance. Mr Scarlett
was subsequently appointed head of MI6 by the Prime
Minister.
These considerations informed the approach taken by the
CDRSB to matters of security and with this the asymmetric
nature of risks posed by terrorist activity in the context
of what Donald Rumsfeld has described as the 'murky' world
of intelligence.
Such risks are difficult to quantify and assess. For
example, it has been alleged that George Bush senior is the
'deep throat' informant who brought down President Nixon, a
close colleague of Senator McCarthy. By way of further
illustration, at the Transatlantic Studies Conference held
at Nottingham University in July 2005 these concerns were
raised in respect of the work of Anatoly Golitsyn, a senior
KGB defector. Despite the fact that his views in regard to
the war on terror have not been reported it was suggested
(by Gavin Bailey, a history lecturer at Dundee University)
that it is dangerous to discuss them. Luis Andrade,
Professor at the University of the Azores and a NATO
training officer, argued that no matters should be beyond
discussion in a democracy. Mr Golitsyn confirmed Senator
McCarthy's claim that Western political institutions have
been thoroughly infiltrated by communist fifth column
forces. Their strategic intentions include suborning nation
state independence to a Euro-Asian alliance between 'soft'
and 'hard' totalitarian forces directed against the United
States. Mr Golytsin's views are no longer openly endorsed
by the CIA. However, Shadow Defence Minister Julian Lewis
confirmed at the 2005 Tory Party conference that Golytsin
still receives state protection services 45 years after
defecting.
Although to our knowledge there has been virtually no
mention of Mr Golytsin's views on any major media outlet in
the last ten years (excepting BBC Radio 4 on the 30th July
1998 when Kenneth Clarke, former Tory Chancellor, debated
whether the European Union (EU) is a 'Leninist collective'
with Christopher Story, a former advisor to Margaret
Thatcher and Golytsin advocate) views of a similar nature
have been expressed by many public figures.
Margaret Thatcher's closest Ministerial colleague, Lord
Norman Tebbitt (who opposes the unrestricted use of postal
ballots) has described EU policy as 'fascist' and has
alleged that the UK Independence Party has been supported
by MI6 not to keep Britain out of Europe but to keep the
Tories out of power. Mr Tebbit has stated publicly his
inability to decide whether the present Tory leader, David
Cameron, is some sort of 'Pol Pot.' The British National
Party, which opposes immigration but has been described as
a 'left wing' party by Mr Tebbit because it opposes UK
membership of NATO, has similarly taken the view that the
Conservative Party and the BBC are infiltrated by Marxists.
Jeremy Paxman, the chief reporter on Newsnight, the leading
BBC programme of political analysis, has publicly stated
that the BBC is run by 'superannuated Marxists.'
Simon Heffer, of the Daily Mail, has repeatedly claimed
that Britain is being subverted by a totalitarian form of
government. Christopher Booker, of the Daily Telegraph,
believes there is no longer any shadow cabinet opposition
to the Government, and cited a Ministry of Defence
'stealth' policy of breaking links to America in favour of
integration with European armaments manufacture. Shadow
Defence Minister Liam Fox has supported, not opposed,
Labour's arms procurement Minister in 'warning' the US
Senate Armed Services committee that UK-US joint fighter
aircraft electronic source codes must be disclosed to UK
command structures even though their EU links to France
will probably result in advanced weapons technology
transfer to China. The CDRSB supported Liam Fox's Tory
leadership bid due to his seeming support for CDRSB
positions, even though our suspicions in regard to his
sincerity were aroused at the 2005 Tory conference when he
avoided answering our questions regarding the secrecy of
postal ballot voting figures. Mr. Booker's criticisms have
deepened these suspicions.
Problems of factional strife have affected the London
Police. Opposition politicians have alleged that the
present Government's programme of reform threatens
democracy by placing increasing restrictions on the right
to trial by jury, granting legislative powers to Ministers,
and transforming the security forces into an instrument of
partisan policies by methods including an extreme policy of
centralisation. Juries are now selected effectively in
secret by a single national computer. UK inquests will
shortly be conducted in secret. Local police forces are
soon to be abolished despite the postal ballot fraud
investigations which most of them began following the 2005
General Election. The impartiality of the present head of
the Metropolitan force, Sir Ian Blair, has been challenged
in consequence of his lobbying activities on behalf of
Government policy, and in regard to what has been
considered a leftist approach to matters of political
correctness. There is evidence that police massively
exaggerated antiwar demonstration numbers. Confidence in
Sir Ian has also been undermined by his attempts to deceive
the public in regard to his responsibility for the killing
of an unarmed, innocent civilian during anti-terrorist
operations. Police rules for shooting suicide bomb suspects
on sight unlike those for Israeli police do not require
visual confirmation that the suspect has a bomb. This is of
concern given the experience of shoot to kill operations in
Northern Ireland, which it has been alleged amounted to a
death squad strategy to murder selectively targeted
dissidents and lawyers, which could thereafter be covered
up by restrictive inquest practices. The Crown Prosecution
Service is now reportedly preparing charges against Sir Ian
Blair.
A further problem in regard to the conference preparations
for 2005 was that a General Election had been called. Bill
Worthington, a Labour MP, wrote to us regarding this: "I
also rather fear for your conference that we will be at the
start of an election campaign at that time." Given these
difficulties the CDRSB postponed the conference (we asked
the US Embassy if they would assume responsibility for
conference security but got no reply).